Hōjō Takatoki

Hōjō Takatoki (北条 高時; 9 January 1304 – 4 July 1333) was the last Tokusō and ruling Shikken (regent) of Japan's Kamakura shogunate; the rulers that followed were his puppets. A member of the Hōjō clan, he was the son of Hōjō Sadatoki, and was preceded as shikken by Hōjō Mototoki.

Biography

Takatoki became regent at the age of eight, and thus actual power was held for a time by Adachi Tokiaki of Adachi clan, his grandmother, and Nagasaki Takasuke of Nagasaki clan, a minister and retainer of Hōjō assigned to him by his father Sadatoki. Takatoki fell ill in 1326, at the age of twenty-three, some time after having taken power himself; the shogunate was under attack at this time, and would fall within a few years. Takatoki retired and became a Buddhist monk, though he still held some influence at shogunate. That same year, the shogunal government asked Emperor Go-Daigo to abdicate in favor of his successor, in order to continue the tradition of cloistered rule and the alternation of branches of the Imperial family within the line of succession; Go-Daigo chose to maintain rule, and the ensuing controversy would lead to the Nanboku-chō Wars in which agents of the two Imperial branch families would come to outright war.

George Sansom thus describes this move on the part of the shogunate a "fatal blunder" and describes Takatoki as "scarcely sane. His judgement was poor, his conduct erratic. He indulged in extremes of luxury and debauch". Upon retirement, he handed over his duties to "certain unworthy deputies".