When Taejo of Joseon ascended to the throne in 1392, he continued to use the laws of Goryeo, and the noble titles he gave to his sons, nephews, and sons-in-law were all "prince" (군).

[6] After the coup d'état in 1398, the system of noble titles changed: "duke" for king's sons, "marquis" for royal descendants, and "earl" for officers of senior first rank.

According to the Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, the title "prince" (군) was at first restricted to be given to sons or grandsons of kings, but these standards became looser over time.

[14][15] If the above-mentioned females were stripped of titles due to various reasons, they would be referred to as a commoner; for instance, the eldest daughter of deposed Yeonsangun of Joseon was addressed as "Ku Mun-gyeong's wife" after 1506.

[26] In 1650, Hyojong of Joseon, as requested by the prince regent Dorgon of the Qing dynasty, adopted a fourth cousin once removed as his daughter.

[30] Yi Seon, their older half brother who died young in 1880, was posthumously designated in 1907 as Prince Imperial Wan (완친왕).

[32] After a long-term process of controlling the puppet state, on 22 August 1910, Japan annexed the Korean peninsula effectively ended rule by the House of Yi, forcing the nation to accede to the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910.

With an extremely wide range of historical evaluations over him — womanizer, as well as a behind-the-scene leader of the independence movement — the Japanese authorities limited the activities of the prince throughout the occupation.

The last princess of Korea Deokhye, was taken to Japan at a young age, she later married the Japanese count and politician Sō Takeyuki.

Crown Prince Yi Un achieved the rank of Lieutenant General, commanded Japanese forces in China and became a member of the Supreme War Council.

After Korea's liberation in 1945, President Syngman Rhee suppressed the imperial family, in order to prevent the restoration of the monarchy, as he feared that its return would challenge his emerging authority as the new republic's founding father.

According to the prince's 11th son, Yi Seok, his mother, Hong Chongsun, was forced to sell noodles as a street vendor to make a living.

Stripped of most of their wealth and authority, some family members fled to the United States and Latin America, known descendants reside in New Jersey and New York.

[53] Among Prince Yi Kang's surviving four sons and seven daughters, four lost touch with the family after they left for the United States.

The other family members held an ancestral ritual twice a year for Prince Yi Kang, but usually only two or three of the 11 surviving siblings attended the ceremonies.

[54] It was only in 1963 that a new president, Park Chung Hee, allowed some of the imperial family members, including Princess Deokhye, to return to Korea.

However, they could only stay at Nakseon Hall, a small residence in a corner of Changdeokgung in Seoul; the place was previously reserved for widowed queen/empress dowagers.

A series of business failures left Yi Ku out of support, and he died alone at the Grand Prince Hotel Akasaka in Tokyo on July 16, 2005.

She laid claim to the title of Empress of Korea and declared the restoration of Imperial House in her own succession ceremony in a hotel room.

[61][62] Later, American Internet entrepreneur Andrew Lee, accepted a nomination by Yi Seok, on 6 October 2018, to become the "Crown Prince" of Korea.