Aegon's iron-and-ruby crown

Aegon's iron-and-ruby crown is the ruby-set circlet associated with Aegon the Conqueror’s coronation and the succession of the early Targaryen kings. Passed from Aegon to Aenys and claimed by Maegor, it became more than a mark of office: at moments of disputed inheritance, the crown’s placement on a ruler’s head made a claim to the Iron Throne public, without resolving whether that claim was lawful.

Form and First Coronation

At Aegon’s first coronation, Queen Visenya placed a ruby-studded Valyrian steel circlet on her brother’s head. Queen Rhaenys then proclaimed his royal titles as the dragons roared and lords and knights cheered. The smallfolk—fishermen, fieldhands, and goodwives—shouted loudest. The crown was part of a public transformation: Aegon’s dragonlord rule was presented in the forms of Westerosi kingship, before an audience that included not only the lords he meant to rule but the people who would live under that rule.

A second coronation followed Aegon’s submission at Oldtown. In the Starry Sept, the High Septon anointed him with the seven oils, placed a crown upon his head, and proclaimed him king and Protector of the Realm. Hundreds of lords attended, and tens of thousands cheered as Aegon rode through Oldtown on Balerion. The account distinguishes this ceremony from the first, sparsely attended crowning at the mouth of the Blackwater: the Oldtown coronation, witnessed by maesters and archmaesters of the Citadel, became the date from which Aegon’s reign was reckoned.

Inheritance and Seizure

After Aegon’s death on Dragonstone, his son Aenys donned his father’s iron-and-ruby crown and was proclaimed king by Grand Maester Gawen. Aenys presented Blackfyre to his brother Maegor, saying that Maegor was more fit to bear the sword, and promised that they would rule together. The crown thus accompanied an orderly public succession, while the promise of shared rule and the bequest of the sword introduced a different, more precarious inheritance between the brothers.

When Aenys died, Maegor returned to Dragonstone with Queen Visenya and claimed the crown. His mother placed the iron crown, set with blood-red rubies, on his head as the gathered lords and knights knelt. Grand Maester Gawen objected that the laws affirmed by the Conqueror required the Iron Throne to pass to Aenys’s son Aegon. Maegor answered that the throne would go to whoever had the strength to seize it, then killed Gawen with Blackfyre. The scene makes the crown an instrument of accession but not proof of lawful inheritance: Maegor’s ceremony and the kneeling of those present could not erase the succession rule he had defied.

The Crown in the Dance

Generations later, Ser Criston Cole placed the iron-and-ruby crown of Aegon the Conqueror on the head of King Viserys and Queen Alicent’s eldest son, proclaiming him Aegon II. The choice was pointed: Aegon wore the Conqueror’s crown rather than the crown King Viserys had worn. Queen Alicent had ordered Viserys’s crown put away, but it was stolen and carried to Dragonstone by Ser Steffon Darklyn and other loyalists who had deserted the city.

At Rhaenyra’s coronation, Daemon placed that other crown—the crown of King Jaehaerys the Conciliator—on his wife’s head. Rhaenyra declared Aegon II’s supporters traitors but offered to spare her half-brothers and Helaena if they submitted, invoking their shared blood. The opposed coronations set two distinct royal objects against each other: Aegon II’s use of the Conqueror’s crown and Rhaenyra’s use of Jaehaerys’s. The regalia made the rival claims legible in public, even as both sides asserted authority over the same Iron Throne.

Political Significance

Across these successions, the crown’s meaning depends on who places it, who receives it, and who witnesses the act. Visenya’s crowning of Aegon accompanied the creation of a new realm; the High Septon’s ceremony in Oldtown joined royal authority to religious anointing; and Aenys’s use of his father’s crown presented succession as continuity. Maegor’s seizure exposed the limits of ceremony when a claimant openly rejected inheritance law, while the competing coronations of Aegon II and Rhaenyra turned ancestral crowns into visible signs of a divided dynasty. The object could proclaim kingship, but it could not by itself settle who was entitled to rule.