George Graceford

George Graceford, the Lord Confessor, became a central figure in the confrontation over Lord Rowan’s alleged treason: he brought the prisoner before Aegon III, whose rejection of Rowan’s confession turned the king’s order against Graceford himself. After his arrest, Graceford named a wider circle of alleged conspirators, extending the crisis beyond the royal court.

Role in the accusation

At the public recitation of Lord Rowan’s alleged crimes, Ser Marston Waters said Rowan had confessed and beckoned Graceford to bring the prisoner forward. Rowan was in chains and initially did not move; Graceford pricked him with his dagger, after which Rowan confirmed the confession and said that Lotho Rogare had promised him payment and Roggerio Rogare had supplied the poison. Graceford thus helped stage the confession before the king and court, though the account does not establish what he knew about Rowan’s allegations beforehand.

The king’s reversal

Prince Viserys questioned Rowan about whether his wife and the prince himself had been involved. Rowan implicated both, then admitted to poisoning King Viserys. Aegon III answered by declaring Rowan innocent and naming those who had tortured him to obtain a false confession as the traitors. He ordered Ser Marston to seize Graceford, making the Lord Confessor—who had brought Rowan before the court—one of the immediate targets of the king’s command.

Ser Marston obeyed. The Kingsguard seized Graceford and took him to the dungeon he had ruled earlier that day. At the same time, Rowan’s chains were removed, and his knights and serving men were brought up from the dungeons. The reversal was both political and practical: Graceford lost control of the place where prisoners were held, while the man whose confession he had presented was released from custody.

Disclosure of the alleged conspirators

Graceford was not subjected to torment. The sight of the instruments was enough for him to give up the names of other alleged conspirators. His list included the late Ser Amaury Peake and Ser Mervyn Flowers of the Kingsguard, Tessario the Tiger, Septon Bernard, Ser Gareth Long, Ser Victor Risley, and Ser Lucas Leygood of the gold cloaks. He also named six of the seven captains of the city gates and three of the queen’s ladies.

Those disclosures were followed by arrests and resistance. Men sent for Leygood encountered a short, savage fight at the Gate of the Gods in which nine people died, including Leygood. Three accused captains escaped with a dozen of their men. Tessario the Tiger fled as well, but was captured in a dockside tavern near the River Gate while negotiating passage aboard an Ibbenese whaler. Graceford’s place in the episode is therefore defined by two successive acts of disclosure: first, his presentation of Rowan’s confession, which the king rejected, and then the names he supplied after his own arrest, which exposed the alleged plot’s wider reach.