Bartimos Celtigar

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House Celtigar 2.svg Lord
Bartimos Celtigar
House Celtigar 2.svg
Titles
Allegiances
Race Valyrian
Culture Crownlands
Died In 130 ACKing's Landing
Issue Clement Celtigar
Books

Played by Nicholas Jones
TV series House of the Dragon: Season 1

Bartimos Celtigar was the Lord of Claw Isle and the head of House Celtigar during the Dance of the Dragons.[1]

In the television adaptation House of the Dragon, Bartimos is portrayed by Nicholas Jones.

Character

Bartimos was unrelenting, incorruptible, ingenious, and very wealthy.[2] He was an old man by the time of the Dance of the Dragons.[3]

History

Lord Bartimos was a member of Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen's black council during the Dance of the Dragons. He urged the queen to use her numerical advantage in dragons to take King's Landing from King Aegon II Targaryen, but Rhaenyra agreed with the cautious Prince Daemon Targaryen.[1] After Rhaenyra seized control of King's Landing, Bartimos was named lord treasurer and master of coin on her small council.[2]

Despite the fact that King Viserys I Targaryen had left the treasure vaults full of gold upon his death, the treasury was completely empty by the time Rhaenyra took the capital, for the greens had sent three quarters of the gold away for safekeeping and spent the rest prior to the fall of the capital. Rhaenyra was in desperate need of coin and to rectify this, Lord Bartimos put in place the ruinous taxes his ancestor Lord Edwell Celtigar once enacted, although Bartimos went a step further. Taxes on wine and ale were doubled, port fees tripled. Every shopkeeper was assessed a fee to keep his doors open. Innkeepers were required to pay a silver stag for each bed in their inn. The entry and exit fees once put on the seven city gates by Rego Draz, the "Lord of Air", were brought back, but at triple the cost. A property tax was put in place that smallfolk and wealthy alike were obliged to pay depending on how much space they took up. Bartimos even made executions a source of coin, by having them take place in the Dragonpit and charging those wishing to see the spectacle three pennies. Merchants and traders who couldn't pay had their property, ships, or cargo seized. Though these taxes replenished Queen Rhaenyra's coffers, they quickly made both the queen and Lord Bartimos despised by the populace.[2]

After the Treasons of Tumbleton by the Two Betrayers, Bartimos urged Rhaenyra to arrest the other two baseborn dragonriders, Ser Addam Velaryon and Nettles.[4][2] He later argued for a tax to be placed for any child born out of wedlock, which would help fill the royal coffers and would discourage more bastards being born. When riots broke out in King's Landing, Lord Bartimos's manse was overrun by a mob, his servants turned on him or fled, and his kinsman Arthor was cut down. Bartimos himself was bound to a post and tortured until he revealed all the locations of his wealth. Then a tanner named Wat declared to Bartimos that he hadn't paid the "cock tax" and thus his manhood was forfeit. Wat the Tanner later rode through the streets upon a stolen horse, displaying Lord Bartimos's severed head and genitals to the crowds and declaring an end to all taxes.[5]

Quote

Bastards are treacherous by nature, it is in their blood. Betrayal comes as easily to a bastard as loyalty to trueborn men.[2]

—Bartimos on the black council

Family

Bartimos
 
Unknown
wife
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Clement
 
 
Arthor
 


References

  1. 1.0 1.1 Fire & Blood, The Dying of the Dragons - The Blacks and the Greens.
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Fire & Blood, The Dying of the Dragons - Rhaenyra Triumphant.
  3. Fire & Blood, Aftermath - The Hour of the Wolf.
  4. The Princess and the Queen.
  5. Fire & Blood, The Dying of the Dragons - Rhaenyra Overthrown.
Unknown
Last known title holder:
Edwell Celtigar
Lord of Claw Isle
?–130 AC
Succeeded by