Setsuko, Princess Chichibu – “Between dignity and spontaneity” (Part six)

Read part five here.

Setsuko returned to England in 1979 and had a busy ten days filled with engagements. She also spent three days with the Duchess of Gloucester and her family. She flew home via Washington and had a nostalgic visit to her old school and classmates. She was met at the airport by her nephew, Prince Norihito, who was studying in Canada.¹

In 1981, Setsuko attended the opening of the Great Japan Exhibition at the Royal Academy and made “a great many speeches.”² On the way back, she visited Switzerland, where she called on the International Red Cross and World Health Organisation in Geneva, and rode the funicular from Zermatt to Gornergrat “to gaze at the Prince’s beloved Matterhorn, of which I had heard so much. To see it with my own eyes was a dream come true.”³

In 1985, Setsuko accepted an invitation from the Nepal Tuberculosis Prevention Association to travel to Nepal, and she also visited Thailand.

Setsuko finally slowed down due to her age and asked to be excused from official duties. She wrote, “Nowadays, I spend more time than ever in my rose garden. The Prince and I were both passionately fond of rose-growing, but had, of course, to abandon them for vegetables during the war. […] Ever since the Prince died, I find growing roses keeps me from being lonely. Every morning, I gaze into their faces and talk to my roses. They seem to appreciate your tender loving care, and will always produce fine blooms for you in return.”⁴

When Crown Prince Akihito succeeded his father in 1990, Setsuko went to pay her respects, but she did not attend his enthronement ceremony. She met the Prince and Princess of Wales, who had come to Japan for the ceremony, and Prince Charles told her, “Why aren’t you coming to the ceremony? Do come! I’ll look after you!” Setsuko wrote, “His reassuring words, so full of affection, not only encouraged me tremendously, but enabled me to know what it would be like to be gently rebuked by a son. Prince Charles always used to call me his ‘Japanese grandmother.'”⁵

When she saw Prince Charles again, he told her, “Your Highness, you should do as you please more, like our Queen Mother. You mustn’t be so restrained and so worried about what you do. Just do whatever you want. It’ll be good for you.”⁶ She told him that one does not do that sort of thing in Japan.

Setsuko, Princess Chichibu, died on 25 August 1995 of heart failure. She was interred with Prince Chichibu at the Toshima Cemetery.

Setsuko wrote her memoirs, and these were published after her death. Dorothy Britton, who translated the memoirs into English, wrote about Setsuko, “Princess Chichibu charmed everyone she met. ‘She is so considerate’, people say time and time again. Her gentleness and consideration for others, so typical of the aristocracy of Japan, was combined with a lively enthusiasm and easy familiarity with Western ways. She excelled in the delicate balance between dignity and spontaneity, and between the traditional and the modern in Japanese culture.”⁷

Setsuko and her husband had not had children together. According to one biography, “the couple refrained from having children, it being feared that fathering a male child before his elder brother might constitute a breach of etiquette.”⁸ At the time of the birth of Emperor Hirohito’s fourth daughter, Time Magazine wrote, “Although married for more than two years, they have been obliged by rigid etiquet [sic] to have no children, lest they should have a son discourteously ahead of the Emperor.”⁹

1. The silver drum: a Japanese imperial memoir by Princess Chichibu p.199
2. The silver drum: a Japanese imperial memoir by Princess Chichibu p.199
3. The silver drum: a Japanese imperial memoir by Princess Chichibu p.199
4. The silver drum: a Japanese imperial memoir by Princess Chichibu p.200
5. The silver drum: a Japanese imperial memoir by Princess Chichibu p.200
6. The silver drum: a Japanese imperial memoir by Princess Chichibu p.201
7. British Royal and Japanese Imperial Relations, 1868-2018 by Peter Kornicki, Antony Best and Hugh Cortazzi
8. Sons of heaven by Jerrod M. Packard p.269
9. Time