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To take offense at slight provocation was ridiculed as "short-tempered." The popular adage said: "To bear what you think you cannot bear is really to bear." The great Iyéyasu left to posterity a few maxims, among which are the following: "The life of man is like going a long distance with a heavy load upon the shoulders. Haste not.
Once only, by the arbitrary folly of the Ashikaga shogun, the imperial cult had been seriously interfered with; and the social earthquake consequent upon that division of the imperial house, apprised the usurpers of the enormity of their blunder.... Only the integrity of the imperial succession, the uninterrupted maintenance of the imperial worship, made it possible even for Iyeyasu to clamp together the indissoluble units of society.
Altogether his religious position was much like that of the liberal Japanese statesman of to-day, respect for whatever is good in Buddhism, qualified by the patriotic conviction that the first religious duty is to the cult of the ancestors, the ancient creed of the race.... Iyeyasu had preferences regarding Buddhism; but even in this he showed no narrowness.
The five military governors who had been appointed by the late premier were suspicious of Iyeyasu, and took steps to prevent him from seizing the vacated place. The elements of anarchy indeed were everywhere abroad, there was more than one aspirant to the ruling power, and armies began to be raised. Iyeyasu keenly watched the movements of his enemies.
Iyeyasu, one of Nobunaga's favorite generals, became his friend and married his sister; Mori, lord of the West, came to the capital and became his vassal, and no man in the empire dared question his power.
At which my former enemies did wonder; and at this time must entreat me to do them a friendship, which to both Spaniards and Portingals have I doen: recompencing them good for euill. The correspondence of Adams proves that Iyeyasu disdained no means of obtaining direct information about foreign affairs in regard to religion and politics.
He says himself in his letters that Iyeyasu never refused him anything that he asked for, * except the privilege of revisiting England: when he asked that, once too often, the "ould Emperour" remained silent. The one was called Gilbert de Conning, whose mother dwelleth at Middleborough, who gaue himself out to be marchant of all the goods in the shippe.
In the year 1610 the temple was raised, by the intercession of Iyéyasu, to the dignity of the Imperial Temples, which, until the last revolution, were presided over by princes of the blood; and to the Abbot was granted the right, on going to the castle, of sitting in his litter as far as the entrance-hall, instead of dismounting at the usual place and proceeding on foot through several gates and courtyards.
After fulfilling Hideyoshi's dying injunction, not to leave the troops in Korea "to become ghosts haunting a foreign land," that is to say, in the condition of spirits without a cult, Iyeyasu had to face a formidable league of lords resolved to dispute his claim to rule.
In spite of various political intrigues in which Hideyori was known to have taken part, Iyeyasu had left him in possession of large revenues, and of the strongest fortress in Japan, that mighty castle of Osaka, which Hideyoshi's genius had rendered almost impregnable. Hideyori, unlike his father, favoured the Jesuits: and he made the castle a refuge for adherents of the "false and corrupt sect."
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