# Princess Yoshiko (Arisugawa-no-miya)

Princess Yoshiko (吉子女王, 28 October 1804 – 27 January 1893) was the younger sister of Prince Tsunahito of the Arisugawa-no-miya cadet branch of the Imperial House of Japan. Yoshiko was married to Tokugawa Nariaki, and was mother to the 10th Lord Yoshiatsu, and the 15th and final Tokugawa shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu.

## Personal history

Yoshiko, the twelfth and youngest daughter of Prince Taruhito of the Arisugawa-no-miya family, was born of the union of her father and the courtesan Ando Kiyoko. She was called Princess Tomi (登美宮, Tomi no miya) as a child. She later moved to Edo from Kyoto, where her husband renamed her Teihoin (貞芳院) in case she were to be widowed. Upon her death, she was given the posthumous name Madam Bummei (文明夫人, Bummei fujin). She died in 1893 at the age of 88 in Tokyo. Tokugawa Yoshiko rests at the Zuiryusan temple, the official Bodhi temple of the Mito clan in Ibaraki Prefecture.
In 1830, at the age of 27, Yoshiko was engaged to Nariaki, who was 37 but had not yet had his first wife as he had become the head of his clan just the year before. Princess Takako was said to have arranged the marriage, and Emperor Ninkō was recorded as having issued an approving comment on the political and educational pedigrees of the Mito branch of the Tokugawa clan. The Mito branch was further renowned for having enthusiastically supported the imperial system for generations, and the emperor gladly approved of the marriage.
When Yoshiko moved to Edo and started leading the life of a samurai wife, she kept the attire of the imperial household for weeks after her marriage. In a portrait she posed for at the time, she wore a kosode and hakama, in the style of centuries past. In a letterbox with that portrait, Nariaki called his wife Yoshiko, instead Princess Yoshiko or other names. Among Nariaki's 37 children with four wives, Yoshiko was the mother of his first son, Yoshiatsu, his seventh son, Yoshinobu, and finally a daughter. A fourth child, born before Yoshinobu, died prematurely.
Yoshiko was known to be fluent in the arts, particularly waka poems, as well as Japanese calligraphy and the Arisugawa family heritage. Embroidery and playing music on the koto and the hichiriki were among her hobbies. After relocating to Mito from Edo, she learned to fish at the river by the castle.
Being an imperial princess and a sister-in-law of the twelfth shogun, Ieyoshi, high-ranking officials including Ii Naosuke and his followers in the Edo government were said to surveil her in case she advised either the shogun or the emperor on political issues. After Nariaki was charged during the Ansei Purge for taking part in anti-shogun movements and detained in Mito for life in 1859, it took her three months to obtain permission and move from Edo to Mito. Widowed the next year, Yoshiko followed samurai custom and cut her hair short and made a pabbajja, retiring from social activities, and was renamed as Teiho-in (貞芳院).

## Later life

Between 1869 and 1873 (second and sixth years of Meiji), Yoshiko resided in the Kobuntei Villa in Kairaku-en garden, which her late husband opened. Her stepson Akitake invited Yoshiko to live in his mansion at Koume, Tokyo, which was the shimo-yashiki, or the second official residence of the Mito clan in Edo. While the samurai custom prohibited Yoshiko from living with her only surviving natural son, Yoshinobu, they did exchange letters. Yoshinobu had been adopted to the Hitotsubashi family when he was eleven to be entitled as an heir to the shogunate so that he was no longer regarded as Yoshiko's "direct family".
It took years for Yoshiko to overcome the prejudice among Meiji politicians as being anti-government, and for being the mother of Yoshinobu who had opened fire against the government supporters in Kyoto. Additionally, the Mito clan was radically against opening the country to foreign relations and trades. As the emperor governed the Meiji government, Yoshiko had been distanced from her kin in Kyoto before she regained family ties with her grand nephew Prince Taruhito of the Arisugawa family (ja) (1835 – 1895). After she moved to Tokyo, Prince Taruhito wrote in his diary that after January 1873, Yoshiko invited the Prince to her residence and sent gifts when she heard Taruhito was ill and also when the engagement of Prince Taruhito was publicized in June 1873.
Yoshiko recovered her social status when late Nariaki was honored with the rank of Sho-ni-i (ja) or the Second Rank of Honor, posthumously in 1873 and commemorated the occasion by giving Prince Taruhito a handcrafted stationery. When Prince Taruhito lost his first wife Sadako to illness in 1872, Yoshiko mourned the death of her stepdaughter. She offered condolences, arranging an extended family reunion of the children of Nariaki for the deceased, with Prince Taruhito as the guest of honor. The eldest surviving son, Ikeda Yoshinori (ja), who was the lord of Tottori domain, offered his residence, inviting Akitake (Sadako's natural brother), Atsuyoshi (Yoshiatsu's son), Matsudaira Tadakazu (Shimabara domain), Tsuchiya Tsugunao (Tsuchiura domain) among others. Princess Ei, the wife of Akitake, who was Taruhito's pupil of calligraphy, joined them.
Madam Bummei, her posthumous name, was given by her husband Nariaki before his death.