Two monarchs signed an agreement according to which England was obliged to return the treasury as soon as Armenia regained its independent statehood.
Ayvazyan considered that for at least 600 years England and then United Kingdom have in any possible way prevented the recovery of Armenian sovereignty to avoid the repayment of kept wealth.
In 2001 Suren Ayvazyan expressed his ideas and demands in a letter to the Queen of the United Kingdom Elizabeth II. He hoped as well that the descendant of the Lusignan dynasty Louie Lusinyan, who lived in London at that moment, would also be interested in the retrieval of Armenian wealth.
If the contract between monarchs existed and survived to the present day, Armenian side will have to face some juridical problems in the regard of retrieval of the treasury. A significant task would be to show the connection between Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia and today’s Republic of Armenia for the latter to be proven to be the actual assignee of the kingdom.
To tell the truth, even in that case it would be quite difficult to recover those resources as it would surely be disadvantageous for the government of the United Kingdom. The treasury must have really come in handy to them as some “free” resources, and it probably won’t be given back so easily.
Source: kommersant.ru
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This is quite interesting.
It should be explored some more and pursued by Armenia and the Diaspora.
It merely takes demanding again and again.
Turkey would demand it of England if Turkey had transferred wealth to the England.
So why doesn't Armenia?
The article about Armenia's treasury doesn't make sense to me.
When King Levon VI (aka Levon V) was captured at the fall of Sis by the Mamlukes, he, his wife and a number of courtiers were taken as prisoners to Egypt. They were not jailed. They were provided with accommodation and were free to go in and out. Mamlukes were waiting for European powers to provide the ransom money to release King Levon. Finally, the money came. I believe from Spain and France. By then Levon's wife and only daughter had died. Levon traveled to Europe and became the governor of Madrid and later moved to Paris where he lived in the king's palace. He spent his time playing chess with the king and trying to make peace between England and France so as to launch a new Crusade. By the way, he had two illegitimate sons while in France. He died in 1393.
Considering the above, how could he have taken Armenia's treasures to Egypt and then to Europe? As a prisoner of the Mamlukes, he was stripped of his possessions. Had he had a treasure, he would have ransomed himself. An unlikely story.
Jirair Tutunjian,
Toronto
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Welcome, thanks for the feedback.
King Levon’s wife survived and then she settled in Jerusalem where she died and is RIP in Armenian Church there . King Levon’s daughter died in Egypt. I had no idea that he had 2 sons later in France. Dies any body knows his 2 sons names?
You reason logically, but the fact is that there is an assumption that the treasury of Cilician Armenia was deposited in England before the invasion of the Mamelukes. King Levon was ruling a country that was under threat of invasion and understood that it could happen very soon. At least, there was no denial on the part of the English authorities that they had King Levon's treasury.