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Nishimiya Hide was a lady-in-waiting to Yoshiko, wife of [[Tokugawa Nariaki]], lord of [[Mito han]].
Nishimiya Hide was a lady-in-waiting to Yoshiko, wife of [[Tokugawa Nariaki]], lord of [[Mito han]].
Nishimiya was born in [[1834]] inside the Mito han [[Mito Edo mansion|mansion]] in the Koishikawa neighborhood of [[Edo]]<ref>Today, the site of the Tokyo Dome.</ref>. Her father was a low-ranking retainer in service to the domain, who had been granted a position in the personal retinue of the lord of Mito han, Tokugawa Nariaki, in recognition of his work as a [[Mito school]] scholar & researcher in Japanese history.
==Edo==
Nishimiya was born in [[1834]] inside the Mito han [[Mito Edo mansion|mansion]] in the Koishikawa neighborhood of [[Edo]]<ref>Today, the site of the Tokyo Dome, and of the [[Koishikawa Korakuen|Koishikawa Kôrakuen]].</ref>. Her father was a low-ranking retainer in service to the domain, who had been granted a position in the personal retinue of the lord of Mito han, Tokugawa Nariaki, in recognition of his work as a [[Mito school]] scholar & researcher in Japanese history.
Her upbringing within the Mito domain's Edo mansion, perhaps indicative of that of other samurai women of similar circumstances, included training in reading and writing, [[tea ceremony]], ''[[naginata]]'' (halberd), and a variety of aspects of formal etiquette. She began these lessons formally at age six. Records relating to her childhood also mention fine clothing given her as a gift by an aunt, and being required to wear only plainer clothes in public due to calls for austerity in the wake of serious famines. Her family, for a time, as an act of charity (similarly in the wake of these famines), hired three or four additional maids, providing these three or four women with housing and meals, though there was little extra work for them to do. Hide is also known as a child to have spent considerable time visiting temples and shrines and sightseeing and traveling otherwise within the city of Edo.
Her upbringing within the Mito domain's Edo mansion, perhaps indicative of that of other samurai women of similar circumstances, included training in reading and writing, [[tea ceremony]], ''[[naginata]]'' (halberd), and a variety of aspects of formal etiquette. She began these lessons formally at age six. Records relating to her childhood also mention fine clothing given her as a gift by an aunt, and being required to wear only plainer clothes in public due to calls for austerity in the wake of serious famines. Her family, for a time, as an act of charity (similarly in the wake of these famines), hired three or four additional maids, providing these three or four women with housing and meals, though there was little extra work for them to do. Hide is also known as a child to have spent considerable time visiting temples and shrines and sightseeing and traveling otherwise within the city of Edo.
She entered Lady Yoshiko's service in [[1850]], at the age of 16, being given her own maid, and her own room in a wing designated for the female attendants, at the clan's mansion in Komagome, where they had all relocated in [[1844]], after Nariaki fell out of favor with the shogun & his chief advisors. Hide would remain in Lady Yoshiko's service for nineteen years. At this Komagome mansion, Nariaki, having been ordered to refrain from manly pursuits, spent much of his time in the women's quarters, where Hide interacted with him on numerous occasions, exchanging poetry, playing incense games, and the like.
She entered Lady Yoshiko's service in [[1850]], at the age of 16, being given her own maid, and her own room in a wing designated for the female attendants, at the clan's mansion in Komagome, where they had all relocated in [[1844]], after Nariaki fell out of favor with the shogun & his chief advisors. Hide would remain in Lady Yoshiko's service for nineteen years. At this Komagome mansion, Nariaki, having been ordered to refrain from manly pursuits, spent much of his time in the women's quarters, where Hide interacted with him on numerous occasions, exchanging poetry, playing incense games, and the like.
Nariaki began spending more time at the Koishikawa mansion again in [[1853]], having come back into favor with the shogunal authorities. For a time, he left Yoshiko (and therefore Hide and the other female attendants) at Komagome, but when Yoshiko's mother-in-law fell ill, she returned to Koishikawa, leaving Hide and a number of the other women behind to care for the house, and for the animals. Nariaki finally received permission in [[1855]] to return his whole family, and their attendants and so forth, to the Koishikawa mansion.
A [[Ansei Earthquake|major earthquake]] struck Edo later that year, on 1855/10/2, destroying much of the city, including the Mito Tokugawa mansion.<ref>Presumably it was the Koishikawa mansion that Nariaki, Hide, and their families were at when this happened, but it is unclear from Walthall's account.</ref> Over one hundred thousand people are believed to have died citywide. Hide escaped, as did her father, brother, and stepmother, as well as Lord Nariaki, but Hide's sister and one of Nariaki's chief advisors were among those killed.
==Mito==
Three years later, following the death of Shogun [[Tokugawa Iesada]], Nariaki attempted to have his seventh son, [[Tokugawa Yoshinobu]], named shogun. Defeated by the opposing faction, he retired briefly to Komagome; fears that he might be ordered to commit [[seppuku|suicide]] led to considerable tensions between Mito and the now-dominant ruling faction within the shogunate, but these tensions were defused as the shogunate ordered Nariaki to instead retire to Mito. Hide and a number of other attendants and retainers thus accompanied Nariaki, Yoshiko, and their family to Mito; this was Hide's first time to go there.
Nariaki died in [[1860]], and two years later, Shogun [[Tokugawa Iemochi]] married [[Kazu-no-Miya]], a younger sister of [[Emperor Komei|Emperor Kômei]], something "everyone in Mito disapproved" of, as there had previously been plans in place for Iemochi to marry one of Lady Yoshiko's Imperial princely relatives.<ref>Walthall, 49.</ref> When Nariaki's successor as lord of Mito, [[Tokugawa Yoshiatsu]], accompanied the shogun to Kyoto the following year, Hide's father served in the retinue.
Hide remained closely in Lady Yoshiko's service, remaining within [[Mito castle]] almost exclusively until her lady's official mourning period for Nariaki was over (with the key exception of accompanying her lady on visits to Nariaki's grave). After that, she accompanied Yoshiko in seeing something of the domain.
Meanwhile, Hide's brother was arrested and imprisoned as a member of anti-Imperial forces, dying in prison in [[1868]]/3 and leaving behind three young children. Hide's father was bedridden with grief, and called for Hide to come to him. on the road, she ran into [[Tokugawa Yoshiatsu]], Nariaki's successor as lord of Mito, for the last time; he died soon afterward, and Yoshiko became the ''de facto'' interim political leader in Mito, immediately calling Hide back to her side.
==Meiji==
In [[1869]], Lady Yoshiko dramatically reduced the size of her staff, and Hide returned briefly to her father's residence at the Koishikawa mansion in [[Tokyo]]. Before long, they had to move again, and find a property of their own to rent, as the [[Mito Tokugawa clan]] could no longer afford to maintain their Tokyo mansion. Her father, though seventy years old at this time, was able to find work in the new [[Meiji government]], his expertise as a scholar of Japanese imperial history helping him obtain a position as assistant in charge of managing imperial tombs. In [[1872]], he retired from that position. He and Hide were summoned to Mito, and were obliged to re-settle there in order to maintain their family's ''[[shizoku]]'' (former samurai) status. They agreed, but ''shizoku'' stipends were cut severely by the Tokyo government shortly afterward.
Hide, meanwhile, had she been able to remain in Yoshiko's service, might have been able to retire with a comfortable pension. Since she was not able to do that, she, her father, and her stepmother had to figure out some way to support the family, and to secure an heir. Her father adopted a man for her to marry, and after their son Nobutaka was born in [[1873]], the couple were divorced. After that, the family tried a number of things to make money to support themselves. They rented out futons for a brief time, then gave that up and tried raising chickens, but a fox destroyed their flock. For a few years after that, she found considerable, though brief, success establishing and running a [[geisha]] house. She recruited several geisha from Tokyo, and brought them to Mito, finding enough success that she was able to recruit several more shortly afterward. However, in [[1882]] after the geisha house burned down for the third time, she gave up on this endeavor as well, in part because of concerns of the negative impact of the geisha house upon her son's moral education. Her father died later that year.
Nobutaka had not done well in school, but around this time, when he was around nine years old, he expressed interest in learning how to make shoes, and so Hide managed to apprentice him to a shoemaker in Tokyo, returning herself to Mito. She worked briefly at a clothing store, and briefly helping a geisha to start her career, while simultaneously doing a little moneylending here and there.
In [[1887]], she returned to Tokyo, apprenticing Nobutaka to a new shoemaker, and rented rooms from a former shogunal retainer, which she then rented out in turn, taking on boarders and looking after them. She attempted to teach tea ceremony, but found no interested students. The following year, her nephew Kumeo who had been staying with her, stole her savings and disappeared. She gave up on the boardinghouse soon afterward. For a brief time in [[1889]], she then stayed with her niece's husband, following her niece's death, and was treated warmly by the husband's new wife.
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