Takehime, or Princess Take, was an adopted daughter of both Shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune and Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, and wife of Shimazu Tsugutoyo, lord of Satsuma han.
She was born in Kyoto, the daughter of Dainagon Seikanji Hirosada, and was brought at a very young age to Edo to meet her aunt, who was a concubine to Shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi. She was adopted by Tsunayoshi in 1708 (at age 3), and was engaged to Matsudaira Masakuni, lord of Aizu han, and then to Prince Arisugawa Masahito, but both died before they were married. Tsunayoshi, along with Konoe Hiroko (wife of Tsunayoshi's heir Tokugawa Ienobu), then made a proposal to Shimazu Tsugutoyo, which was accepted. Tsugutoyo and Takehime were betrothed, and after Takehime was formally adopted by Tokugawa Yoshimune, the two were married in 1729. She gave birth to a daughter, Kikuhime, in 1733, and raised Shimazu Munenobu as her adopted son as well.
Tsugutoyo stepped down as daimyô in 1746, and was succeeded by Munenobu. Tsugutoyo then died in 1760.
Takehime died in 1772, at the age of 68. She is buried alongside Tsugutoyo and his other wives at the Shimazu clan cemetery at Fukushô-ji, in Kagoshima.
References
- William Fleming, “The World Beyond the Walls: Morishima Chūryō (1756-1810) and the Development of Late Edo Fiction,” PhD dissertation, Harvard University (2011), 94n151.
- "Shimazu Tsugutoyo," Nihon jinmei daijiten, Kodansha, 2009.
- "Takehime," Satsuma Shimazu-ke no rekishi, Shôkoshûseikan official website.