Early Life
The future Princess was born in Tokyo on 26 December 1911, as Tokugawa Kikuko. She was the second daughter of Tokugawa Yoshihisa (2 September 1884 - 22 January 1922) (peer) and his wife Princess Mieko of Arisugawa (14 February 1891 - 25 April 1933). Her paternal grandfather was Tokugawa Yoshinobu, Japan's last shogun. Her maternal grandfather, Prince Arisugawa Takehito, was the seventh head of the Arisugawa-no-miya, one of the four shinnÅke or collateral branches of the Imperial Family during the Edo period entitled to provide a successor to the throne in default of a direct heir. Lady Tokugawa Kikuko received her primary and secondary education at the then-girls' department of the Gakushuin. At age eighteen, she became engaged to Prince Takamastu, who was then third-in-line to the Chrysanthemum throne.
Read more about this topic: Princess Takamatsu
Famous quotes related to early life:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)