[Descendant Series] Are there any descendants of Masanobu Honda today?

[Introduction]

Masanobu Honda, the confidant of Ieyasu Tokugawa and the mastermind who was even called his "friend" Masanobu Honda was quite disliked by other warlords, but...

Are there any descendants of Masanobu today?
You might think, "Masanobu's son Masazumi was punished, and the Honda family was stripped of their rank, so there are no descendants."

I also thought that Masanobu's descendants had died out, but I had heard before that "one of Masanobu's children became the chief retainer of the Kaga Maeda family."

And, when I went on a trip to Kanazawa a few years ago, I visited a place called the Kaga Honda Museum.
According to the museum's explanation, Masanobu's second son became the chief retainer of the Kaga Maeda family and passed down the position of chief retainer from generation to generation.

It seems that his descendants are still around today.
Therefore, Masanobu's descendants still exist.

I investigated the circumstances behind why Masanobu's second son became a chief retainer for the Kaga Maeda family.

Masanobu Honda had three sons: Masazumi Honda, Masashige Honda, and Tadazumi Honda.
So, there were two sons below Masazumi.

The person who became a chief retainer for the Kaga Maeda family was the second son, Masashige Honda.
Before that, I would like to start by explaining the eldest son, Masazumi Honda.

[Masazumi Honda]

Masazumi Honda supported Ieyasu in the Edo Shogunate alongside his father Masanobu and was his close aide.
It is said that it was Masazumi who suggested filling in not only the outer moat but also the inner moat of Osaka Castle after the Siege of Osaka Winter Campaign.

In the show "Dousuru Ieyasu," Masanobu was called a swindler, and it seems he was a cunning guy like his father.

When Ieyasu and his father Masanobu died one after another in 1616, he became a close aide to Hidetada and was appointed as a Toshiyori (Senior Councilor).

However... without the backing of Ieyasu and his father Masanobu, he was not well-regarded by Hidetada and his close aides.

It seems he had a bad personality.

In 1622, Masazumi incurred Hidetada's wrath and suddenly fell from power.
The reason given was that he had plotted to assassinate Hidetada at his residence, Utsunomiya Castle (the Utsunomiya Tsuritenjo Incident).

However, it is said that there is no evidence for this incident and that it was a frame-up.

Due to this incident, the Honda family was stripped of their rank, and Masazumi and his son Masakatsu were entrusted to Yoshinobu Satake, the lord of the Kubota Domain in Akita, and were placed under house arrest in Yokote.

Masazumi achieved great success, but like his father Masanobu, he seems to have had a bad reputation among those around him.
It seems he fell from power due to power struggles as well.

It feels a bit pitiful, doesn't it...

After that, Masanobu's grandson (if he had one), Masayoshi Honda, took the surname Wada and reportedly lived in Mino Province.

His descendants later changed their surname to Kimura, and it is said that descendants still exist today.
They have also attended festivals in Utsunomiya City, where Masazumi once had his castle.

Although the surname has changed, descendants of the eldest son, Masazumi Honda, have also properly continued to the present day.

[Masashige Honda]

The second son, Masashige Honda, had a rough, martial personality.
Masashige's life was full of ups and downs.

First, he killed a man named Sohachi Okabe, the son of Tokugawa Hidetada's wet nurse, after a dispute, and fled the Tokugawa family.

After that, he served numerous daimyo such as Yoshitsugu Otani, Hideie Ukita, and Masanori Fukushima, and for a time, he even called himself Saebei Masaki.

At the Battle of Sekigahara, he belonged to the Western Army's Ukita forces, but after the defeat, he reportedly avoided punishment because his father Masanobu was Ieyasu's closest aide.

Later, he served Masanori Fukushima but resigned shortly after, and was then hired by Toshinaga Maeda with a stipend of 30,000 koku.

He also took Matsu, the daughter of Uesugi retainer Kanetsugu Naoe, as his wife, and there was talk of him succeeding as head of the Naoe family under the name Yamatonokami Katsuyoshi Naoe.
However, Matsu died the following year, and he remarried to Ako, the daughter of Kanetsugu's younger brother Saneyori Oguni, but this caused a stir as Saneyori opposed it and fled.

He then fled the Uesugi family and returned to the Maeda family of the Kaga Domain.

When the shogunate pressured the Maeda family to return their territory, he worked tirelessly on negotiations to have the order withdrawn, and when the Maeda family was suspected of treason just before the Siege of Osaka, he went to Edo to explain the situation, saving the Maeda family from crisis multiple times.

He seems to have been a capable man with not only martial prowess but also intelligence.
As expected of Masanobu's son.

Due to these achievements, he became the chief retainer of the Kaga Domain and the first head of the Honda clan of the Kaga Eight Families.

He was a man who changed masters so frequently that there is even a theory that he was a spy for Ieyasu Tokugawa.
Even Takatora Todo would be surprised.

Masashige's descendants supported the Kaga Domain as the hereditary chief retainers of the Maeda family, and his lineage continues to this day.

The current head is the 15th generation, a man named "Masamitsu Honda".
He serves as the director of the Kaga Honda Museum, which I have also visited.
The Kaga Honda Museum displays many of the Honda family's household goods, so if you are interested, please pay a visit.

Also, Masamitsu Honda has three daughters, and his eldest daughter has taken in a son-in-law named "Toshihiko Honda".
He is the 16th generation.

Toshihiko Honda serves as an associate professor at Takaoka University of Law, where he conducts research on Kaga and the Honda family, and has published papers and books.

It is said that the names of Honda Masashige's descendants always include the character "Masa". Although Toshihiko Honda, who married into the family, is an exception.

It feels more like "descendants of Honda Masashige" rather than "descendants of Honda Masanobu".

[Honda Tadazumi]

His third son, Honda Tadazumi, was the person who was granted 10,000 koku in Enomoto, Shimotsuke, established the Enomoto Domain, and served as its first lord.

He was said to have a rough, militant personality similar to his second eldest brother Masashige, but he reportedly did what was expected of him as a lord.

He also participated in the Siege of Osaka, and although he was defeated by Mori Katsunaga, for some reason he was granted an additional 18,000 koku.

Perhaps he achieved some kind of feat, or perhaps it was thanks to the prestige of his father, Masanobu.

On the other hand, Tadazumi was short-tempered and often killed his retainers on the spot.
Because of this, he was feared by his retainers, and he was eventually assassinated by a retainer who feared for his own life.

He met an end similar to Ashikaga Yoshinori... though it was his own fault.

The family line continued after Tadazumi's death, but his successors died young one after another, leading to the abolition of the Enomoto Domain in 1640, and his descendants are said to have died out.

Therefore, no descendants of this Tadazumi remain.
Did his descendants die out because of Tadazumi's bad behavior?

[Conclusion]

Although their surnames have changed, the descendants of Masazumi and the descendants of Masashige, who became the chief retainer of the Kaga Maeda family, have continued to the present day.

I did not know that Masanobu had a second and third son besides Masazumi.

Even so, Masashige's life was truly full of ups and downs.
Still, he must have been a capable person to be taken in by the Maeda and rise to become the chief retainer.

The descendants of Honda Masanobu have indeed continued to the present day.