T'ai Tsung became ill in 649, and died later that year. His son and designated successor, Li Chih or Kao Tsung (gow-DZUNG; ruled 649-83) soon took the throne. As a symbol of mourning, Wu Ze-tian shaved her head and entered a Buddhist temple as a nun; yet she had already attracted the attention of Kao Tsung. He married, but soon afterward, he visited the temple where Wu Ze-tian was living, and asked her to come back to the palace.
Back at the court in 651, twenty-eight-year-old Wu Ze-tian began to exhibit the cleverness and cunning that would make her the most powerful woman in China. She worked to create a friendly relationship with the empress while building a network of spies. The fact that the emperor was madly in love with her, and that the empress had been unable to produce a child, worked in her favor; then in 654, Wu Ze-tian herself presented the emperor with a daughter.
The Chinese valued sons over daughters, and therefore the birth of a girl was not as great a cause for joy as that of a boy—but that hardly explains what Wu Ze-tian did next. Knowing that the emperor adored their daughter, Wu Ze-tian secretly strangled the baby girl; then her spies informed the
Fredegund
Though she never ruled her country as Wu Ze-tian did, the Frankish queen Fredegund (c. 550-597; ruled 561-584) exhibited some of the same ability to achieve and maintain power. Like Wu Ze-tian, she had nerves of steel, and rarely shied away from any act that she deemed necessary to further her own position.
Fredegund first came to the palace of Chilperic (KIL-pur-ik), grandson of Clovis (see entry), as a slave girl. Like Wu Ze-tian, however, her beauty soon won her the king's attention. In so doing, she displaced the queen, Audovera, who had borne Chilperic three sons, but Fredegund remained a concubine and not a full-fledged wife.
In 567, Chilperic took a second wife, Galswintha; but Galswintha was strangled in her bed soon after the wedding. It is not clear whether Fredegund arranged her murder, but in any case she now had no serious competition for the king's affection.
In the years that followed, Fredegund proved herself more vicious than
Chilperic in dealing with his enemies, and she ordered numerous assassinations. Meanwhile, she tried to increase her own standing at court by producing a son and heir to her husband. At least then she would stand a chance that her offspring could become ruler while she wielded the real power behind the throne. Several efforts failed, however, and two of her boys died in childhood. But several of Audovera's sons died too, and Fredegund finally succeeded in murdering Audovera and the latter's last remaining son.
Fredegund left a trail of bodies behind her, a death toll that is too long to recount. One of her favorite tactics was to use one person to help her get rid of another, then murder her former ally as well. In fact she may have been responsible for her own husband's death—but not before she bore a son, Chlothar (KLOH-thar), who lived. Chlothar finally took power in 596, but Fredegund had little opportunity to enjoy her success: she died a year later.
Emperor that the empress was responsible. This gave Kao Tsung an excuse to set the empress aside, and Wu Ze-tian took her place as his number-one wife. The former empress died soon afterward, most likely through the efforts of Wu Ze-tian.
World History
