After the Meiji Restoration, Prince Asahiko's political enemies did not relent. In 1868, he was deprived of his status as a prince of the blood and exiled to Hiroshima on trumped-up charges of plotting to overthrow the new government. Emperor Meiji pardoned him in February 1872, restoring his princely status and allowing him to start a new collateral branch of the imperial dynasty, the "Kuni-no-miya". He spent the last two decades of his life as the lord custodian priest ("saishu") of the Shinto Grand Shrine of Ise. Prince Kuni Asahiko died in Tokyo in 1891.