the Empress was deposed and she was put in her place. Finding howeyer that the Emperor still visited the ex-Empress in her seclusion, she caused the latter's hands and feet to be cut off; and the speedy death of her victim released her from any further anxiety on that score. From that time she gained a complete ascendency over the Emperor and was always present, behind a curtain, at councils and audiences. In 674 she called herself 天后 the Divine Empress, and in 675 the Emperor Kao Tsung was very near abdicating in her favour. In 684, shortly after his Majesty's death, she displaced his successor and really ruled the empire, the nominal monarch whom she set up being relegated to a separate palace, with the title of Prince of Lu-ling. In a few months she openly assumed control of the government, and for a time was very harsh and despotic. In 688 two of the Princes rebelled, and this gave her an excuse for putting many of the Imperial kindred to death. In 690 she changed the dynastic title to Chou, styling herself 聖神皇帝 God Almighty, and appointing the deposed Emperor's brother her heir, with the surname Wu instead of 李 Li. Gradually she fell under the influence of favourites, such as the priest Huai I, whose place was afterwards filled by 沈南璆 Shên Nan-ch'iu, Chang I-chih, and Chang Ch'ang-tsung. The treasonable designs of the last two led to a conspiracy, and in 705, as the Empress lay ill, she was forced to abdicate in favour of Li Hsien, whom she had deposed some twenty years before. She retired with the title of 則天大聖皇帝, from which she is often spoken of as Wu Tsê T'ien. In her later years she had become more than ever arrogant and overbearing. No one was allowed to say that the Empress was fair as a lily or lovely as a rose, but that the lily was fair or the rose lovely as her Majesty. She tried to spread the belief that she was the Supreme Being by forcing flowers artificially and then in the presence of her courtiers ordering them to
