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Nothing untoward occurred until, the ceremony being concluded, Sanetomo had begun to descend a broad flight of stone steps that led from the summit of the hill. Then suddenly Kugyo sprang out, killed Sanetomo and Nakaakira, carrying off the head of the former, and, having announced himself as his father's avenger, succeeded in effecting his escape.
There is a tradition that Sanetomo provoked the resentment of Masa and Yoshitoki by accepting high offices conferred on him by Kyoto chunagon, and general of the Left division of the guards in defiance of Yoritomo's motto, "Wield power in fact but never in name," and contrary to remonstrances addressed to him through the agency of Oye no Hiromoto.
Yoriiye's eldest son, Ichiman, the natural heir, was only three years old, and Yoritomo's second son, Sanetomo, was in his eleventh year. In this balance of claims, Hojo Tokimasa saw his opportunity. He would divide the Minamoto power by way of preliminary to supplanting it.
Yet in thus espousing the cause of his sister, Masa, and his nephew, Sanetomo, against his father, Tokimasa, and his brother-in-law, Tomomasa, it is not to be supposed that Yoshitoki's motive was loyalty to the house of Yoritomo. On the contrary, everything goes to show that he would have associated himself with his father's conspiracy had he not deemed the time premature and the method clumsy.
But it is very doubtful whether these pages of history, especially the latter, should not be regarded in the main as fiction. Sanetomo was too much of a littérateur to be an astute politician, and what eluded the observation of his lynx-eyed mother might well escape his perception. Kugyo was the second and only remaining legitimate son of Yoriiye.
The murder of Sanetomo inspired the Court with strong hope that a suicidal feud had commenced at Kamakura, and when the Fujiwara baby, Yoritsune, was sent thither, peace-loving politicians entertained an idea that the civil and the military administration would soon be found co-operating. But neither event made any change in the situation.
Again, Kamakura was not consulted; but the neglect evoked no remonstrance, for Sanetomo held the post of shogun at the time, and Sanetomo always maintained an attitude of deference towards the Imperial Court which had nominated him to high office. Juntoku held the sceptre eleven years, and then he, too, abdicated at his father's request.
Having "removed" Yoriiye, he extended the same fate to Hatakeyama Shigetada, one of the most loyal and trusted servants of Yoritomo. Shigetada would never have connived at any measure inimical to the interests of his deceased master. Therefore, he was put out of the way. Then the conspirators fixed their eyes upon Sanetomo.
In that light the shogunate was regarded while it remained in the hands of Yoritomo and his two sons, Yoriie and Sanetomo. But with the death of Sanetomo, in 1219, and the political extinction of the Minamoto family, the shogunate assumed a different character in the eyes of the Minamoto's successors, the Hojo.
He sacrificed the former unhesitatingly, and it is very probable that such a choice helped materially to hide from the lady Masa the true purport of his doings. For that it did remain hidden from her till the end is proved by her failure to guard the life of Sanetomo, her own son, and by her subsequent co-operation with his slayer, Yoshitoki, her brother.
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