As Crown Prince
Whether Emperor Cheng was formally adopting Prince Xin would quickly become a major controversy. Emperor Cheng viewed the fact that he created Prince Xin as crown prince as formal adoption, and he believed that Prince Xin was now his son, no longer Prince Kang's. When he created a cousin to be the new prince of Dingtao to serve as Prince Kang's heir in winter 8 BC, Prince Xin, grateful that his father would continued to be worshipped as an ancestor, submitted a formal note of thanksgiving—at which Emperor Cheng was highly offended, believing that Prince Xin should not be grateful any more for whatever is done for his birth father.
Emperor Cheng's desire to have Prince Xin act as only his son extended to the arena of Prince Xin's relationship with his grandmother Consort Fu and his mother Consort Ding. Emperor Cheng decreed that Consort Fu (now princess dowager of Dingtao) and Consort Ding be required to remain in Dingtao and not be allowed to come to Chang'an to visit Prince Xin. Some time later, Emperor Cheng's mother Empress Dowager Wang, not wanting to continue these harsh regulations, decreed that Princess Dowager Fu be allowed to see Prince Xin, under the rationale that she, having raised him, was merely in the role of a wet nurse. Consort Ding, however, would continue not be allowed to see Prince Xin.
Emperor Cheng died suddenly in 7 BC, apparently from a stroke (although historians also report the possibility of an overdosage of aphrodisiacs given to him by Consort Zhao Hede). Crown Prince Xin ascended the throne as Emperor Ai. Empress Dowager Wang, as his step-grandmother (and "legal" grandmother) became grand empress dowager, and Empress Zhao became empress dowager. He created Consort Fu, the daughter of his grandmother Princess Dowager Fu's cousin Fu Yan (傅晏), empress.
Read more about this topic: Emperor Ai Of Han
Famous quotes containing the words crown and/or prince:
“I often used to think myself in the case of the fox-hunter, who, when he had toiled and sweated all day in the chase as if some unheard-of blessing was to crown his success, finds at last all he has got by his labor is a stinking nauseous animal. But my condition was yet worse than his; for he leaves the loathsome wretch to be torn by his hounds, whilst I was obliged to fondle mine, and meanly pretend him to be the object of my love.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)
“A prince must be prudent enough to know how to escape the bad reputation of those vices that would lose the state for him, and must protect himself from those that will not lose it for him, if this is possible; but if he cannot, he need not concern himself unduly if he ignores these less serious vices.”
—Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527)