Ever since the establishment of Tokugawa rule there had been a party at the Kiōto Court, consisting of Court nobles, which championed the pretensions of the Throne, mourned over its lost glories, conducted its intrigues, and felt a common resentment against what in its eyes was an administration of usurpers. The fatal mistake of the Shōgunate in referring to Kiōto Perry’s demands for the reopening of foreign intercourse on new and strange conditions—a matter which, in accordance with established precedent, was within its own competency—gave an opportunity to this party to revive the long obsolete pretensions of the Court. The opportunity was at once seized. The party had at this time powerful adherents. Amongst them the chief figure was the ex-Prince of Mito. Early in the previous century his grandfather, the second of his line, had founded a school of literature and politics, which espoused the Imperial cause, and encouraged the native religion and language in opposition to what was borrowed from China,—a profession of principles which sat curiously on a leading member of the Tokugawa House. Holding the same views himself, the ex-Prince had been forced to abdicate some years before in favour of his eldest son for having destroyed the Buddhist temples in his fief, and made their bells into cannon, for the alleged purpose of repelling a foreign invasion. With the ex-Prince were ranged the Tokugawa Prince of Owari and the influential daimiōs of Chōshiū, Échizen, Tosa and Uwajima, whilst a large measure of sympathy with Imperial aims existed among the prominent clans of the south and west. The anti-Shōgunate movement also derived help from the turbulent class of clanless _samurai_, known as _rōnin_, which at this time was rapidly increasing in numbers owing to economic distress in feudal territories, and the growing weakness of the Shōgunate. The latter’s supporters, on the other hand, were mostly to be found in the centre, the north and the east, all of which were old Tokugawa strongholds. Its chief strength, however, lay in its being _beatus possidens_,—having, that is to say, the command of State resources, and being in a position to speak for the Throne; and in the fact that Tokugawa government, by its long duration and the completeness of its bureaucratic organization, had taken so firm a hold of the country, that whatever sympathy might possibly be evoked on behalf of revived Imperial pretensions might not unreasonably be expected to fall short of material support.