The Dog Shogun

4. Lord of Tatebayashi

37 4 Lord of Tatebayashi With the beginning of Keian 4 (1651), the third shogun Iemitsu suffered increasing bouts of illness. Less than three weeks before his death in the fourth month, Tsunayoshi and Tsunashige were enfeoffed as daimyo with domains of 150,000 koku each, but Iemitsu was already too ill to attend the ceremonies.1 Perhaps feeling the approach of death, he was moved by the desire to provide for his young sons. Tsunashige, as Tenju-in’s son, had resided outside the castle from an early age, but nowthe¤ve-year-old Tsunayoshialsoleft the castle,exchanging hisquarters in the castle’s third enceinte for his own residence outside the castle walls. A commissioner (bugyô) to supervise the construction of his mansion was of¤cially appointed in the seventh month; by the ninth month the raising of the mansion’s central pole could be celebrated. By the end of the year, the buildings were completed and the young Tsunayoshi moved in with the appropriate ceremonies .2 Both brothers received an additional 150 retainers, described as the younger brothers and sons of bakufu personnel, to staff their residence in addition to some eighty who had so far made up their entourage.3 The young shogun Ietsuna also presented them with household goods, woolen cloth, and weapons, including ¤fty bows and two hundred muskets each.4 Finally that same year the brothers received secondary residences, that of Tsunayoshi being located at Koishikawa.5 Later he would request additional lands to enlarge the residence and the gardens. It was here that his wife and concubines came to reside, and we¤nd him frequently commuting between the two residences. Today this is the site of the Koishikawa Botanical Gardens. Between Koishikawa and the temple complex at Ueno lies the Nezu valley, where the secondary residence of his brother Tsunashige was located. When in Hôei 1 (1704) Tsunayoshi made Tsunashige’s son,the laterIenobu,hissuccessor, hehadthe Nezutempleconstructed atthesite. Today the temple annually draws large crowds with its splendid display of azaleas. In the summer of 1653 the seven-year-old Tsunayoshi celebrated genpuku, the coming-of-age ceremony of the male members of the aristocracy. On that occasion his childhood name of Tsurumatsu was changed to Tsunayoshi, with the character tsuna, the second character of the shogun’s name, being bestowed upon him. He was also granted the name and title of Matsudaira u ma no kami 38 Lord of Tatebayashi (commander of the stables of the right) and the third court rank.6 His brother Tsunashige, though two years older, celebrated his coming-of-age ceremony at the same time. Parallel to Tsunayoshi he was made Matsudaira sa ma no kami (commander of the stables of the left) and was bestowed the second character of the shogun’s name for his adult name of Tsunashige.7 These titles and ranks were to remain the same until Tsunayoshi succeeded as shogun some seventeen years later. Only his domain was to be increased in Kanbun 1 (1661) by 100,000 koku, bringing it to a total of 250,000 koku, and on this occasion he was bestowed Tatebayashi castle. Tsunashige’s domain was similarly increased, and he received Kôfu castle.8 Two years later the shogun ordered that Tsunayoshi wed Nobuko, the daughter of the Kyoto court noble Takatsukasa Norihira and younger sister of the kanpaku Takatsukasa Fusasuke, with the ceremonies taking place in the summer of the next year.9 Since she was also the elder sister of Emperor Reigen’s consort Fusako, Tsunayoshi herewith became the brother-in-law of the emperor .10 Having been of¤cially married to a woman of noble descent, Tsunayoshi was now free to have children with concubines of lesser birth. His brother Tsunashige did not observe these rules, and when his son, the later Ienobu, was born in Kanbun 2 (1662), the child was placed in the care of and given the family name of a retainer. Only eight years later, after Tsunashige’s of¤cial wife had died, was Ienobu declared his son.11 Tsunayoshi stuck to the rules, maybe owing to homosexual preferences, and it was only in Enpô 5 (1677) that a woman by the name of Oden, said to have been a maid of his mother, gave birth to his daughter Tsuruhime.12 Two years later, Oden gave birth once again, this time to a son, named Tokumatsu.13 Family Cohesion There is little material that permits us to reconstruct...