Mutesa II of Buganda

After Mutesa's body had been embalmed by Desmond Henley, it was returned to Uganda in 1971 after the overthrow of Obote and given a state funeral at Kasubi Nabulagala. The president who ordered the state funeral was Idi Amin, who as army commander had led the assault on Mutesa's palace in 1966. It is said that while in exile in London, "King Freddie" lived in poverty.

Mutesa died of alcohol poisoning in his London flat, No. 28 Orchard House in Rotherhithe, in 1969. Identified by the Metropolitan Police as suicide, the death has been viewed as assassination by those who claim Mutesa may have been force-fed vodka by agents of the Obote regime. Mutesa was interviewed in his flat only a few hours before his death by the British journalist John Simpson, who found that he was sober and in good spirits. Simpson reported this to the police the following day on hearing of Mutesa's death, but this line of inquiry was not pursued.

In 1964, the coalition between Mutesa and Obote's parties collapsed over the imposition, against Mutesa's will, of a referendum to decide the fate of two "lost counties". Residents of the two counties voted overwhelmingly in favour of their return from Buganda to Bunyoro. In 1966, Mutesa's estrangement from Obote merged with another crisis. Obote faced a possible removal from office by factional infighting within his own party. He had the other four leading members of his party arrested and detained, and then suspended the federal constitution and declared himself President of Uganda in February 1966, deposing Mutesa. The Buganda regional Parliament passed a resolution in May 1966 declaring that de jure Buganda's incorporation into Uganda had ended with the suspension of the constitution and requesting the federal government to vacate the capital city, which was in Buganda. Obote responded with an armed attack upon the Kabaka's palace, sending Mutesa into exile in the United Kingdom via Burundi, and in 1967 a new constitution abolished all of Uganda's kingdoms, including Buganda.

Obote and the UPC reached a deal with Mutesa to support his election to the Presidency of Uganda. In a session of Parliament on 4 October 1963, Mutesa was elected President via secret ballot with the support of over two thirds of the members.

In the years preceding Uganda's independence from the United Kingdom in 1962, Mutesa became part of the monarchist Kabaka Yekka party which then formed a coalition with Milton Obote's Uganda People's Congress. The year after Uganda's independence, Mutesa was named the first President of Uganda (then a non-executive position) in 1963 with Obote as Prime Minister. Mutesa's alliance with Obote collapsed in 1964 over the Ugandan lost counties referendum. It worsened in 1966, resulting in Obote overthrowing him and forcing him into exile in the United Kingdom, where he died three years later.

In 1962, Uganda became independent from Britain under the leadership of Milton Obote. Under the country's new constitution, the Kingdom of Buganda became a semi-autonomous part of a new Ugandan federation. The federal Prime Minister was Obote, the leader of the Uganda People's Congress (UPC), which entered a governing coalition with the dominant Buganda regional party, Kabaka Yekka. The post of Governor-General of Uganda was abolished with the attainment of republican status and replaced by a non-executive President.

In the early 1950s the British Government floated the idea of uniting British East Africa (Uganda, Kenya and Tanganyika) into a federation. Africans feared that this would lead to their coming under the control of Kenya's white settler community, as had happened in the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. The Baganda, fearing they would lose the limited autonomy they had under British rule, were particularly opposed. Mutesa himself opposed the proposal, and thus came into conflict with the British Governor, Sir Andrew Cohen, prompting the Kabaka crisis. In 1953, the Lukiiko (Parliament) of Buganda sought independence from the Uganda Protectorate, with Mutesa himself demanding that Buganda be separated from the rest of the protectorate of Uganda and transferred to Foreign Office jurisdiction. Governor Cohen's response was to depose and exile the Kabaka on 30 November, creating massive protests among the Baganda. Mutesa's forced departure, carried out by Wing Commander Clive Beadon, made him a martyr in the eyes of the Baganda, whose latent separatism set off a storm of protest. Cohen could find no one among the Baganda willing and able to mobilise support for his schemes. After two years of unrelenting Ganda hostility and obstruction, Cohen was forced to reinstate "Kabaka Freddie", who returned to Kampala on 17 October 1955 under a negotiated settlement which made him a constitutional monarch and gave the Baganda the right to elect representatives to the kingdom's parliament, the Lukiiko. Mutesa's standing up to Cohen greatly boosted his popularity in the kingdom.

Mutesa married Lady Damali in 1948. He is said to have fathered many children with her and twelve other women:

The years between 1945 and 1950 saw widespread protests against both the Governor of Uganda's and Kabaka Mutesa's governments.

Mutesa was crowned Kabaka on his 18th birthday in 1942, three years after the death of his father Daudi Cwa II of Buganda during British colonial rule in Uganda. In 1953, he attempted to have Buganda secede to retain the kingdom's independence from a proposed British colonial federation in East Africa. He was deposed and exiled by British colonial governor Andrew Cohen, but was allowed to return to the country two years later in the wake of popular backlash under the terms of the 1955 Buganda Agreement.

Mutesa II was crowned as Kabaka at Buddo on 19 November 1942, his eighteenth birthday. At that time, Buganda was still part of the Uganda Protectorate, a territory within the British Empire.

Upon the death of his father on 22 November 1939, he was elected Kabaka by the Lukiiko at the age of 15 and was installed outside the Lubiri at Mengo on 25 November 1939. He reigned under a Council of Regents until he came of age and assumed full powers.

Sir Edward Frederick William David Walugembe Mutebi Luwangula Mutesa II (modern spelling: Muteesa) KBE (19 November 1924 – 21 November 1969) was Kabaka of the Kingdom of Buganda in Uganda from 22 November 1939 until his death. He was the thirty-fifth Kabaka of Buganda and the first president of Uganda. The foreign press often referred to him as King Freddie, a name rarely used in Uganda. An ardent defender of Buganda's interests, especially its traditional autonomy, he often threatened to make the kingdom independent both before and after Uganda's independence to preserve it. These firm convictions also later led to conflicts with his erstwhile political ally Milton Obote, who would eventually overthrow him.

Mutesa was born at the house of Albert Ruskin Cook in Makindye, Kampala, on 19 November 1924, the fifth son of the Kabaka Daudi Cwa II, who reigned between 1897 and 1939. Mutesa's mother was Lady Irene Drusilla Namaganda, of the Nte clan. He was educated at King's College Budo, a prestigious school in Uganda.