Emperor Shirakawa
After Go-Sanjō died in 1073, he was succeeded by his eldest son (Sukehito's brother by a different mother), who became Emperor Shirakawa. Although Go-Sanjō willed that Sukehito would later become emperor, Shirakawa wanted to put his own descendants on the throne, and his son was installed in 1087 as Emperor Horikawa, whose son later succeeded him in 1107 as Emperor Toba. Relations between Shirakawa, Toba and Sukehito were strained; in 1113, Toba excluded the prince from an imperial visit to Kitano Shrine. When the emperor became seriously ill soon afterwards, suspicion immediately fell on Sukehito and his preceptor monk after an anonymous letter was found in the imperial residence accusing Ninkan of conspiring with one of Shōkaku's pages, a young man named Senjumaru (千手丸), to kill Toba by placing a curse on him. The two were immediately arrested and sentenced to exile (Ninkan to Izu Province, Sukemaru to Sado Island) while Sukehito was placed under house arrest.