Yeongjo (영조) (英祖) (1694-1776, r. 1724-1776) was the twenty-first king of the Korean Joseon Dynasty. He was the second son of Sukjong, and succeeded his older brother Gyeongjong.
King Yeongjo was a deeply Confucian monarch, and is said to have had a greater knowledge of the classics than his officials. During the reign of Yeongjo and his grandson Jeongjo, Confucianization was at its height as was economic recovery from the wars of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.
The only significantly dismal incident during Yeongjo's reign was the forced suicide of his son, the crown prince Sado. Sado most likely suffered from mental illness. He randomly killed people in the palace and was a sexual deviant. Yeongjo refused to kill his son with his own hand and Sado would not follow orders from his father to take his own life. On a hot August day in 1767, Sado finally obeyed his father and climbed into a large wooden rice chest. After eight days, Sado died of suffocation.
Nine years later Yeongjo died and Sado's son Jeongjo became king. Yeongjo was buried in the dynastic tombs at Donggureung.
Yeongjo was the first to take action against Roman Catholic activities in the country. By the 18th century, Catholicism was beginning to acquire a following especially in Gangwon-do and Hwanghae-do provinces. In 1758, Yeongjo officially outlawed Catholicism as an evil practice.
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