Death
In 1 BC, Emperor Ai died. In decisive action, Grand Empress Dowager Wang seized power back from Emperor Ai's favorite Dong Xian and made her nephew Wang Mang regent to the succeeding Emperor Ping. Wang Mang, who wanted to extinguish all dissent (and who previously bore a grudge against Emperor Ai for demoting him and extended that grudge to those who supported Emperor Ai) had Empress Dowager Zhao demoted from her position as empress dowager to the title of Empress Xiaocheng. A few months later, she was further demoted to a commoner and ordered to guard her husband's tomb. That day, she committed suicide.
Read more about this topic: Zhao Feiyan
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“For God was as large as a sunlamp and laughed his heat at us and therefore we did not cringe at the death hole.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“I would not that death should take me asleep. I would not have him meerly seise me, and onely declare me to be dead, but win me, and overcome me. When I must shipwrack, I would do it in a sea, where mine impotencie might have some excuse; not in a sullen weedy lake, where I could not have so much as exercise for my swimming.”
—John Donne (c. 1572–1631)
“My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name.
Where, whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.”
—Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599)