Hideyoshi Changes His Mind
Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Chancellor of the Realm and Imperial Regent of Japan, was inclined to encourage Christianity until he found out why European Powers were so keen on it.
1587
Queen Elizabeth I 1558-1603
Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Chancellor of the Realm and Imperial Regent of Japan, was inclined to encourage Christianity until he found out why European Powers were so keen on it.
1587
Queen Elizabeth I 1558-1603
Within fifty years of Fr Francis Xavier’s mission to Japan in 1549, there were a million Japanese Christians. Even Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-1598), Chancellor of the Realm and Imperial Regent of Japan, was intrigued, and he received further missionaries from Portugal and Spain, and even Papal ambassador Alessandro Valignano (1539-1606), most courteously — until a bluff ship’s captain let the cat out of the bag.
abridged
ALL seemed to herald the fairest prospects for the future of the Church. Hideyoshi had even hinted that he himself would become a Christian if the rules of the Faith did not involve the dissolution of his seraglio, in which he maintained 300 women. But Hideyoshi’s favour was short-lived.
A Spanish galleon, with a rich cargo, was driven out of her course while on a voyage from Manila to Acapulco and took refuge in a Japanese port. Hideyoshi proposed to confiscate her as a derelict, and the master, finding protests useless against such an outrage on a ship in distress belonging to a friendly nation, endeavoured to intimidate him by telling him of the greatness of Spain and showing him on a map how much of the world was under the Spanish Crown. Being asked how all these lands had been acquired, he answered: “It is by the help of missioners who are sent to all parts of the world to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for as soon as these Religious had gained a sufficient number of Proselytes, the King followed with his troops and, joining the new converts, made a conquest of the Kingdoms.”