* Image is for illustrative purposes only.Maeda Matsu (Hoshun-in)
まつ（芳春院）
Principal Wife of Maeda Toshiie, the Wise and Resolute Lady Who Became a Hostage Herself to Preserve the Million-Koku Domain of Kaga
Description
A Wise Wife Who Supported Toshiie
Matsu (Hoshun-in, 1547-1617) was born in Owari Province and is said to have been a cousin of her husband, Maeda Toshiie. She married Toshiie around the age of twelve and is recorded to have borne him two sons and nine daughters. She supported the young Toshiie through his lean years both materially and emotionally, becoming one of the driving forces behind the Maeda clan's rise to a great domain spanning Kaga, Noto, and Etchu. Her intelligence and fortitude were renowned within the household, and she served as a pillar managing domestic affairs as Toshiie advanced in the service of Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
A Mother Under the Toyotomi Regime
Matsu was on close terms with Hideyoshi's principal wife Kodai-in (One) and stood at the center of the women's network of the Toyotomi government. Toshiie enjoyed Hideyoshi's deep trust and rose to become one of the Five Elders, entrusted with the guardianship of Toyotomi Hideyori, but he died of illness in 1599. His death deprived the Maeda clan of a great patron, placing it in a precarious position amid the rise of Tokugawa Ieyasu.
The Decision to Preserve Kaga
After Toshiie's death, Matsu took the tonsure and adopted the name 'Hoshun-in.' In 1600, when Ieyasu leveled suspicions of rebellion against the Maeda, her eldest son Toshinaga appeared ready to take up arms against the Tokugawa. In response, Hoshun-in resolved to go to Edo as a hostage herself in order to avoid conflict with the Tokugawa. By this decision the Maeda clan preserved its million-koku domain of Kaga and averted an all-out confrontation. Her life as a hostage in Edo lasted some fourteen to fifteen years and is often regarded as a precursor to the later sankin-kotai system of keeping the wives and children of daimyo in Edo.
Matsu and Swords
There is little firm record that Matsu carried any particular famous blade, but as a woman of a warrior house she would have followed the custom of carrying a kaiken (dagger) brought as part of her dowry. In samurai society the kaiken symbolized both self-defense and resolve, and for the principal wife of a great daimyo house like the Maeda it also embodied the family's prestige. The Maeda house preserved swords of the Bizen and Kaga traditions as heirlooms from Toshiie's time onward, and Hoshun-in lived amid this inherited culture of fine blades.
Later Reputation
After her years as a hostage, Hoshun-in returned to Kanazawa in her final years and died within Kanazawa Castle in 1617 at the age of seventy-one. Her life, in which she staked her own person to protect her house, has been handed down to posterity as 'a model of the good wife and wise mother,' and she is highly esteemed as the woman who laid the foundation for the three centuries of the Kaga Maeda clan.
Notable Swords
- Kaiken of a samurai woman (dagger carried as part of her dowry, symbolizing both self-defense and resolve, and embodying the prestige of the principal wife of the great Maeda house)
- Bizen and Kaga tradition swords transmitted in the Maeda house (heirlooms passed down from Toshiie's time, symbolizing the sword culture of the house in which Hoshun-in lived)