KSIS : The tragic fate of a Korean prince

The very first KSIS of the year 2025 plunges us a few centuries back into the mazes of royal palaces in the heart of Korean power. At a time when the peninsula was not divided into two countries, brothers but enemies, Prince Sado, with a name as unusual as tragic fate, lived.

He was born on 13 February 1735, after his parents mourned for many years the death of their first son, Prince Hyojang, who died in 1728. King Yeongjo, then the 21st monarch of Korea, needed a descendant and it was by chance that Prince Sado was born, who was officially named crown prince at the age of two. He quickly gained popularity due to his intelligence and interest in politics.

At fifteen he began to co-lead as a prince regent, but only twelve years later was he executed by his own father in 1762.

In the 18th century, the political situation of the royal court was unstable. King Yeongjo did his best to resolve conflicts between his people and the various influential families in the country, but Prince Sado was constantly targeted by the clans present at the court after becoming a regent prince and entering his twenties. His wife, Princess Hyegyeong, wrote in her memoirs that the clans and ministers were trying to get Sado recognized as insane by his father the King. Such accusations were first made because Sado did not like the sometimes too severe traditions of royal politics. But soon he is accused of serious crimes from which any man, not even a prince, comes out unscathed.

Around 1752-1753, the Prince began to show early signs of mental illness, initially interpreted as a form of rebellion by Sado in order to challenge his father’s authority with whom he did not have good filial relations. Indeed, every opportunity was good for the King to blame his son, who according to him was less good in all aspects than his late elder brother. Yeongjo regularly reminded him that Sado was born because he needed an heir and not out of love, and this lack of love Sado felt in his innermost being from early childhood until his death.

Throughout Sado’s life, his wife will do everything to protect him from the accusations he is subjected to, claiming that he is an exemplary husband and father for their son. Doctors now consider that he could have been suffering from bipolar disorder, with symptoms such as non-fluctuant mood, anxiety, suicidal and aggressive tendencies, and he felt persecuted. However, the numerous plots of the royal court do not exclude the hypothesis that he was executed to remove him from power above all. Moreover, when Sado began to break away from traditions, he turned to martial arts and military strategy, which could have frightened his rivals.

Yeongjo was also known to be a instable king. If his ministers did not obey his will, he threatened to abdicate and let Sado, who was then only a child, take the throne to rule over them like dolls. As he grew up, Sado began to show signs of a political divergence with his father, supporting his enemies and protecting them from capital punishment when the King wanted to execute them. The king’s allies took this opportunity to accuse Sado of treason, claiming that he too was plotting behind Yeongjo’s back to overthrow him from the throne. Other disturbing facts have been alleged to the Prince, concerning his mental health.

The Princess told in her memoirs how much Sado had an aversion to clothes, and liked to walk around the palace naked. It was also a parade to avoid having to confront his father, who refused to see his son without the cloth of a prince. During a dissociative phase, the Prince is said to have even killed servants and eunuchs, and set fire to the palace where he was staying, in the present-day city of Suwon, an hour from Seoul. Years later, when Sado’s son Jeongjo becomes king in turn, he will make a point of restoring his father’s image as a victim of his father’s politics and coldness.

When Yeongjo grew tired of his son, perhaps under pressure from the clans at court, he decided to execute Prince Sado on 12 July 1762. Failing to kill him himself with his own hands, he chooses to execute him by following the protocol for the execution of those guilty of high treason against the king: be buried alive. Sado was therefore locked in a rice chest and buried without water or food, where he eventually died of asphyxia a week later. In a later epitaph by Yeongjo, we read of his regret for having to kill his son, but he also emphasized that it was Sado who pushed him into his depths and therefore had no choice.

The King would have treated Sado all his life as nothing, accusing him of not being intelligent enough to govern when he excelled in all the subjects taught to him, but also reproaching him for being a prince regent while the king was still on the throne. This constant ambivalence led to chronic anxiety in Sado, worrying about every decision he could make. This perpetual stress is perhaps the source of his senility, becoming violent with people he loved such a concubine that he killed in anger, and one of his children that he threw against a wall.

Dr LEE BYUNGWOOK of the psychiatric department at Hallym Medical College listed possible reasons that could have led Sado to insanity:

He had a sick fear of castration.
His father was envious of his son, but despised him for it.
Oedipus syndrome.
Rebellion of the Prince highlighting the weakness of the King.
Forced isolation of the prince and lack of protection.
Separated from his mother in early childhood, leading to abandonment syndrome and difficulty trusting others.
Sexual deviance, violence and murder.
Difficulties in marriage due to political differences with his wife.

Another hypothesis that was raised by the writer MARC HAMPSINK was that the Prince was potentially suffering from syphilis. This hypothesis emerged when the writer, discovered that three of the consuls of the royal court and the private doctor of Sado had committed suicide, as if to protect an unspeakable secret. Some servants also noticed strange marks on the skin of the Prince, potentially due to the disease. Another theory is that he had incestuous relations with his sister, Princess Hwawan. King Yeongjo has buried all his son’s secrets with him in this famous rice box.

Sado’s death is a matter that continues to upset Korea. Today, tourists visiting the Hwaseong Haenggung Palace in Suwon can see rice boxes, presented to the public so that they can see the ordeal endured by the Prince. In addition, his death was the subject of various series, such as “Secret Door” in 2014, or the well-known film “The Throne” in 2015. You can also read the diaries of Princess Hyegyeong, published in the book “Memoirs of a Korean Queen”.