Madenokoji Naofusa (万里小路正房)
Naofusa MADENOKOJI (December 25, 1802 - November 16, 1859) was a Kuge (court noble) who lived in the last days of the Tokugawa shogunate. He's father was Takefusa MADENOKOJI and his mother was a daughter of Tsunehaya KAJUJI. His first called himself "寿房."
He was born in Kyoto. He was conferred a peerage in 1820. He held prominent positions such as Benkan (an official of the Oversight Department which was a division of the daijokan responsible for controlling central and provincial governmental offices) and Kurodo no to (Head Chamberlain), and was appointed Sangi (Councilor) in 1838, and was raised to Jusanmi (Junior Third Rank) in 1841, thereafter becoming a Chunagon (Middle Counselor) in 1848.
In 1853, he became a Giso (Court Councilor who valetted for the emperor and was in charge of reporting a decision made by Daijokan [Grand Council of State] to the emperor and conveying the emperor's command to the nobles), and thereafter he played an active part in supporting the emperor in a relationship between the imperial court and Edo shogunate, and in 1855 Naofusa attended to receive the transcripts of the Treaties of amity concluded with the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia, respectively. In 1857, he became a Dainagon (Major Counselor) and in the following year he advocated a theory of 'Kobu Gattai' (union of the imperial court and the shogunate), arranging a reconciliation between the court and the shogunate in terms of an issue of the bakufu seeking imperial sanction to the treaties with the West ('Joyaku chokkyo mondai' in Japanese) and a friction caused between the two candidates for the 14th Shogun's post, Yoshinobu HITOTSUBASHI and Yoshitomi (the future Iemochi) TOKUGAWA ('Shogun keishi mondai' in Japanese). Furthermore, he became a Buke Tenso (or Denso) (Imperial official in charge of communication between the shogunate and the court), getting involved in grant of an imperial secret edict ('micchoku' in Japanese) to the Mito Domain, and retired as Gon Dainagon (Provisional Major Counselor) for his involvement in an incident related to the friction between the two potential successors to the 14th Shogun's post, in which Hisatada KUJO conveyed an imperial edict declaring eligibility for successor to the Shogun as having intelligence and courage ('eiketsu' in Japanese), popularity ('jinbo') and seniority ('nencho'), thereby inferring the name of Yoshinobu HITOTSUBASHI, from which edict, however, Hisatada KUJO arbitrarily deleted a passage showing the eligibility before granting it to the shogunate. In the same year, he went to Edo along with Nariyuki NIJO, Tadafusa KONOE and Mitsushige HIROHASHI so as to perform Shogun Senge (the imperial authorization for shogunal investiture) for Iemochi TOKUGAWA who was then installed as the 14th Seii Taishogun (literally, the great general who subdues the barbarians, which was a military rank and historical title of Shogun). In 1859, during the Ansei Purge ('Ansei no Taigoku' in Japanese), he was initially on the list of purgees, but as he had retired as Buke Tenso in advance, his sentence was commuted to probation of 30 days. He died in 1859.