Konoe Hiroko
Konoe Hiroko was the midaidokoro (principal wife) of Shogun Tokugawa Ienobu, and daughter of Konoe Motohiro and Shinanomiya Tsuneko. She had two brothers, Konoe Iehiro and Nobuna.
The shogunate proposed Hiroko's marriage to Tokugawa Tsunatoyo on 1679/6/26, and they were married soon afterward, with Hiroko traveling to Edo with only a few companions, a nurse, and a few hundred guards (but without her parents), as was the custom.[1]
Her first two children died in infancy, one a girl born in 1681 who lived for only two months, and the other a boy, born in 1698, who lived only a few hours.[2]
References
- Arai Hakuseki, Joyce Ackroyd (trans.), Told Round a Brushwood Fire, University of Tokyo Press (1979), 313n60.
- Cecilia Segawa Seigle, "Shinanomiya Tsuneko: Portrait of a Court Lady," in Anne Walthall (ed.), The Human Tradition in Modern Japan, Scholarly Resources, Inc. (2002), 9.