Empress Dowager Nguyen Thi Anh

In a silent hall of the Later Lê dynasty, a curtain hangs down in front of the throne. Behind the curtain sits a mother. On the throne itself sits a boy of about two, whose feet do not yet reach the floor. The boy is the emperor, and the emperor is far too small.

The mother was Empress Dowager Tuyên Từ, and her name was Nguyễn Thị Anh. She came from the village of Bố Vệ, now part of the city of Thanh Hóa. Her son was Emperor Lê Nhân Tông. He took the throne in 1442, when he was only about two years old.

A child of two should still be carried in his mother's arms and lulled to sleep with a lullaby. Yet this boy had to put on the robe of an emperor and sit on the great throne of a whole country. The business of a country is heavy, and no boy of two could carry it.

This is where the mother stepped in. Because her son was so small, she lowered the curtain and took up the regency. That means she sat right beside him and looked after the country in his place, until the day he was old enough. She did not grasp the throne for herself. She only kept it safe, to give it back to her son.

Before daylight, the officials were already arriving in the courtyard to attend court. She sat behind the curtain and listened as they discussed how high the water would rise on the fields this year, and how a lawsuit in a far village ought to be judged fairly. There were things she had never known, and she had to ask again and again before she understood. But for her son and for the people, day after day she kept learning and kept working, patiently.

During those 11 or so years she did one thing that the people remembered for a long time. She had the Bình Lỗ River dug, in the region of Thái Nguyên. In those days there were no paved roads and no cars. To carry rice or firewood, or to go from one village to the next, most people traveled by boat along the rivers. One more river meant one more road for the people.

Historians describe the early years of the reign of Emperor Lê Nhân Tông as a peaceful time, when the harvests were tended and the villages lived in calm. Meanwhile the boy on the throne grew a little each year. He loved to study and he was bright, and little by little he came to understand the things his mother had been carrying for him.

Then came the happiest day. In 1453, when the emperor turned 12, his mother saw that he had grown wise enough. She handed the power back, so that he could look after the country himself. The curtain of all those years was drawn up. The mother withdrew to her own palace, relieved, as if she had just fulfilled a silent promise.

She took on the great work only because her son was small, and when he was old enough, she gave it back gladly. That is the mother who sat behind the curtain, quietly carrying a hard task so that a small boy could grow up in peace.