Person Guide
Matsudaira Teru, widely called Teruhime, is often compressed into the princess who commanded five hundred women at Tsuruga Castle. This page instead follows genealogy and adoption papers linking the Iino Hoshina and Aizu Matsudaira houses, a Nakatsu marriage trousseau and returned chests after divorce, keys, allocation ledgers, koto, incense, and waka in the Edo Aizu residence inner quarters, travel equipment for the 1868 withdrawal from Edo, siege cauldrons, bandages, bullet molds, and water buckets, and letters to Kayano Gonbei, six waka volumes, and the family cemetery. Rank and shared labor remain distinct.
Life
Iino, Kazusa
Old- and new-calendar conventions produce 1832/1833 forms. She grows within a daimyo genealogy and managed household. This stage of Teruhime's life becomes clearer when the event is read with the places, objects, and documents associated with Iino, Kazusa, revealing both its immediate setting and the conditions that shaped the next decision.
Iino to Edo Aizu residence
Succession concerns bring her into the Aizu Matsudaira house, where she learns ritual, cultivated arts, and inner-household administration. This stage of Teruhime's life becomes clearer when the event is read with the places, objects, and documents associated with Iino to Edo Aizu residence, revealing both its immediate setting and the conditions that shaped the next decision.
Nakatsu and Edo
A daimyo marriage moves trousseau property and attendants; her return places her again within the Edo Aizu inner quarters. This stage of Teruhime's life becomes clearer when the event is read with the places, objects, and documents associated with Nakatsu and Edo, revealing both its immediate setting and the conditions that shaped the next decision.
Edo to Aizu
Household members carry travel equipment, medicine, bedding, supplies, and records after political and military defeat. This stage of Teruhime's life becomes clearer when the event is read with the places, objects, and documents associated with Edo to Aizu, revealing both its immediate setting and the conditions that shaped the next decision.
Tsuruga Castle
About five hundred women and children divide cooking, nursing, bullet work, and fire control; Teru’s rank and everyone’s labor remain distinct. This stage of Teruhime's life becomes clearer when the event is read with the places, objects, and documents associated with Tsuruga Castle, revealing both its immediate setting and the conditions that shaped the next decision.
Tokyo and Aizu memory
She mourns Kayano Gonbei, leaves waka volumes, dies in Tokyo, and is buried at the Matsudaira family Innai cemetery in Aizu. This stage of Teruhime's life becomes clearer when the event is read with the places, objects, and documents associated with Tokyo and Aizu memory, revealing both its immediate setting and the conditions that shaped the next decision.
千葉県富津市
陣屋跡と富津市の関係系図を結び、照の生家と十歳頃の養子縁組を家同士の手続きから見る。
松平照（照姫）
Address千葉県富津市下飯野周辺
Nearby
東京都港区
時期による上中下屋敷の違いに注意し、奥向きの帳面、鍵、衣食配分、教養と家政をたどる。
松平照（照姫）
Address東京都港区三田二丁目周辺
Nearby
大分県中津市
婚礼道具、婚礼目録、海路、離縁後の返送箱から、大名家の婚姻が家同士の移動と財産管理だったことを見る。
松平照（照姫）
Address大分県中津市二ノ丁本丸1273-2周辺
Nearby
福島県会津若松市
天守だけでなく炊事、看護、弾薬、消火、配給の場所を想像し、一人の姫ではなく多くの手が支えた籠城を見る。
松平照（照姫）
Address福島県会津若松市追手町1-1
Nearby
福島県会津若松市
和歌集・書簡に残る言葉と、院内御廟の墓所を結び、戦後十六年を生きた時間と追悼をたどる。
松平照（照姫）
Address福島県会津若松市東山町大字石山院内周辺
Nearby
Keys
Teru was born the third daughter of Hoshina Masamoto, lord of Kazusa Iino, and at about ten became an adopted daughter of Aizu lord Matsudaira Katataka. Genealogical scrolls, an adoption petition and shogunate notice, seals, a document chest, small sandals, and palanquin fittings show that this was not merely a child moving between relatives. It belonged to daimyo succession planning and the formal relationship between the Hoshina and Matsudaira houses. Before the familiar title “princess,” she was registered and educated as an adopted daughter expected to carry a house’s future, ritual standing, and alliances.
Learn More
AdBook and accommodation links may be affiliate links.
At about eighteen Teru married Nakatsu lord Okudaira Masamoto and several years later returned divorced to the Edo Aizu residence. Lacquered trousseau chests, clothing, incense and cosmetic utensils, a marriage inventory, route chart, baggage tags, and sealed return papers reveal marriage between daimyo houses as an organized transfer of property, attendants, messages, and rank. The divorce should not be reduced to her personality or health, since succession and household interests also structured it. Returned chests were not only signs of a failed union; they became material foundations for her renewed place in Aizu’s inner household.
Learn More
AdBook and accommodation links may be affiliate links.
After divorce Teru returned to the Edo Aizu residence. Following the early death of Katamori’s wife Toshihime, Teru occupied the highest-ranking female position around the house and participated in the inner quarters. Storeroom and room keys, ledgers allocating food, cloth, and personnel, sewing boxes, a koto, incense burner, waka papers, inkstone, and letter chest show that the inner quarters were an organization managing many women servants and substantial supplies, not a private salon. Calligraphy, etiquette, incense, music, and poetry served ritual, gifts, mourning, communication, and household order.
Learn More
AdBook and accommodation links may be affiliate links.
After defeat at Toba-Fushimi, Aizu people withdrew from Edo toward Aizu in the second month of 1868, and Teru was among those who moved. A highway map, checkpoint passes, travel chests, bedding rolls, a medicine box, tableware, weather covers, porters, and pack animals show a political crisis transformed into long-distance movement involving relatives, servants, older people, and stores. This was not Teru’s solitary return. It required closing a residence, selecting records and necessities, arranging lodgings, and protecting a traveling household. The same travel equipment soon became part of preparation for siege conditions.
Learn More
AdBook and accommodation links may be affiliate links.
About five hundred women and children entered Tsuruga Castle during the Aizu War. Teru is remembered as their highest-ranking center and a source of morale. Huge cooking cauldrons, rice baskets, ration bowls, bandages, hot water and medicines, torn cloth, bullet molds and lead, water buckets, and wet quilts used against fires show that armed defenders could not sustain the siege alone. Cooking, nursing, ammunition production, fire control, and care for wounded and dead were distributed among many women, children, and officials. Their collective work should not be absorbed into a claim that Teru personally performed or commanded every task.
Learn More
AdBook and accommodation links may be affiliate links.
Aizuwakamatsu preserves letters, a waka poem, and a memorandum sent by Katamori and Teru to Kayano Gonbei before he was executed as the bearer of Aizu’s war responsibility. The poem mourning him through uncertainty between dream and waking, six surviving Matsudaira Teru waka volumes, an inkstone, letter chest, incense burner, memorial tablet, and the Innai family cemetery show that her work did not end with the siege. Poetry stored names and grief across the sixteen years she lived after the war. Loyalty should not beautify the political transfer of blame to one man; the documents keep that death beside the survivors’ long memory.
Learn More
AdBook and accommodation links may be affiliate links.