House Royce

House Royce enters the account through Lady Rhea Royce of Runestone, whose marriage to Daemon Targaryen connected the house to a prince once regarded as heir to the Iron Throne. Her death brought that connection into sharper political focus: Daemon returned to the Vale hoping to claim her lands and incomes, but the inheritance went elsewhere and the Vale’s rulers refused him a place there.

Lady Rhea and Daemon Targaryen

Rhea married Daemon during the reign of Jaehaerys I. The marriage did not succeed. Daemon found life in the Vale dull and developed a dislike of his wife; the account notes that his derisive nickname for her drew on the bronze armor associated with House Royce. The chronicle gives no comparable account of Rhea’s view of the marriage, keeping the emphasis on Daemon’s estrangement and his changing political fortunes.

Rhea’s death and the succession to Runestone

In 115 AC, Rhea fell from her horse while hawking and suffered a grave head injury. She remained bedridden for nine days; after she felt well enough to rise, she collapsed and died within an hour. At the time, Daemon was in the Stepstones, where he was still struggling against the Triarchy and its Dornish allies. A message reached him there, and he flew to the Vale, saying he had come to put his wife to rest. The account also reports the suspicion that he hoped to secure her lands, castles, and incomes.

Daemon’s failed claim

Rhea’s lands did not pass to Daemon: Runestone went instead to her nephew. Daemon appealed to the Eyrie, but his claim was dismissed. Lady Jeyne Arryn further warned him that his presence in the Vale was unwelcome. The outcome made the limits of his marriage connection plain: it gave him no successful claim to House Royce’s inheritance.

House Royce in the political narrative

The episode links House Royce to the larger succession politics surrounding Daemon. Once viewed as his brother’s heir, he had fallen far down the succession, and his subsequent marriage to Laena Velaryon offered a powerful connection outside the Vale. Rhea’s death briefly reopened the possibility of gaining property through his first marriage, but her nephew’s succession and the Eyrie’s rejection closed that route. House Royce is thus encountered not through an account of its internal history, but at a moment when its inheritance becomes the object of a prince’s unsuccessful claim.