e sovereign seems to
have been unwilling to act on his own initiative in a matter of such
importance.

Yedo was consulted, and to the surprise of Kyoto, the Bakufu prime
minister assumed an attitude hostile to the Court's desire. The
explanation of this singular act on Sadanobu's part was that a
precisely analogous problem perplexed Yedo simultaneously. When
Ienari was nominated shogun, his father, Hitotsubashi Harunari, fully
expected to be appointed guardian of the new potentate, and being
disappointed in that hope, he expressed his desire to receive the
title of o-gosho (retired shogun), so that he might enter the western
citadel of Yedo Castle and thence administer affairs as had been done
by ex-Emperors in Kyoto for hundreds of years, and by ex-shoguns on
several occasions under the Tokugawa. Disappointed in this
aspiration, Harunari, after some hesitation, invited the attention of
the shogun to the fact that filial piety is the basis of all moral
virtues, and that, whereas the shogun's duty required him to set a
good example to the people, he subjected his own father to unbecoming
humiliation, Ienari referred the matter to the State council, but the
councillors hesitated to establish the precedent of conferring the
rank of o-gosho on the head of one of the Sankyo families--Tayasu,
Shimizu, and Hitotsubashi--who had never discharged the duties of
shogun.

The prime minister, Sadanobu, however, had not a moment's hesitation
in opposing Harunari's project. He did, indeed, order a well-known
Confucian scholar to search the annals in order to find whether any
precedent existed for the proposed procedure, either in Japan or in
China, but he himself declared that if such an example were set in
the shogun's family, it might be the cause of grave inconvenience
among the people. In other words, a man whose son had been adopted
into another family might claim to be regarded as the head of that
family in the event of the death of the foster-father. It is certain,
however, that other and stronger reasons influenced the Bakufu prime
minister. Hitotsubashi Harunari was generally known as Wagamama
Irikyo (the Wayward Recluse*). His most intimate friends were the
shogun's father-in-law, Shimazu Ei-O, and Ikeda Isshinsai. The latter
two were also inkyo and shared the tastes and foibles of Harunari.
One of their greatest pleasures was to startle society. Thus, when
Sadanobu was legislating with infinite care against prodigality o