The officials of Edo who were opposed to foreign intercourse claimed that the country had been subjected to the shame of concluding a commercial treaty under duress. The spread of this idea aroused indignation against the Tokugawa government, and many of the barons, especially Nariakira of Mito, addressed memorials to Kyōto, complaining that the opening of the country to foreign trade and intercourse was contrary to the best interests of the nation. Under these circumstances, the relations between the courts in Kyōto and Edo were of the least intimate character. Presently it began to be alleged against the shōgun's councilors, even by men of Owari, Mito, and Echizen, who stood in a position of close relationship and intimacy with the Tokugawa, that by concluding treaties with five foreign countries without reference to the emperor, the sovereign had been directly insulted. Loyalty to the throne and the expulsion of aliens became rallying cries of the exclusive party, and conflicts occurred in various places between the people who would close the country and those who advocated its opening. Loyalty to the throne was no new thought to the nation, but it now acquired a new significance under new circumstances. The Tokugawa shōguns had, like all other great military families that acquired administrative control in Japan, asserted their authority largely at the expense of that of the emperor, and the fact had begun to cause keen regret to many among the _samurai_. Already, when Iyeshige was shōgun a _rōnin_ named Takeuchi Shikibu, lamenting the decline of the imperial power, urged the officials of Kyōto to devote themselves to military and literary pursuits, so as to be able some day to overthrow the shōgunate. He was exiled by the Tokugawa, who also arrested and put to death several others of the same party.