Meiji Restoration and Afterwards
In 1862, the prince was allowed to return to secular status and received the title Nakagawa no miya. This was part of the amnesty declared in honor of the marriage of Shogun Tokugawa Iemochi, to Kazu-no-miya, the Emperor Kōmei's half-sister. He returned to Kyoto, became a close advisor of the emperor, and became known by yet another title, Kaya-no-miya at this time. In September 1863, Kōmei bestowed on him the name "Asahiko" and the status of a prince of the blood (shinnō), and named him Danjō no in, a high ranking court position open only to princes of the blood. Prince Asahiko continued in this post following the death of Kōmei and the ascension of the Meiji emperor.
After the Meiji Restoration, Prince Asahiko's political enemies did not relent. In 1868, he was deprived of his status as a prince of the blood and exiled to Hiroshima on trumped-up charges of plotting to overthrow the new government. Emperor Meiji pardoned him in February 1872, restoring his princely status and allowing him to start a new collateral branch of the imperial dynasty, the Kuni-no-miya. He spent the last two decades of his life as the lord custodian priest (saishu) of the Shinto Grand Shrine of Ise. Prince Kuni Asahiko died in Tokyo in 1891.
Three of Prince Asahiko's sons, Prince Kaya Kuninori, Prince Kuni Taka, and Prince Nashimoto Morimasa, successively served as lord custodian priests of the Ise Shrine between 1891 and 1947. Prince Asahiko's son Prince Kuni Kuniyoshi was the father of Princess Nagako of Kuni, who married the future Emperor Shōwa and became the mother of the present Japanese emperor.
Read more about this topic: Prince Kuni Asahiko
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