Tokugawa Yoshinobu

Born 28 October 1837, Tokugawa Yoshinobu became the fifteenth shōgun in a system already cracking under its own weight. He joined reformers trying to modernize the Tokugawa shogunate, but the structure wouldn't bend. In late 1867 he resigned, hoping to retain influence from the wings. That gamble collapsed at the Battle of Toba–Fushimi in early 1868. Afterward he withdrew into private life and stayed there, mostly invisible, until his death on 22 November 1913.