was a Japanese samurai lord who was the first shikken (regent) of the Kamakura shogunate and ōjōhead of the Hōjō clan. He was shikken from 1203 until his abdication in 1205, and Protector of Kyoto from 1185 to 1186.
Background
The Hōjō clan is alleged to have been descended from the Taira clan. The Hōjō clan based themselves in a northern part of the Izu Province, which was in the east and quite far away from the center of power in Kyoto.
Early life
Not much is known about Hōjō Tokimasa's early life prior to Minamoto no Yoritomo's arrival in Izu. There is no information about his parents and early childhood, mainly because culture was not concentrated in Izu, but rather in Kyoto. Tokimasa was born in 1138 into the influential Hōjō clan in the province of Izu. It is believed that his father was either Hōjō Tokikata or Hōjō Tokikane.
Tokimasa, as the head of the Hōjō clan, chose to stay out of the civil strife engulfing western Japan based on court succession disputes between the Cloistered Emperor Toba, his son Cloistered Emperor Go-Shirakawa, and Emperor Sutoku--who would be deposed in the fallout of the Hogen Rebellion. This also facilitated the rivalry between the Minamoto clan under Minamoto no Yoshitomo and the Taira clan under Taira no Kiyomori.
These two disturbances, known as the Hōgen Rebellion and Heiji Rebellion, ended in a Taira victory and the rule of the Cloistered Emperors Toba and Go-Shirakawa. Minamoto no Yoshitomo of the Minamoto clan was executed in 1160; all but three of his sons were also executed, and his daughters sent to convents. Of the three sons that were spared, Minamoto no Yoshitsune and Minamoto no Noriyori were sent to monasteries, while his eldest son, Minamoto no Yoritomo, only 13 years old, was exiled to Tokimasa's domain of Izu.
The name of Tokimasa's first official wife is not known. She and Tokimasa had two sons, Hōjō Munetoki (his first son, the date of birth is not clear) and Hōjō Yoshitoki, who became his heir later, in 1163. Tokimasa later married to Maki no Kata, who became his second official wife, and they had another son, Hōjō Masanori, in 1189. Tokimasa also had another son, Hōjō Tokifusa, with an unknown woman. Tokifusa's date of birth is estimated to be in 1175. Tokimasa also had many daughters. His first daughter, Hōjō Masako, who was born in 1156, later married Yoritomo. Awa no Tsubone, probably born in 1169, later became Yoritomo's sister-in-law, as she married Ano Zenjo, Yoritomo's younger brother.
Yoritomo, at first, was just another political exile of the Taira living in Izu, but as Taira brutality grew against the Japanese people and the imperial court and nobles, the court itself grew weary of Taira rule, and particularly of the brutal Taira no Kiyomori.
In 1179, Minamoto no Yoritomo, the Minamoto exile from Kyoto, fell in love with Tokimasa's daughter, Masako. In around 1180, they wed. That same year, Prince Mochihito, a son of Cloistered Emperor Go-Shirakawa and a brother of Cloistered Emperor Takakura and thus an uncle of Emperor Antoku, who was half-Taira and had been placed on the throne by the Taira, believed the Taira had denied him the throne and called on the exiled Minamoto leaders to go to war and oust the Taira. Yoritomo declared war on the Taira, thus gaining his father-in-law, Tokimasa's support and the support of the Hōjō clan. That same year, Masako and Yoritomo had a daughter, Ō-hime, Tokimasa's first grandchild.
Genealogy
Parents
Father: Hōjō Tokikata (北条 時方) Mother: Daughter of Tomo no Tamefusa (伴 為房) Consorts and issue: Wife: Daughter of Itō Sukechika (伊東 祐親, also known as Itō Nyūdō (伊東入道)) Son: Hōjō Munetoki (北条 宗時; d.1180) Daughter: Awa no Tsubone (阿波局; d.1227), married to Ano Zenjō (阿野 全成), elder brother of Minamoto no Yoshitsune Son: Hōjō Yoshitoki (北条 義時; 1163–1224) Wife: Maki no Kata (牧の方) Son: Hōjō Masanori (北条 政範; 1189–1204) Daughter: married to Hiraga Tomomasa (平賀 朝雅), and later to Fujiwara no Kunimichi (藤原 国通) Daughter: married to Inage Shigenari (稲毛 重成) Daughter: married to Utsunomiya Yoritsuna (宇都宮 頼綱) Daughter: married to Bōmon Tadakiyo (坊門 忠清) Wife: Unknown women Son: Hōjō Tokifusa (北条 時房; d.1175-1240) Daughter: Hōjō Masako (北条 政子; 1157–1225), married to Minamoto no Yoritomo (源 頼朝) Daughter: Hōjō Tokiko (北条 時子; d.1196), daughter of the same mother as Masako, married to Ashikaga Yoshikane (足利 義兼) Daughter: married to Hatakeyama Shigetada (畠山 重忠), and later to Ashikaga Yoshizumi (足利 義純) Daughter (d.1216): married to Shigenoi Sanenobu (滋野井 実宣) Daughter: married to Kawano Michinobu (河野 通信) Daughter: married to Ōoka Tokichika (大岡 時親)