Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 2.djvu/35

 what the Fujiwara had done in their days of greatness, what the Taira had done during their brief tenure of power, the Saionji were now doing, namely, aspiring to furnish Prime Ministers and Empresses solely from their own family. They had already given five consorts to five Emperors in succession, and zealous rivals were watching keenly to attack this clan which threatened to usurp the place long held by the most illustrious family in the land.

An incident paltry in itself disturbed this exceedingly tender equilibrium. Two provincial chiefs became involved in a dispute about a boundary. Each bribed the Kamakura Vice-gerentregent [sic] to decide in his favour, and each failing to obtain a decision, they finally appealed to arms. Soon the country was in an uproar. A number of nobles and fraternities of monks formed an alliance in Kyōtō for the overthrow of the Hōjō. The conspirators adopted a peculiar device to disarm suspicion: they abandoned themselves to debauchery of the most flagrant nature. But one of them took his wife into his confidence, and she carried the news to her father, an officer in the Hōjō garrison of Kyōtō. The conspiracy was crushed immediately. The Emperor, however, managed adroitly to disavow his own connection with it. He thus saved himself, but forfeited the sympathy of many of the nobles and retained the allegiance of the priests only. At this juncture the heir apparent of the junior Imperial line