Simultaneously with the change of social conditions thus taking place, history repeated itself at the shogun's court. The substance of administrative power passed into the hands of a minister, its shadow alone remaining to the shogun. During only two generations were the successors of Iyeyasu able to resist this traditional tendency. The representative of the third--Iyetsuna (1661-1680)--succumbed to the machinations of an ambitious minister, Sakai Takakiyo, and it may be said that from that time the nominal repository of administrative authority in Yedo was generally a species of magnificent recluse, secluded from contact with the outer world and seeing and hearing only through the eyes and ears of the ladies of his household. In this respect the descendants of the great Tokugawa statesman found themselves reduced to a position precisely analogous to that of the emperor in Kioto. Sovereign and shogun were alike mere abstractions so far as the practical work of government was concerned. With the great mass of the feudal chiefs things fared similarly. These men who, in the days of Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Iyeyasu, had directed the policies of their fiefs and led their armies in the field, were gradually transformed, during the long peace of the Tokugawa era, into voluptuous _fainéants_ or, at best, thoughtless dilettanti, willing to abandon the direction of their affairs to seneschals and mayors, who, while on the whole their administration was able and loyal, found their account in contriving and perpetuating the effacement of their chiefs. Thus, in effect, the government of the country, taken out of the hands of the shogun and the feudatories, fell into those of their vassals. There were exceptions, of course, but so rare as to be merely accidental.