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Princess Deokhye of Korea (; Japanese: 徳恵姫, Tokue-hime; 25 May 191221 April 1989) was the last princess of the Korean Empire.
She was born on 25 May 1912, at Changdeokgung, in Seoul, as the youngest daughter of Emperor Gojong from his concubine, then known as Yang Gwi-in. After her birth, Gojong bestowed the royal title Boknyeong on Lady Yang.
Deokhye was not formally recognized as a princess by Japan because she was not the daughter of a Queen. In 1917, she was officially recognized as a princess by the Japanese government and also her name was formally entered into the imperial family's registry. Her father loved her greatly and established the Deoksugung Kindergarten for her in Junmyungdang (), Hamnyeong Hall. Girls her age from noble families attended the kindergarten.
In South Korea, she is called Deokhye Ongju, not Gongju. Gongju refers to the daughters of the Queen, and Ongju refers to the daughters of concubines.
Gojong had 16 children with his 10 wives, but Deokhye was his first daughter; his four other daughters were not counted as they all died under the age of one. Gojong was delighted with the birth of his first daughter and raised her with meticulous love. In 1916, he established the Deoksugung Kindergarten dedicated to her, where Deokhye would attend. However, apart from her father, because she didn't have an official title, she was ignored and treated like she did not exist. Later, she was nicknamed "Boknyeong-dang".
In 1917, her father persuaded Terauchi Masatake, the then-ruling Governor-General of Korea, to enter her name into the registry of the imperial family, offering her legitimacy and granting her the title of princess.
In 1919, Emperor Gojong planned a secret engagement between Princess Deokhye and Kim Jang-han, the nephew of Kim Hwang-jin, a court chamberlain. He had sought to protect his daughter through it, but the engagement failed due to Japan's intervention and Kim Hwang-jin was not permitted to enter Deoksugung again. Emperor Gojong died suddenly on 21 January 1919.
In 1921, Princess Deokhye started going to Hinodae Elementary School, in Seoul.
Upon the news of her mother's death in 1929, Deokhye was finally given permission to visit Korea temporarily, in order to attend the funeral. However, she was not allowed to wear the proper clothing.
By the spring of 1930, the Princess' mental health conditions deteriorated due to her hardships for years. Upon the onset of a psychological condition (manifested by sleepwalking), she moved to King Yi's Palace, the Tokyo house of her brother, Yi Un. During this period, she often forgot to eat and drink. Her physician diagnosed her illness as Dementia praecox (today called schizophrenia), but by the following year, her condition seemed to have improved. This may be attributed to her traumatic experiences of forced separation from her family and significant duress she experienced under the colonial government.
In May 1931, the Princess was forced to enter an unwanted marry set-up by Empress Teimei, the consort of Emperor Taishō of Japan. The man who willingly chose to marry her was Count Sō Takeyuki (武志; 1908–1985), a Japanese aristocrat. The marriage had in fact been decided in 1930. Her brother had protested against it, and it had been postponed because of her condition, but when she recovered, she was immediately given instructions that the wedding was to take place.
She gave birth to a daughter, Masae (正惠), or Jeonghye () in Korea, on 14 August 1932. In 1933, Deokhye was again experiencing mental illness, and after this, she spent many years in various mental health clinics.
With the defeat of Japan in World War II, Korea once again became independent and her husband lost his noble title, as the Japanese kazoku was abolished.
Her daughter, Masae, graduated from Waseda University's Department of Literature and met Suzuki Noboru, whom she married in 1955. Her son-in-law would eventually take on her husband's last name as the heir to the family.
In 1955, Takeyuki eventually divorced the Princess and later remarried to a Japanese woman named Yoshie Katsumura with whom he had three children.
Having suffered an unhappy marriage, Deokhye's grief was compounded by the loss of her only daughter, who disappeared on 26 August 1956 in Yamanashi-ken, reportedly committing suicide due to the stress of her parents' divorce. Her daughter's suicide note was found in the mountains. As a result, Deokhye's condition deteriorated at a slow yet considerable pace.
The princess reunited with her kindergarten and elementary school classmate, Min Yong-ah (), and her 72-year-old wet nurse, Byeon Bok-dong (; 1890–?), when they went to pick her up at Gimpo Airport. After meeting her sister-in-law, Empress Sunjeonghyo, the second wife of her older half-brother Emperor Sunjong, she was admitted to Seoul National University Hospital later that day for surgery to remove a polyp in the uterus.
Despite being born in Korea, the princess was able to restore her Korean citizenship and finalized her name, Yi Deok-hye, on 8 February 1962, and was soon discharged from the hospital as her condition was proven stable on 4 May 1964. In the fall of 1968, she lived in Nakseon Hall, Changdeokgung, with Yi Un and Yi Bangja, their son Yi Ku, his wife Julia Mullock, and Mrs. Byeon Bok-dong.
Sometime before her death, around ten years before, her ex-husband flew from Japan to South Korea to visit her and see how she was doing, but this visit was rejected by her family.
He begged Yi Gong-jae, a member of the family, to let him meet his ex-wife. But Yi said, "I can't forgive him for having an unwanted arranged marriage with King Gojong's daughter a, eventually putting the princess in a psychiatric hospital and getting a divorce. The princess doesn't even have anything to talk about meeting him, and there's no reason for him to meet. If she met you, she would think of the past and make her condition worse. So, people like you are not allowed to visit at all, so please go back”.
Her last years were filled with visits to different hospitals, but on 24 May 1983, she was admitted and stayed temporarily at Hallym University Hangang Sacred Heart Hospital due to her old age.
On 21 April 1989, the princess died at Sugang Hall, Changdeokgung, and was buried at Hongryureung in Namyangju. Her burial site is near where her father, Emperor Gojong, and older half-brother, Emperor Sunjong, are buried.
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