As Empress
Empress Guo would be one of the empresses who would give birth to the most princes in Han history (a status she would eventually share with Yin), as she gave birth to five sons. However, as the years went by, Emperor Guangwu continued to favor his first love Consort Yin and not Empress Guo. This is even as he favored her brother Guo Kuang (郭況) as an official and promoted him on a number of occasions. She continuously complained about her lack of favor, which made Emperor Guangwu angry. In 41, he deposed her from her empress position and created Yin empress to replace her.
Empress Guo did not suffer the fate of other deposed empresses in history, however—imprisonment or death. Rather, Emperor Guangwu, who has by that point created his sons only as dukes, promoted her son Liu Fu (劉輔) to Prince of Zhongshan and created her the Princess Dowager of Zhongshan—a title that had not previously been and would not be later used for any mother of an imperial prince whose husband was still alive.
Read more about this topic: Empress Guo Shengtong
Famous quotes containing the word empress:
“We never really are the adults we pretend to be. We wear the mask and perhaps the clothes and posture of grown-ups, but inside our skin we are never as wise or as sure or as strong as we want to convince ourselves and others we are. We may fool all the rest of the people all of the time, but we never fool our parents. They can see behind the mask of adulthood. To her mommy and daddy, the empress never has on any clothes—and knows it.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“The Empress is Legitimist, my cousin is Republican, Morny is Orleanist, I am a socialist; the only Bonapartist is Persigny, and he is mad.”
—Napoleon Bonaparte III (1808–1873)