was a Japanese noble lady and

aristocrat The aristocracy (''from Greek'' ''ἀριστοκρατία'' ''aristokratía'', "rule of the best"; ''Latin: aristocratia'') is historically associated with a "hereditary" or a "ruling" social class. In many states, the aristocracy included the ...

from the

Azuchi–Momoyama period The was the final phase of the in Japanese history from 1568 to 1600. After the outbreak of the Ōnin War in 1467, the power of the Ashikaga Shogunate effectively collapsed, marking the start of the chaotic Sengoku period. In 1568, Oda Nob ...

to the early

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

. She is the daughter and only child of Tamura Kiyoaki,Ōshima Kōichi, ''Ichinoseki Domain (Clan Stories Series)'', , page 12 the lord of Miharu Castle, and Okita, daughter of Sōma Akitane. She was also the wife of

Date Masamune was a Japanese ''daimyō'' during the Azuchi–Momoyama period through the early Edo period. Heir to a long line of powerful feudal lords in the Tōhoku region, he went on to found the modern-day city of Sendai. An outstanding tactician, he w ...

. She was also known as Lady Tamura (田村御前). After fulfilling her pravrajya, her posthumous Buddhist name was Yōtokuin (陽徳院).

Life

In 1579, she married her second cousin Masamune at the age of twelve. Her

wet nurse A wet nurse is a woman who breastfeeding, breastfeeds and cares for another's child. Wet nurses are employed if the mother dies, if she is unable to nurse the child herself sufficiently or chooses not to do so. Wet-nursed children may be known a ...

was killed by Masamune, who suspected that betrayers from the Tamura clan were involved in the assassination attempt on him. It is said that her marriage got worse for a while because many other

handmaiden A handmaiden (nowadays less commonly handmaid or maidservant) is a personal maid or female servant. The term is also used metaphorically for something whose primary role is to serve or assist. Depending on culture or historical period, a handma ...

s serving her were executed. However, after she moved to the Date residence in Jurakudai in

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

, her marriage seemed to be restored and she gave birth to Irohahime ( Matsudaira Tadateru's wife) in 1594. From there, she had four children with Masamune, including Irohahime, Date Tadamune (the second lord of the Sendai Domain), Munetsuna Date, and Takematsumaru Date. Even after she lived in the Date residence in Jurakudai, she might have played a role of a woman diplomat to inform Masamune of the Kyoto situation. In a letter addressed to him, she wrote:

"The world has not been stabilized yet. You should decide your course of action in accordance with the cause of the universe. Don't worry about me. I always have a knife with me. I'll promise not to be shamed."

When Masamune died on June 27, 1636, she entered the Buddhist priesthood under the Ungo Zenji and called herself Yōtokuin. Megohime died on February 21, 1653, at the age of 86.Ōshima Kōichi, ''Ichinoseki Domain (Clan Stories Series)'', , page 15 It was the same day as the mensiversary of Masamune's death. Her graveyard is located in the Yotokuin mausoleum near the Zuigan-ji Temple.The excavation research on

Zuihōden in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan is the mausoleum complex of Date Masamune and his heirs, daimyō of the Sendai Domain. History When Date Masamune, known as and founder of the Sendai Domain, died in 1636, he left instructions for a mauso ...

in 1974 showed that her husband, Masamune had blood type B and her son, Tadamune, A-type blood, and therefore it is assumed that Megohime had A- or AB-type blood. Yotoku-in Tamaya 2015a

Last Testament

She frequently asked Masamune and Tadamune to restore the Tamura family.Ōshima Kōichi, ''Ichinoseki Domain (Clan Stories Series)'', , page 14 Tadamune obeyed his mother's will and rebuilt the Tamura family with his son, Muneyoshi, as the lord the same year as his mother's death.

In popular culture

*In the

NHK , also known by its Romanization of Japanese, romanized initialism NHK, is a Japanese public broadcasting, public broadcaster. It is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television licence, television license fee. NHK ope ...

taiga drama is the name NHK gives to the annual year-long historical drama television series it broadcasts in Japan. Beginning in 1963 with the black-and-white ''Hana no Shōgai'', starring kabuki actor Onoe Shoroku II and Awashima Chikage, the network regul ...

Dokuganryū Masamune is a 1987 Japanese historical television series. It is the 25th NHK ''taiga'' drama. The broadcast received an average viewer rating of 39.7 percent in the Kanto area with the highest viewing rating of 47.8%. The drama was adapted from the novel ...

'', she is portrayed by Junko Sakurada, and her younger incarnation by Kumiko Goto. *In the

'' Tenchijin'', she is portrayed by Anne Watanabe (credited as Anne). *In the ongoing anime series '' Masamune Datenicle'', produced in coordination between Gaina and Date City, Fukushima, Megohime is portrayed as a 14-year-old girl.

References

{{Authority control 1568 births 1653 deaths 16th-century Japanese people 17th-century Japanese people 16th-century Japanese women 17th-century Japanese women Women of the Sengoku period People of the Edo period Date clan Tamura clan Deified Japanese women