Tokuhime (督姫: 1565 – March 3, 1615) (''

Hime is the Japanese word for princess or a lady of higher birth. Daughters of a monarch are actually referred to by other terms, e.g. {{nihongo3, , 王女, Ōjo, literally king's daughter, even though ''Hime'' can be used to address ''Ōjo''. ...

'' means "

princess Princess is a regal rank and the feminine equivalent of prince (from Latin '' princeps'', meaning principal citizen). Most often, the term has been used for the consort of a prince, or for the daughter of a king or prince. Princess as a subs ...

", " lady") was a princess during the

Sengoku The was a period in 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 feudal system of Japan under the Ashikaga shogunate. Various ...

and

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characte ...

s of

Japanese history The first human inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago have been traced to prehistoric times around 30,000 BC. The Jōmon period, named after its cord-marked pottery, was followed by the Yayoi period in the first millennium BC when new inventi ...

. She was the second daughter 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 ...

; her mother was Lady Nishigori (''西郡の方''), one of Ieyasu's

concubine Concubinage is an interpersonal and sexual relationship between a man and a woman in which the couple does not want, or cannot enter into a full marriage. Concubinage and marriage are often regarded as similar but mutually exclusive. Concubi ...

s. Tokuhime was also known as Ofū, Tomiko, Harima-gozen, and Ryōshō-in.

Life

In 1582, the death of Oda Nobunaga in the Incident at Honnōji left Kai and Shinano Provinces without an overlord, and the struggle between Ieyasu and

Hōjō Ujinao Hōjō Ujinao (北条氏直: 1562 – December 19, 1591) was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the late Sengoku period, and the final head of the Later Hōjō clan. An important figure in the history of Azuchi-Momoyama politics, he lost his entire d ...

began. However, at that time, the two had nearly equal strength, and thinking that a serious war would weaken even the winner, they sought peace. As part of the accord, Ieyasu agreed to give Toku to Ujinao to be his wife. In 1590,

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 ...

attacked the Hōjō stronghold at

Odawara Castle is a landmark in the city of Odawara in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. History Odawara was a stronghold of the Doi clan during the Kamakura period, and a fortified residence built by their collateral branch, the Kobayakawa clan, stood on the ...

in the Subjugation of Odawara, eradicating the Hōjō as a power. At that time, Ujinao appealed to his father-in-law Ieyasu, who prevailed upon Hideyoshi to spare Ujinao and Toku, sending them to Mount Kōya. In the following year, Ujinao died. Princess Tokuhime and Ujinao had two daughters: Hōshuin-dono. After Ujinao's death, the princess returned to her father, Ieyasu. In 1594, Hideyoshi arranged for Toku to marry

Ikeda Terumasa was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the early Edo period. His court title was '' Musashi no Kami''. Terumasa was also known by the nickname ''saigoku no shōgun'', or, "The ''Shōgun'' of Western Japan". Terumasa fought in many of the battles of the ...

. They gave birth to five sons: Ikeda Teruoki ( 池田輝興), Ikeda Teruzumi ( 池田輝澄), Ikeda Masatsuna ( 池田政綱), Ikeda Tadatsugu ( 池田忠継) and Ikeda Tadakatsu ( 池田忠雄); and two daughters: one of them called Furihime (振姫, later known as Kōshōin 孝勝院). Tadatsugu became the lord of Okayama Castle at age five, following the death of Kobayakawa Hideaki.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Toku 16th-century Japanese women 17th-century Japanese women Japanese princesses Japanese nobility Go-Hōjō clan 1565 births 1615 deaths People of Sengoku-period Japan Tokugawa clan