Masako, Princess Tsune, was born on 30 September 1888 as the tenth child and sixth daughter of Emperor Meiji of Japan. Her mother was Sono Sachiko, his fifth concubine. Her mother and the Emperor had eight children, of whom several died young. Masako had three younger sisters who survived to adulthood: Fusako, Nobuko and Toshiko. Of Masako’s many half-siblings, only the future Emperor Yoshihito survived to adulthood.
Children born to concubines were treated as legitimate and could, if they were male, succeed to the throne. All children born to concubines were considered children of the Empress, and their biological mother would have very little part in raising them. Sono Sachiko was hidden from public view.
To celebrate Masako’s birth, there were the usual festivities such as a banquet.1
Empress Shōken acted as her foster mother and reportedly greeted her and her sisters only after removing her floor cushion from beneath her as a gesture of humility. The princesses would protest this, but the Empress replied, “I cannot. I came from a subject family [shinka], but Your Highnesses are His Majesty’s children by birth.” The princesses reportedly treated their birth mother as a servant and addressed her in yobisute (the calling of a person by their name without an honorific suffix).2
The Princesses were not close to their father and only saw them sporadically. In January 1896, Masako and Fusako visited the palace, accompanied by their guardian, Sadako, to see their father. They had an audience with him, and afterwards, Sadako was called to Empress Shōken, who remarked that the princesses were the picture of health, as opposed to the Emperor’s other children. She told Sadako that this greatly comforted the Emperor. Nevertheless, it was not until December that they saw him again when they showed their skills at reading, conversation and drawing during another audience.3
That same year, Masako and Fusako were brought to the Akasaka Palace to receive an education from Kagawa Keizō, while Sadako received the infant Toshiko into her care. In 1904, Sadako’s husband, Sasaki, proposed that Masako and Fusako could have science and classical Chinese added to their education. The Emperor agreed with classical Chinese but thought science might be too elevated. He instead suggested that world geography and European languages be added.4
On 30 April 1908, Princess Masako was married to Prince Tsunehisa. He was a distant cousin, and in 1906, he received the name Takeda and was authorised to start a new branch of the Imperial family.
Their first child was born on 4 March 1909, and the news even made it into the New York Times, which wrote, “Princess Takeda, the eldest daughter of the Emperor of Japan, gave birth to a son today. The Prince was born late this afternoon.”5 The young Prince was named Tsuneyoshi. The birth of a daughter, Princess Ayako, in 1913, received less international attention.
In July 1912, Masako’s father became seriously ill. He had been diagnosed with diabetes in 1904, and with chronic hepatitis in 1906 and now came down with gastroenteritis. The Empress and his four daughters began taking turns at his bedside. The Crown Prince was ill with the chickenpox at the same time. At some point, the Emperor became unable to speak. He died of heart failure on 30 July 1912, making Masako’s brother the new Emperor of Japan.6 During the funeral, Masako represented the now-dowager Empress as her health prevented her from attending.7
Tragedy struck again when Masako’s husband died during the Spanish Flu epidemic in 1919. He was still only 36 years old. Dr J. Ingram Bryan wrote in the Japan Magazine 1919-1920 v10, “The sudden demise of His Imperial Highness Prince Takeda adds one more to the great number of those persons of high place that have been carried off by the epidemic of influenza, and the nation is plunged into profound mourning. Head of one of the most recent of the new Princely houses of Japan, the late Prince was a scion of the Imperial Family and descended from one of the most ancient and distinguished houses of the Imperial line, while Her Imperial Highness Princess Takeda is the sixth daughter of His Majesty the late Emperor, the issue being one son and one daughter. The late Imperial Prince was an officer in the Imperial army and had a distinguished military career. His death at the early age of 37 [sic] but renders the nation’s grief the more acute. With the people of Japan, we beg to unite in profound and respectful sympathy with the sorrowing Princess and her Imperial children.”8
Masako’s son was only ten years old, but he was now the head of the family branch. Due to her husband’s death, the coming-of-age ceremony for the future Emperor Hisohito was postponed.9 After being widowed, Masako spent some time in France with her sister, Fusako, who was widowed in 1923 when her husband was killed in a car accident near Paris.10
In 1934, both of Masako’s children married. Her daughter Ayako was the first to marry, on 26 March. She married Tsunemitsu Sano, the eldest son of Count Sano. They went on to have four children together. Masako’s son Tsuneyoshi married Mitsuko Sanjo on 12 May 1934. They went on to have five children together.
On 8 March 1940, Masako passed away. She died of pneumonia at the age of just 51.11 She did not live to see her children stripped of their imperial titles.
- Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852-1912 by Donald Keene p.416
- Above the Clouds: Status Culture of the Modern Japanese Nobility by Sugiyama Takie Lebra p.226
- Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852-1912 by Donald Keene p.523-524
- Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852-1912 by Donald Keene p.523-599
- The New York Times
- Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852-1912 by Donald Keene p.523-701
- Fort Wayne Sentinel (1912-09-13) p.15
- Japan Magazine 1919-1920 v10 p.89
- Japan Magazine 1919-1920 v10 p.51
- Japan Magazine 1923-1924 v14 p.249
- Hong Kong Telegraph 1940-03-08 p.3
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