ndits raided
the capital, broke into the palace itself, set fire to it, and
committed frequent depredations unrestrained. An age when the
machinery for preserving law and order was practically paralyzed
scarcely deserves the eulogies of posterity.

THE SUCCESSION

The lady with whom Murakami first consorted was a daughter of
Fujiwara Motokata, who represented a comparatively obscure branch of
the great family, and had attained the office of chief councillor of
State (dainagori) only. She bore to his Majesty a son, Hirohira, and
the boy's grandfather confidently looked to see him named Prince
Imperial. But presently the daughter of Fujiwara Morosuke, minister
of the Right, entered the palace, and although her Court rank was not
at first superior to that of the dainagon's daughter, her child had
barely reached its third month when, through Morosuke's irresistible
influence, it was nominated heir to the throne. Motokata's
disappointment proved so keen that his health became impaired and he
finally died--of chagrin, the people said. In those days men believed
in the power of disembodied spirits for evil or for good. The spirit
of the ill-fated Sugawara Michizane was appeased by building shrines
to his memory, and a similar resource exorcised the angry ghost of
the rebel, Masakado; but no such prevention having been adopted in
the case of Motokata, his spirit was supposed to have compassed the
early deaths of his grandson's supplanter, Reizei, and of the
latter's successors, Kwazan and Sanjo, whose three united reigns
totalled only five years.

A more substantial calamity resulted, however, from the habit of
ignoring the right of primogeniture in favour of arbitrary selection.
Murakami, seeing that the Crown Prince (Reizei) had an exceedingly
feeble physique, deemed it expedient to transfer the succession to
his younger brother, Tamehira. But the latter, having married into
the Minamoto family, had thus become ineligible for the throne in
Fujiwara eyes. The Emperor hesitated, therefore, to give open
expression to his views, and while he waited, he himself fell
mortally ill. On his death-bed he issued the necessary instruction,
but the Fujiwara deliberately ignored it, being determined that a
consort of their own blood must be the leading lady in every Imperial
household. Then the indignation of the other great families, the
Minamoto and the Taira, blazed out. Mitsunaka, representing the
former, and Shigenobu the latter,