Ōe Iwashiro

Ōe Iwashiro (大江磐代) (1744 – January 11, 1813) was the favoured concubine of Sukehito, Prince Kan'in. She was the birth mother of Emperor Kōkaku and the great-great grandmother of Emperor Meiji. Her imperial name was Ren Senpaku.^[1][2]

She was born in 1744 in Kurayoshi, Hōki Province (now Minatomachi, Kurayoshi City, Tottori Prefecture) to father Iwamuro Muneken, a vassal of the Arao clan, a retainer of the Tottori domain, and a mother who was a daughter of an iron wholesaler.^[1][2]

At the age of 9, she moved to Kyoto with her father, who had become a Rōnin and a town doctor.^[3] She was adopted and served in the Kushige clan, and by the time she was in her teens, she took the surname Tachibana.^[1][2]

Later, when she married Sukehito, Prince Kan'in, she changed her name to Iwashiro and became the prince's wife. She gave birth to three sons. Her eldest son, Prince Morohito,^[4] took Princess Yoshiko, the only child of Emperor Go-Momozono, who had no sons, as his empress, by recommendation of his adopted mother, Empress Go-Sakuramachi.^[5]

After the death of her husband, she became a monk, took the name Renjoin.^[1][2]

She died in 1813 and was buried at Rozan-ji.^[6] In 1878, she was posthumously awarded the rank of Shoshii^[7] one of the highest ranks of Shinkao, and in 1902, the rank of Juichii.^[1][2]