Born into the Imaizumi Shimazu branch family of Satsuma, she was adopted by domain lord Shimazu Nariakira. Nariakira devised a political strategy to exert influence over the Tokugawa shogunate through her; she was further adopted into the aristocratic Konoe family (one of the five regent houses) before entering Edo Castle's Ooku in 1856 as the official wife—御台所—of the thirteenth shogun Tokugawa Iesada. After Iesada's early death she took the name Tensho-in and became the effective head of the Ooku, presiding with authority through the turbulence of the Bakumatsu. During the Boshin War, even as her home domain of Satsuma fought to overthrow the shogunate, she refused to abandon her identity as a Tokugawa woman and protected the Ooku's ladies-in-waiting. When Edo Castle was to be surrendered, she worked tirelessly for the survival of the Tokugawa family, cooperating with the imperial court's representative Imperial Princess Kazunomiya to prevent the extinction of the Tokugawa main line. After the Restoration she never missed her temple visits and lived simply, watching quietly over the family's future. She died in 1883 at forty-eight. She is widely known from the NHK historical drama 'Atsuhime' (2008).