Lady Tsukiyama
Lady Tsukiyama | |
|---|---|
| Died | 1579 |
| Resting place | Seirai'in Temple |
| Spouse | Tokugawa Ieyasu |
| Children | Matsudaira Nobuyasu (son) Kamehime (daughter) |
| Relatives | Imagawa clan Tokugawa clan |
Lady Tsukiyama or Tsukiyama-dono (築山殿) (d. 1579) was the wife and chief consort of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder and first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate. She was the mother of Ieyasu's eldest son and heir apparent, Matsudaira Nobuyasu.
Life
Lady Tsukiyama was the daughter of an Imagawa retainer Sekiguchi Chikanaga. Her mother was one of Imagawa Yoshimoto's sisters, thus making Lady Tsukiyama as Yoshimoto's niece. She was also known as Sena (瀬名) before marrying Tokugawa Ieyasu.
In January of 1557, Lady Tsukiyama married Tokugawa Ieyasu. The marriage was arranged by her uncle, Imagawa Yoshimoto, ostensibly to help cement ties between the Imagawa clan and the Tokugawa clan, respectively. Two years later on 13 March 1559, she gave birth to his eldest son, Matsudaira Nobuyasu.[1]
Tsukiyama was erratic by nature, and was completely indifferent to the affairs of the state. Nothing entered her mind other than her own daily life and the attentions of her husband. She was devoted to her husband, but her love for him was selfish and blind.[2] In 1560, she also gave birth to a daughter, Kamehime.
When Ieyasu had moved to Hamamatsu in 1570, he left Lady Tsukiyama and their eldest son at Okazaki Castle. During this time, he had started to have an affair with Lady Saigo. In 1573, one of Tsukiyama's maid servant, Oman, was impregnated by her husband. She bore him a son, Hideyasu, whom Ieyasu had been slow to claim lest it anger his wife.
Because Nobuyasu did not get sons from Tokuhime, Lady Tsukiyama decided to took a daughter of a Takeda's retainer for her son's concubine. Seeing this and all of conflicts that her mother-in-law made against her, Tokuhime sent a letter to his father, telling him that Lady Tsukiyama was conspiring with the Takeda clan against Oda clan. Nobunaga quickly forced Ieyasu to execute his own wife, and then Ieyasu did it for preserve his alliance with Oda. Ieyasu also forced his own son Nobuyasu to commit suicide because he was afraid of his son's revenge due to his strong obedience to his late mother.
References
- ^ Totman, Conrad (1983). Tokugawa Ieyasu, shogun : a biography. Heian. p. 32. ISBN 9780893462109.
- ^ Yoshikawa, Eiji (2000). Taiko : an epic novel of war and glory in feudal Japan. Tokyo ;London: Kodansha International. p. 178. ISBN 9784770026095.
 | This biography of a Japanese noble is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |