Hosokawa

The Hosokawa are a samurai clan of Seiwa Genji stock, an Ashikaga branch named for Ashikaga Yoshisue's estate in Mikawa Province. They backed Ashikaga Takauji in the early fourteenth-century wars and became one of the three Muromachi kanrei houses. Yoriyuki held the kanrei post from the 1360s, while kinsmen took constableships in Awa, Tosa and elsewhere.

In 1467 Kanrei Hosokawa Katsumoto's feud with his father-in-law Yamana Sozen over the shogunal succession ignited the Onin War, opening the Sengoku age. His son Masamoto for a time held the capital; his assassination in 1507 split the clan, and the main line was driven from Kyoto when Nobunaga seized the city.

A junior branch under Hosokawa Fujitaka and his son Tadaoki served Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Ieyasu, and after siding with Ieyasu at Sekigahara in 1600 was enfeoffed at Kumamoto with 540,000 koku. The Kumamoto lords ranked among the wealthiest Edo daimyo: the third lord Tadatoshi employed the swordsman Miyamoto Musashi, and Lord Shigekata's reforms and 1755 domain school restored the finances.