, also known as or Lady Toku (November 11, 1559 – February 16, 1636) was a Japanese noble lady from the

Sengoku period The was a period in History of Japan, Japanese history of near-constant civil war and social upheaval from 1467 to 1615. The Sengoku period was initiated by the Ōnin War in 1467 which collapsed the Feudalism, feudal system of Japan under the ...

. She was the daughter of ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and nominall ...

Oda Nobunaga was a Japanese ''daimyō'' and one of the leading figures of the Sengoku period. He is regarded as the first "Great Unifier" of Japan. Nobunaga was head of the very powerful Oda clan, and launched a war against other ''daimyō'' to unify ...

and later married

Matsudaira Nobuyasu was the eldest son of Matsudaira Ieyasu. His ''tsūshō'' ("common name") was . He was called also , because he had become the lord of in 1570. Because he was a son of Tokugawa Ieyasu, he is often referred to, retroactively, as . Biography No ...

, the first son of

Tokugawa Ieyasu was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan, which ruled Japan from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was one of the three "Great Unifiers" of Japan, along with his former lord Oda Nobunaga and fello ...

. She is remembered as the person most responsible for the deaths of Nobuyasu and his mother, Ieyasu's wife, the

Lady Tsukiyama Lady Tsukiyama or (d. 9 September 1579) was a Japanese noble lady and aristocrat from the Sengoku period. She was the chief consort of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the ''daimyō'' who would become the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunat ...

Biography

Tokuhime was married to

's five-year-old son

Nobuyasu Nobuyasu (written: 信康, 信寧, 伸康) is a masculine Japanese given name A given name (also known as a forename or first name) is the part of a personal name quoted in that identifies a person, potentially with a middle name as well, a ...

in 1563, when she herself was only five years old. Her marriage was politically motivated and was used to seal an alliance between Tokugawa Ieyasu and Oda Nobunaga. As the years went by, Nobuyasu and Tokuhime became quite attached to each other, though Tokuhime's mother-in-law, the

, made life quite difficult for her and interfered in matters between her and her husband. Lady Tsukiyama was known as a jealous and contrary woman, and even her husband Ieyasu found it difficult to share the same residence as her. Because Tokuhime only gave birth to two daughters, Lady Tsukiyama took a daughter of a Takeda's retainer for Nobuyasu's concubine, and this action was irritating Tokuhime. As a young woman, Tokuhime decided to retaliate against

. When Tokuhime was about twenty, she had had enough of her mother-in-law's interference and wrote a letter to her father, Oda Nobunaga, conveying her suspicion that Lady Tsukiyama had been in correspondence with

Takeda Katsuyori was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the Sengoku period, who was famed as the head of the Takeda clan and the successor to the legendary warlord Takeda Shingen. He was son in law of Hojo Ujiyasu. Early life He was the son of Shingen by the daughter ...

, one of Nobunaga's worst enemies. Nobunaga relayed this suspicion of betrayal to his ally Ieyasu, who promptly had his wife imprisoned. As Ieyasu needed to maintain his alliance with Nobunaga, the accusations were taken quite seriously, and as Lady Tsukiyama and her son were quite close, Ieyasu therefore had Nobuyasu put into custody. No solid evidence of treachery was ever produced, but to assuage his ally, Ieyasu had his wife executed in 1579. Ieyasu did not believe his son would betray him, but to prevent him from seeking vengeance for the death of his mother, he ordered Nobuyasu to commit suicide by ''

seppuku , sometimes referred to as hara-kiri (, , a native Japanese kun reading), is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. It was originally reserved for samurai in their code of honour but was also practised by other Japanese people ...

'' where he was held at

Futamata Castle was a Japanese castle located in Toyoda county of Tōtōmi Province, in what is now part of Tenryū-ku in the city of Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. It was built in the Sengoku period and is noted as the site of the death of Tokugaw ...

. Although Tokuhime wanted only to anonymously retaliate against Lady Tsukiyama, the situation snowballed, and by the end of 1579, her husband and her mother-in-law were dead and she was a widow.

Family

* Father:

(1536–1582) * Brothers: ** Oda Nobutada (1557–1582) **

Oda Nobukatsu was a Japanese samurai of the Azuchi–Momoyama period. He was the second son of Oda Nobunaga. He survived the decline of the Oda clan from political prominence, becoming a ''daimyō'' in the early Edo period. Though often described as an inco ...

(1558–1630) ** Oda Nobutaka (1558–1583) **

Hashiba Hidekatsu Hall, John Whitney ''et al.'' (1991). ''The Cambridge History of Japan'', volume 4, p. 115 was a Japanese samurai, and the fourth son of the famed feudal warlord Oda Nobunaga and was adopted by Toyotomi Hideyoshi at a young age. At the time of N ...

(1567–1585) **

Oda Katsunaga was a Japanese samurai of the Sengoku period through early Azuchi-Momoyama Period, who was the fifth son of Oda Nobunaga. At a very young age, Katsunaga, then known as "Gobomaru", was given in adoption to Toyama Kagetou and his wife, Lady Ots ...

(1568–1582) **

Oda Nobuhide was a Japanese ''daimyō'' and magistrate of the Sengoku period known as "Tiger of Owari" and also the father of Oda Nobunaga the first "Great Unifier" of Japan. Nobuhide was a deputy ''shugo'' (Shugodai) of lower Owari Province and head of the ...

(1571–1597) ** Oda Nobutaka (1576–1602) ** Oda Nobuyoshi (1573–1615) ** Oda Nobusada (1574–1624) ** Oda Nobuyoshi (died 1609) ** Oda Nagatsugu (died 1600) ** Oda Nobumasa (1554–1647) * Sisters: ** Fuyuhime (1561–1641) Wife of Gamō Ujisato ** Hideko (died 1632) ** Eihime (1574–1623) ** Hōonin ** Sannomaru-dono (d. 1603) One of

Toyotomi Hideyoshi , otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: Military Innovations that Changed the Cour ...

's concubines. ** Tsuruhime * Husband:

(1559–1579) * children: ** Tokuhime ** Kumahime, married

Honda Tadamasa was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the early Edo period, who ruled the Kuwana Domain and then the Himeji Domain. He was the son of Honda Tadakatsu. Tadamasa's first battle was during the Siege of Odawara, in 1590; he also fought at the Battle of S ...

References

{{People of the Sengoku period , state=autocollapse 1559 births 1636 deaths 16th-century Japanese women 16th-century Japanese people 17th-century Japanese women 17th-century Japanese people Japanese nobility Matsudaira clan Oda clan Tokugawa clan Women of medieval Japan