Not all stories end when the curtain drops. For a dynasty fallen from power, as with a celebrity out of the spotlight, life goes on away from the public eye.
The Tokugawa Shogunate -- instituted by Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1603 -- collapsed prior to the Meiji Restoration in 1868, but the long history of the Tokugawa families did not end with their political dominance. Indeed, within only a few years of being sidelined by the sacred Emperor Meiji, many Tokugawas had been awarded peerages and/or had taken spouses in the elite classes, including relatives of the Imperial Family and business magnates.
Tokugawa Yoshinobu, the 15th and last shogun, who ruled for only a year, was 30 when the bakufu (shogunal government) collapsed in 1867. He lived another 47 years, until 1913. When his government collapsed, Yoshinobu moved to Sunpu, in present-day Shizuoka Prefecture. There, he secluded himself, apparently afraid of being used as a political pawn as he had been while he was the shogun. Instead, he devoted himself to cycling, deer-hunting and archery, and became highly proficient at Western-style oil painting and photography.
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