Yi I-ch’ŭm, the favorite, could not rest until he had carried out his master’s wish and had invented some way to destroy the degraded Queen. Finding no other way to accomplish this, he at last descended to the following trick. He instructed a man named Hŭ Kyun to write a letter to the imprisoned queen purporting to be from some party in the country, proposing a scheme for deposing the king. This letter was thrown over the wall of the queen’s enclosure and there found by the servants of the crafty plotter. The king was ready to believe anything against her and this letter fanned his hatred into flame. Yi I-ch’ŭm followed it up by joining with scores of others in memorials urging the king to put to death the hated Queen Dowager. The Prime Minister, Keui Cha-hön, stood in the way, however, and it became necessary to banish him to the far north. In the eleventh moon the king finally decided to drive the woman from Seoul, and made all the officials give their opinion about it in writing. Nine hundred and thirty officials and a hundred and seventy of the king’s relatives advised to do so, but the aged Yi Hang-bok with eight others utterly refused their sanction of the iniquitous plan; and so these nine men, the last of those upright men who had stood about the late king, were sent into banishment. The year thus closed in gloom and the new one opened with a memorial from the Prime Minister Ha Hyo-san enumerating ten charges against the Queen Dowager: (1) that she had had the officials do obeisance to the young prince although the successor to the throne had already been appointed; (2) when the king was dying she asked him to set aside Prince Kwang-hă in favor of the young prince; (3) she prevented, as long as possible, the king from handing over the scepter to Prince Kwang-hă; (4) she wrote the letters purporting to be from the dying king asking that the young prince be carefully nurtured; (5) she instigated her father to conspire against the king; (6) she sacrificed in the palace and prayed for the death of Prince Kwang-hă; (7) she prayed for the same at the grave of his mother; (8) she corresponded with outside parties with a view to raising an insurrection; (9) she sent to the Emperor asking to have Prince Kwang-ă set aside, (10) she sent to Japan asking that an army be sent to overthrow the government.