House Peake

House Peake is one of the oldest houses of the Reach, with roots traced to the Age of Heroes and the First Men. Its history is marked by a dramatic loss of political standing after the Conquest and, under Unwin Peake, an effort to restore the family’s former influence. The house’s story links inherited prestige and landed power to the contests for office and control that followed the Dance of the Dragons.

Identity and Historical Standing

The Peakes’ ancestral claims rested on a long history of service and distinction. Their forebears included figures remembered as Ser Urrathon the Shieldsmasher, Lord Meryn the Scribe, Lady Yrma of the Golden Bowl, Ser Barquen the Besieger, and three lords named Eddison and Emerick. Members of the house had served as counselors at Highgarden when the Reach was the richest and most powerful kingdom in Westeros. Its daughters also married into prominent families, including House Redwyne, House Rowan, House Costayne, House Oakheart, House Osgrey, House Florent, and House Hightower. Such connections reflected the Peakes’ former place among the leading families of the region.

The family’s land and seat were strengthened by an earlier royal favor. When the power of House Manderly became excessive, Lorimar Peake defeated the family and drove it into exile in the North. King Perceon III Gardener rewarded Lorimar with the former Manderly seat at Dunstonbury and its surrounding lands; Perceon’s son Gwayne then married Lorimar’s daughter. She became the seventh Peake woman to sit as Queen of the Reach. The award of a former rival’s seat and the marriage into the royal family show how military service could bring the Peakes both territory and proximity to power.

Conquest and Decline

The arrival of Aegon the Conqueror ended the political order that had sustained the house’s prominence. Lord Armen Peake and his sons died at the Field of Fire alongside King Mern and his sons. With House Gardener extinguished, Aegon granted Highgarden and rule of the Reach to House Tyrell, its former royal stewards. The Tyrells had no blood ties to House Peake and no reason to favor it, and the family’s gradual decline followed.

A century later, House Peake still possessed three castles and extensive, well-populated lands, but those lands were not especially rich. More importantly, it no longer held pride of place among the bannermen of Highgarden. Its inherited stature therefore survived in family history and property, while its former political authority did not. Unwin Peake’s later ambition to restore the house responded directly to this gap between its storied past and its diminished position.

Unwin Peake and the Dance

Unwin’s drive to raise the family’s standing shaped his conduct during the Dance of the Dragons. Like his father, who had supported the majority at the Great Council of 101, he rejected the idea that a woman should rule men. He became one of the fiercest supporters of the greens and led a force of a thousand swords and spears to keep Aegon II on the Iron Throne. His cause was therefore both dynastic and political: he fought for the king whose faction he supported while pursuing a place for his own house in the postwar order.

When Ormund Hightower fell at Tumbleton, Unwin believed that command of the host should pass to him, but rivals denied him the position. He never forgave them. During the same conflict, he stabbed Owain Bourney, whom the account identifies as a turncloak, and plotted the murders of the dragonriders Hugh Hammer and Ulf White. Unwin was also foremost among the Caltrops, a conspiracy whose membership was not widely known; by the regency period, he was one of only three members still living. These episodes established him as a powerful and dangerous political actor, not merely a lord seeking advancement through customary service.

Power During the Regency

After the war, Unwin became Lord Regent, Protector of the Realm, and Hand of the King, ruling in all but name for nearly three years during Aegon III’s minority. He used his authority to place people close to him in positions of force. Ser Marston Waters, whom he had raised to command the Kingsguard, appointed Unwin’s nephew Ser Amaury Peake and his bastard brother Ser Mervyn Flowers to white cloaks. Unwin also placed the City Watch under Ser Lucas Leygood and added five hundred of his own men to the gold cloaks to replace losses from the Winter Fever and the Moon of Madness.

The Hand’s mistrust of others, sharpened by the betrayals and killings he had witnessed and participated in at Tumbleton, also shaped his personal security. He surrounded himself with ten sellswords loyal to him and the money he paid them. Their captain was Tessario, a Volantene adventurer whose facial and back tattoos marked him as a former slave soldier. The guards became known as Unwin’s Fingers; Tessario welcomed the name Tessario the Tiger, while others used the mocking nickname Tessario the Thumb. The force made the Hand’s private dependence on paid loyalty visible within the court.

Unwin’s authority and ambitions were also apparent at the great gathering of lords in 136 AC. He arrived with a thousand of his own men and five hundred sellswords, the largest retinue at the assembly, as nobles tried to choose new regents and a Hand. The lords rejected his return to the Hand’s office after Prince Viserys argued that Aegon would prefer a younger man and one less likely to fill the court with traitors. Even so, the settlement accommodated Peake influence: Gedmund Peake was chosen as lord admiral and master of ships. Unwin’s presence could not secure the office he wanted, but the family retained a place in the new administration.

Conspiracy and Uncertain Responsibility

When a plot against Aegon III was uncovered, suspicion fell heavily on Unwin. Several accused conspirators were connected to him by blood or owed their positions to him, and Mushroom argued that a hidden master had set them in motion from afar. The account presents Unwin as the obvious candidate for this role, given his history of conspiracy and his ties to the accused. Yet suspicion did not become proof: Unwin had been at Starpike during the secret siege, and none of those described as his supposed agents named him. His involvement remained unproven both at the time and in the later account.

The distinction matters to House Peake’s place in the history of the regency. The family’s resurgence under Unwin was real: he held the kingdom’s highest offices, strengthened his position through appointments, and brought an imposing household force to court. But his suspected role in the king’s conspiracy remains an allegation, not an established act. House Peake emerges as a family whose old prestige could be revived through its lord’s political skill and coercive resources, even as the unresolved accusations around him made that recovery inseparable from fear and distrust.