Tokugawa Nariaki
Tokugawa Nariaki was a lord of Mito han, and a prominent presence in Bakumatsu period politics. His son, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, went on to become the last shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate.
He married a court lady named Yoshiko, born in 1804 the twelfth daughter of an imperial prince.
In 1853, Nariaki was appointed by the shogunate to oversee decisions concerning the naval defense of the realm. He was an avid supporter of maritime restrictions, opposing Abe Masahiro's decision to give in to the demands of Commodore Perry and Hotta Masayoshi's signing of the Harris Treaty, and expressing his support for Emperor Kômei's opposition to acceding to the terms of that treaty. Nariaki is thus strongly associated with the sonnô jôi movement, and after a number of members of that movement (openly supporters of Nariaki's positions) were purged from government by Tairô Ii Naosuke in the Ansei Purges, Nariaki played a role in engineering Naosuke's assassination.
References
- Plaques on-site at the former site of the Mito Kyoto mansion.
- Anne Walthall, "Nishimiya Hide: Turning Palace Arts into Marketable Skills," in Walthall (ed.), The Human Tradition in Modern Japan," Scholarly Resources, Inc. (2002), 45-60.