arried off the Emperor Antoku, there was no
actually reigning sovereign in Kyoto, whither the cloistered Emperor
now returned, an imposing guard of honour being furnished by
Yoshinaka. Go-Shirakawa therefore resumed the administration of State
affairs, Yoshinaka being given the privilege of access to the
Presence and entrusted with the duty of guarding the capital. The
distribution of rewards occupied attention in the first place. Out of
the five hundred manors of the Taira, one hundred and fifty were
given to Yoshinaka and Yukiiye, and over two hundred prominent Taira
officials were stripped of their posts and their Court ranks.
Yoritomo received more gracious treatment than Yoshinaka, although
the Kamakura chief could not yet venture to absent himself from the
Kwanto for the purpose of paying his respects at Court. For the rest,
in spite of Yoshinaka's brilliant success, he was granted only the
fifth official rank and the governorship of the province of Iyo.

These things could not fail to engender some discontent, and
presently a much graver cause for dissatisfaction presented itself.
Fujiwara Kanezane, minister of the Right, memorialized the Court in
the sense that, as Antoku had left the capital, another occupant to
the throne should be appointed, in spite of the absence of the
regalia. He pointed out that a precedent for dispensing with these
tokens of Imperialism had been furnished in the case of the Emperor
Keitai (507-531). No valid reason existed for such a precipitate
step. Antoku had not abdicated. His will had not been consulted at
all by the Taira when they carried him off; nor would the will of a
child of six have possessed any validity in such a matter. It is
plain that the proposal made by the minister of the Right had for
motive the convenience of the Minamoto, whose cause lacked legitimacy
so long as the sovereign and the regalia were in the camp of the
Taira.

But the minister's advice had a disastrous sequel. Yoshinaka was
resolutely bent on securing the succession for the son of Prince
Mochihito, who had been killed in the Yorimasa emeute. It was
practically to Mochihito that the Court owed its rescue from the
Taira tyranny, and his son--now a youth of seventeen, known as Prince
Hokuriku, because he had founded an asylum at a monastery in
Hokuriku-do after his father's death--had been conducted to Kyoto by
Yoshinaka, under a promise to secure the succession for him. But
Go-Shirakawa would not pa