The crown prince barely managed to survive in “Under The Queen’s Umbrella,” thanks to grand prince Seong Nam, who entered the abandoned village to find a remedy for his brother’s disease. The queen tried her best to hide the crown prince’s health condition, but the prince collapsed in front of his masters and the king while taking lessons.
Spoilers Ahead
Did The Crown Prince Get Deposed?
The crown prince loses consciousness again, which sends the entire palace into chaos. The king finds out that the crown prince was in the palace all along and received treatment secretly. He sends the crown prince’s physician, Kwon, to the prison and puts the queen in confinement in her quarters. The king doesn’t allow anyone to enter the crown prince’s quarters without his permission, not even the queen. The grand princes want to meet their sick brother, but they are not allowed in. However, the queen dowager is allowed to go in.
Along with the confinement, the queen was given the punishment of writing Confucian scripts for five days, but she finished the scripts in one night. She calls for the king’s chief eunuch, but her real intention is not to submit the scripts but to ask for the prince’s health. The eunuch was not allowed to talk about the prince, but he gave in to a mother’s painful plea. The royal physician is treating the prince with acupuncture even though the queen told him not to, and the prince hasn’t gained consciousness yet.
The queen tears her transcripts so that she can write them again and recall the eunuch. Prince Seong Nam wants to meet his mother, so he sneaks inside her quarters. He is afraid that the medicine that he brought from the abandoned village might have caused the crown prince’s death, but the queen assures him that it is not the reason. After meeting the queen, prince Seong Nam sneaks inside the prison and asks physician Kwon if there is something wrong with the medicines.
As soon as prince Seong Nam leaves, the queen dowager arrives with a guard and asks Kwon why prince Seong Nam visited him. Kwon has to reveal that he only followed the queen’s orders but didn’t disclose the secret of the medicines to anyone outside. Seong Nam sneaks into the abandoned village again and meets the master who prescribed medicines for the crown prince. However, the master tells him that he may be a lowly physician, but he still has his ethics and won’t play with anyone’s life.
The noblemen of the palace have united on the orders of the chief councilor and have written a petition to depose the crown prince. The petition is presented to the king in his court, and as all the noblemen speak of deposing the crown prince, the chief councilor opposes the idea which he has proposed. The king declines their petition and bans them from speaking of it again.
The queen cannot stay in confinement anymore and sneaks out in broad daylight to meet Queen Yoon. She asks queen Yoon to tell her the truth behind crown prince Taein’s death, and queen Yoon tells her that crown prince Taein was murdered. She knows it because the dowager queen told her herself. The noblemen gang up again and try to corner the king to make him depose the crown prince.
The queen dowager also pushes the king to take the decision faster. However, the queen arrives and lectures the noblemen for being insensitive. The king is thankful to the queen for saying what he couldn’t. He drops the topic of deposition, but they receive the news that the crown prince will pass away anytime soon.
How Does The Chief Councillor Plan To Trap The Queen?
The crown prince had called for the queen moments before he passed away because he wanted an answer from her. He couldn’t hear the answer, but his mother still promised him what he wanted. The crown prince had asked the queen to protect his wife and children if he passed away, but the queen only told him that he would be healthy again. The queen hasn’t come out of her quarters since the prince passed away, and the king visited her quarters every night to see if she had fallen asleep.
After the mourning period gets over, the king orders the chief councilor to investigate the prince’s death first, before appointing a new crown prince. The chief councilor immediately starts the investigation, but he has an ulterior motive. He starts spreading rumors that the queen poisoned the crown prince. He wants to make sure that none of the queen’s children or grandchildren gets the throne as the crown prince.
The crown princess has been scared and disturbed since the prince passed away, and she runs out of her quarters with her children when the queen finds them. The crown princess claims that her son’s nursemaid has been mixing something in his food for which he has been feeling sick for a few days. The princess is scared that the nursemaid is trying to kill her son, and the nursemaid calls her delusional. The queen yells at the nursemaid for insulting the princess and takes the princess to her quarters.
The queen finds out that her court lady, Shin, is being interrogated by the chief councilor. She stops the interrogation because one cannot interrogate a queen’s assistant without her permission. The chief councillor is not scared and goes further to ask the queen if she will undergo an interrogation. The queen is relieved that physician Kwon hasn’t spoken about the outside medicines yet, and consort Tae eavesdrops on her talking about them.
Consort Hwang, Prince Uiseong’s mother, sneaks out at night to visit the Chief Councillor, who also happens to be her father. She requests her father to stop the interrogation because of the prince’s death. Consort Hwang had given medicine to physician Kwon to mix with the prince’s potion, but she did not expect the prince to die. Kwon wouldn’t say her name because she is his secret lover, and that’s why she wants him alive. Because of this, the chief councilor stops the interrogation all of a sudden.
The first consorts of the queen meet up often, and this time, they invite Consort Tae, who is a lowly consort compared to them. It is all thanks to her son, Prince Bo Geom. The meeting is regarding conducting Taekhyeon to assign the new crown prince, but consort Tae opts out of it. The queen had told consort Tae that Taekhyeon is not easy and can be life-threatening for her and prince Bo Geom.
Prince Bo Geom gets beaten up by Prince Uiseong for talking back to him. Prince Uiseong calls Prince Bo Geom of lowly birth, who would not even be able to participate in Taekhyeon. Prince Bo Geom tells this to his mother, which hurts her deeply. She has always been a proud mother who would do anything for her son. She meets the minister of justice and asks him to support Prince Bo Geom. In exchange, she tells him that the queen had used outside medicines on the prince.
The justice minister reports it immediately to the chief councillor, who visits the apothecary and asks other physicians whether Kwon used something unusual in the prince’s medicine. When a physician says that nothing is wrong, she gets killed by a guard. The chief councilor tells them what story to recite in front of the king during interrogation.
‘Under the Queen’s Umbrella’ Episode 6: The End
The chief councillor holds an interrogation in front of the king, the queen, and the queen dowager. After the physicians give their fake statements, the chief begins to slander the queen and question her intentions. The queen asks him to bring evidence, and the king postpones the interrogation until the next day. The queen dowager provokes the queen further and tells her that she will expose her for meeting with deposed queen Yoon.
Among all the chaos, the queen still keeps a smiling face in front of her daughter-in-law and grandson. She eats her grandson’s food first to check if it is poisoned. While playing with him, her grandson shows her a drawing of him and his nursemaid playing a secret game. The queen panics after seeing the picture and checks her grandson’s thighs, which have wounds on them. The crown princess’ fear comes true, and the queen finds the silver spoon in the boy’s food turn black, indicating the presence of poison.
The game of power is in full swing in the palace, and the queen has to protect her own. Until now, she only had her children to protect, but now the crown princess and her children also live “Under the Queen’s Umbrella.”
