Sareung Royal Tomb, Namyangju

Queen Jeongsun married Danjong at thirteen and was queen for a year. When her husband was deposed and killed she was reduced to commoner status, put out of the palace, and lived on for sixty-four years in a small house outside the east gate, dyeing cloth for a living. She climbed a hill each day to look east towards Yeongwol, where he had died; the hill is still called Dongmangbong, 'the peak of looking east'. She died in 1521 at eighty-two. Nobody official would bury her. The family of her late sister-in-law, the Jeong clan, took her body and laid it in their own family graveyard here, which is why this royal tomb is still surrounded by the graves of a private family — the only one that is. In 1698, when Sukjong restored her husband's title, hers was restored with it, and the grave was given a shrine and a small set of stone figures. The name Sareung means 'the tomb of longing'. In 1999 a pine from these grounds was planted at Danjong's tomb in Yeongwol, so that some part of the place would finally reach him.

Original Text

Where it is

Region

Namyangju, Gyeonggi

Designation

Historic Site · 사적