As Empress Dowager
In 453, after Emperor Wen's oldest son Liu Shao the Crown Prince had assassinated Emperor Wen and taken the throne himself, Liu Jun rose against his brother from his defense post at Jiang Province (江州, modern Jiangxi and Fujian) and headed east to attack the capital Jiankang. Consort Lu remained at the capital of Jiang Province, Xunyang (尋陽, in modern Jiujiang, Jiangxi) and did not accompany her son on his campaign. Later in the year, after he had defeated and killed Liu Shao and taken the throne himself as Emperor Xiaowu, he had his brother Liu Hong (劉宏) the Prince of Jianping escort both her and his wife Princess Wang Xianyuan to Jiankang. Emperor Xiaowu honored his mother as empress dowager. Because Emperor Xiaowu often stayed in his mother's bedchambers, rumors grew that he was having an incestuous affair with his mother, but there was no conclusive evidence of such an affair.
Empress Dowager Lu occasionally involved herself in her son's administration, and her nephews Lu Qiongzhi (路瓊之), Lu Xiuzhi (路休之), and Lu Maozhi (路茂之) became honored, although not particularly powerful, officials. On one occasion in 458, Lu Qiongzhi visited the noble Wang Sengda (王僧達), a descendant of Wang Dao, and he sat on Wang's bench—which Wang then ordered thrown out, because he felt dishonored that Lu Qiongzhi, a son of one of the Wangs' servants, would sit on his bench. Lu Qiongzhi informed Empress Dowager Lu of this and, angry that her family was being disrespected, she told her son to punish Wang. At this time, there was a rebellion led by Gao Du (高闍), and Emperor Xiaowu therefore falsely accused Wang of being Gao's supporter, and had him arrested and forced to commit suicide.
There were only two additional historical references to Empress Dowager Lu during her son's reign. In 460, when her daughter-in-law Empress Wang presided over a ceremony where Empress Wang personally fed mulberry leaves to silkworms to show the imperial household's attention to farming, Empress Dowager Lu was present. In 461, when Emperor Xiaowu toured South Yu Province (南豫州), she accompanied him.
Read more about this topic: Empress Dowager Lu Huinan
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)