Vatican. The Japanese
ambassadors rode in this procession on horseback dressed in their richest
native costume. They each presented to the pope the letter(156) which they
had brought from their prince, to which the reply of the pope was read.
The presents which they had brought were also delivered, and after a
series of most magnificent entertainments, and after they had been
decorated as Knights of the Gilded Spears, they took their departure. In
the meantime Pope Gregory XIII., who had received them, a few days later
suddenly died A.D. 1585. His successor was Pope Sixtus V., who was equally
attentive to the ambassadors, and who dismissed them with briefs addressed
to their several princes.

Shogun Ashikaga Yoshiaki, whom Nobunaga had been instrumental in
installing, became restive in the subordinate part which he was permitted
to play. He sought out the princes who still resisted Nobunaga's supremacy
and communicated with them in reference to combining against him. He even
went so far as to fortify some of the castles near Kyoto. Nobunaga took
strenuous measures against Yoshiaki, and in A.D. 1573 deposed him. He was
the last of the Ashikaga shoguns, and with him came to an end a dynasty
which had continued from Taka-uji in A.D. 1335 for two hundred and
thirty-eight years.

Nobunaga assumed the duties which had hitherto been performed by the
shogun, that is he issued orders and made war and formed alliances in the
name of the emperor. But he never took the name of shogun(157) or presumed
to act in a capacity which from the time of Yoritomo had always been
filled by a member of the Minamoto family, while he was a member of the
Taira family. Whether this was the cause of his unwillingness to call
himself by this title to which he might legitimately have aspired we can
only conjecture. Of one thing we may be sure, that he was disinclined to
arouse the enmity of the ambitious princes of the empire, whose
co-operation he still needed to establish his power on an enduring basis,
by assuming a position which centuries of usage had appropriated to
another family. The emperor bestowed upon him the title of _nai-daijin_,
which at this time however was a purely honorary designation and carried
no power with it.

The Prince of Chosu was one of the most powerful of those who had not yet
submitted to the supremacy of Nobunaga. The present prince was Mori
Terumoto, the grandson of the Mori Motonari who by conquest had made
himself