page_title: Taira no Tokuko
section_title: Consort of an emperor
hierarchical_section_title: Taira no Tokuko / In history / Consort of an emperor
caption_attribution_description: Front view of Kyoto imperial palace in Kyoto, Japan English: Front view of Kyoto imperial palace Español: Vista frontal del Palacio Imperial de Kioto Suomi: Kioton keisarillinen palatsi. Français&#160;: Vue de la façade du palais impérial de Kyōto. 日本語: 京都御所の外側からの写真。手前は建礼門 京都御所の正面 English: Front view of Kyoto imperial palace Español: Vista frontal del Palacio Imperial de Kioto Suomi: Kioton keisarillinen palatsi. Français&#160;: Vue de la façade du palais impérial de Kyōto. 日本語: 京都御所の外側からの写真。手前は建礼門
context_page_description: Taira no Tokuko, later known as Kenreimon-in, was the daughter of the Chancellor Taira no Kiyomori and Taira no Tokiko. She was empress-consort of Emperor Takakura.
  Tokuko was also the last Heike Imperial survivor from the great naval battle of Dan-no-ura.
  Her life became a compelling narrative which survives as both history and literature.
context_section_description: In 1172, Tokuko was married to Shirakawa's fourth son, Emperor Takakura. Takakura was also her first cousin as both their mothers were half-sisters. The wedding was an arranged one, as to cement the alliance between the two co-fathers-in-law; Shirakawa sponsored Kiyomori's rise as Chancellor of the Realm, while Kiyomori provided military and financial support to Shirakawa.
  Tokuko and Takakura's son, Prince Tokihito, was born in 1178. Just a year later, Kiyomori launched a coup d'état, sacking his political rivals from their posts, banishing them, and replacing them with his allies and clansmen. He even had Shirakawa imprisoned; at this point they fallen out of their political alliance.
  In 1180, Emperor Takakura was forced to abdicate by Kiyomori; Tokihito ascended the throne as Emperor Antoku. Now an empress dowager, Tokuko received the name Kenrei-mon In.  In this period, the names of the several gates in the walls surrounding the Imperial grounds refer not only to the wall-openings themselves; these names were also used to refer indirectly to a nearby residence of an empress whose husband had abdicated, or as an indirect way of referring to an empress dowager herself.
  For example, Empress Dowager Kenrei (建礼門院,, Kenrei-mon-In), whose official home, after the abdication and death of Emperor Takakura, was located near the Kenrei Gate.
caption: the Kenrei-mon (建礼門), one of the entrance gates to Kyoto Imperial Palace
exif: {}