y any attention to these representations. He
held that Prince Hokuriku was ineligible, since his father had been
born out of wedlock, and since the prince himself had taken the
tonsure; the truth being that the ex-Emperor had determined to obtain
the crown for one of his own grandsons, younger brothers of Antoku.
It is said that his Majesty's manner of choosing between the two lads
was most capricious. He had them brought into his presence, whereupon
the elder began to cry, the younger to laugh, and Go-Shirakawa at
once selected the latter, who thenceforth became the Emperor Go-Toba.

FALL OF YOSHINAKA

Yoshinaka's fortunes began to ebb from the time of his failure to
obtain the nomination of Prince Hokuriku. A force despatched to
Bitchu with the object of arresting the abduction of Antoku and
recovering possession of the regalia, had the misfortune to be
confronted by Taira no Noritsune, one of the stoutest warriors on the
side of the Heike. Ashikaga Yoshikiyo, who commanded the pursuers,
was killed, and his men were driven back pele-mele. This event
impaired the prestige of Yoshinaka's troops, while he himself and his
officers found that their rustic ways and illiterate education
exposed them constantly to the thinly veiled sneers of the dilettanti
and pundits who gave the tone to metropolitan society. The soldiers
resented these insults with increasing roughness and recourse to
violence, so that the coming of Yoritomo began to be much desired.
Go-Shirakawa sent two messages at a brief interval to invite the
Kamakura chief's presence in the capital. Yoritomo replied with a
memorial which won for him golden opinions, but he showed no sign of
visiting Kyoto. His absorbing purpose was to consolidate his base in
the east, and he had already begun to appreciate that the military
and the Imperial capitals should be distinct.

Naturally, when the fact of these pressing invitations to Yoritomo
reached Yoshinaka's ears, he felt some resentment, and this was
reflected in the demeanour of his soldiers, outrages against the
lives and properties of the citizens becoming more and more frequent.
Even the private domains of the cloistered Emperor himself, to say
nothing of the manors of the courtiers, were freely entered and
plundered, so that public indignation reached a high pitch. The
umbrage thus engendered was accentuated by treachery. Driven from
Kyushu, the Taira chiefs had obtained a footing in Shikoku and had
built forti