Flight to Dragonstone

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Flight to Dragonstone
Conflict Dance of the Dragons
Date 130 AC
Place King's Landing
Rosby
Stokeworth
Duskendale
Dragonstone
Result Victory for the greens
Death of Rhaenyra Targaryen
Deaths of the last Queensguards
Capture of Prince Aegon Targaryen
Combatants
Rhaenyra Targaryen.svg Blacks Aegon II Targaryen.svg Greens
Commanders
Rhaenyra Targaryen.svg Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen Aegon II Targaryen.svg King Aegon II Targaryen
Ser Alfred Broome
Strength
Three Queensguards Forty guards
Casualties
Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen
Ser Harrold Darke
Ser Adrian Redfort
Ser Loreth Lansdale
Prince Aegon Targaryen (POW)
Elinda Massey (POW)
Two guards†

The flight to Dragonstone designates the flight from King's Landing to the island of Dragonstone made by Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen and her small escort at the end of 130 AC.[1]

Prelude

The civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons has been raging in Westeros for over a year. Both parties, the Blacks and the Greens, lost many men as well as dragons and commanders in the conflict. In the first part of the year 130 AC, Rhaenyra Targaryen's forces took King's Landing from the greens. As the inhabitants of the city did not bear love for King Aegon II Targaryen and his brother, Prince Aemond Targaryen, they welcomed the arrival of the Queen. But the executions she ordered and the increase in taxes implemented by her master of coin, Lord Bartimos Celtigar, made the new queen hated by the Kingslanders, to the point that the "Realm's Delight" became known in the streets as "King Maegor with teats".[1]

The greens victory at the First Battle of Tumbleton only worsen the situation for the queen. The city was now terrorized of the advancing green army being so close. The death of Queen Helaena Targaryen, Aegon II's sister-wife who was taken captive by the blacks after the city's fall, triggered many riots throughout the city, which led to the storming of the Dragonpit. The consequences were terrible for the Rhaenyra: all the dragons present in King's Landing were massacred by the angry crowd, thousands of men died burned or crushed, the Hill of Rhaenys was in flame, and Prince Joffrey Velaryon, a son of Rhaenyra, died while trying to save his dragon Tyraxes.[1]

Rhaenyra's advisers all agree that the city can no longer be held and persuaded the queen to flee.[1]

The Flight

A royal escort is assembled to protect the queen, four of her ladies-in-waiting and her last living son,[N 1] Prince Aegon Targaryen. It was composed of:

The party left the Red Keep at dawn the following day of the riots, slipping out of the city through the Dragon Gate, and rode along the coast towards Duskendale. The flight proved difficult: at Rosby the castle closed its gates when they approached, at Stokeworth the castellan granted them hospitality only for one night. Half of the gold cloaks deserted, Ser Balon and Ser Lyonel were killed during an outlaw attack. At Duskendale, Lady Meredyth Darklyn opened the gates of the Dun Fort on the condition that they would not stay long only after the intervention of Ser Harrold, a kin to the Darklyns.[1][N 2]

With the help of Lady Darklyn's maester, she sent word to Grand Maester Gerardys on Dragonstone asking for a ship to come and sail her home. No ship came, however, and Rhaenyra was forced to sell her crown to buy passage on a Braavosi merchant ship, the Violande. She rejected the proposals of her companions to sail for Vale of Arryn or White Harbor, instead sailing for Dragonstone where she hoped to hatch a dragon egg.[1]

On Dragonstone, Ser Alfred Broome and forty guards escorted the queen's party from the harbor to the castle, where they found the corpses of Ser Robert Quince and Grand Maester Gerardys. The Queensguards were too slow to understand Ser Alfred had betrayed Rhaenyra for Aegon II, and they were killed by Alfred's guards. After a quick and cordial exchange between the half-sister and the half-brother, Rhaenyra is forcefully separated from her son, and placed in front of Sunfyre, who burned her alive.[1]

Aftermath

The queen's flight left a power vacuum in King's Landing, and three "monarchs" took control of parts of the city during the Moon of the Three Kings.[1]

The death of Queen Rhaenyra, on the twenty-second day of the tenth moon of the year 130 AC, does not directly end the civil war, but it really hurt the Blacks who lose their queen and pretender to the Iron Throne.[2]

Rhaenyra's ladies and son are made prisoner of the greens.[1]

Notes

  1. Though alive, Rhaenyra's youngest son, Prince Viserys, was believed to have perished in the Battle of the Gullet.
  2. The Darkes are distant kin of the Darklyns and Ser Harrold squired in his youth for Ser Steffon Darklyn, the uncle of Meredyth's late husband, Lord Gunthor Darklyn.

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 Fire & Blood, The Dying of the Dragons - Rhaenyra Overthrown.
  2. Fire & Blood, The Dying of the Dragons - The Short, Sad Reign of Aegon II.