Jaehaerys and Alysanne's Unconsummated Secret Marriage

Jaehaerys and Alysanne’s Unconsummated Secret Marriage was both a private act of choice by the young royal siblings and a political fact their regents tried to keep reversible. They married on Dragonstone before the Kingsguard and other witnesses, but did not consummate the union. Secrecy and that omission gave Rogar Baratheon room to hope he could separate them; the marriage endured, however, and was later celebrated publicly in King’s Landing.

Decision and Departure

The marriage arose as Jaehaerys and Alysanne faced plans being made for their marriages without their consent. Alysanne went directly to Jaehaerys when she learned she was to wed a youth ten years her senior whom she scarcely knew. He, in turn, understood that wedding arrangements would soon be made for him. Rather than submit to those plans, they acted together: Jaehaerys summoned his Kingsguard and instructed them to keep his departure secret.

That night, Jaehaerys and Alysanne mounted Vermithor and Silverwing and flew from the Red Keep to the ancient Targaryen stronghold on Dragonstone. The flight made their departure an immediate break with the court and its marriage plans, but not an escape from royal and religious forms. On landing, Jaehaerys sought a septon. He did not trust Septon Mattheus, who might have revealed their intention; Septon Oswyck, an old family acquaintance who had instructed both siblings in the Faith, agreed to perform the marriage.

The Dragonstone Ceremony

The Kingsguard reached Dragonstone by galley a few days later. The following morning, Septon Oswyck married Jaehaerys and Alysanne in the castle’s great yard. The seven white-cloaked knights witnessed the ceremony, as did the garrison, servants, and many people from the fishing village below the castle walls. The rites were complete, but the marriage was not consummated: because of Alysanne’s youth, there was no bedding ceremony. After a modest feast, the couple retired to the bedchamber where Aegon I Targaryen had once slept beside his sister Rhaenys.

The distinction between the marriage rite and its consummation shaped what followed. When Rogar Baratheon and Queen Alyssa Velaryon arrived from King’s Landing, Jaehaerys and Alysanne met them inside the castle gates holding hands. The queen regent recognized that the young couple had committed themselves, but the marriage had not yet been publicly announced or consummated. That left the union exposed to political maneuvering even though it had already been solemnized before witnesses.

Concealment and Life on Dragonstone

After the visitors returned to King’s Landing, the marriage remained secret to most of the realm. Rogar ordered those who had accompanied him to Dragonstone to say nothing, and no announcement was issued. When Septon Mattheus tried to send word to the High Septon and the Most Devout in Oldtown, Grand Maester Benifer burned the letter on Rogar’s orders rather than send a raven.

Rogar wanted time because he resented the king’s disregard for him and remained determined to find a way to part the siblings. In his view, the lack of consummation left open the possibility that the marriage could be undone; secrecy could keep that possibility from becoming a public crisis. Queen Alyssa also wanted time, though for a different reason. She believed the deed was done, yet the bloodshed that had followed another royal sibling marriage still haunted her, and she sought reassurance that history would not repeat itself. The regents still had a realm to govern until Jaehaerys reached his sixteenth nameday and assumed power himself.

Dragonstone became the couple’s refuge and residence for the remainder of Jaehaerys’s minority. They were seldom apart: they shared meals, spoke late into the night about their childhood and the challenges ahead, fished and hawked, and spent time among the island’s smallfolk in dockside inns. They read together from books in the castle library, took lessons from the maesters, prayed beside Septon Oswyck, and flew around the Dragonmont and as far as Driftmark. Their shared life continued while the marriage remained politically concealed. Servants’ accounts describe affection between them, but the marriage remained unconsummated for another year and a half.

Public Marriage and Significance

Once Jaehaerys had begun addressing the Crown’s finances, he sent for Alysanne. She and Silverwing left Dragonstone within an hour of the summons after nearly half a year apart. By then, the marriage was common knowledge among even the blind beggars of Flea Bottom, but the couple slept separately for a moon’s turn while preparations were made for a public wedding. Rather than spend on another lavish Golden Wedding, Jaehaerys held a more modest ceremony: a thousand people gathered in the Red Keep, and Septon Barth pronounced them husband and wife beneath the Iron Throne.

Rogar Baratheon and Queen Alyssa Velaryon attended, as did Rhaena Targaryen, who flew from the west on Dreamfyre to see her siblings marry and visit her daughter Aerea. When the ceremony ended, bells rang through the city and ravens carried word of the union across the realm. This second wedding also included a bedding ceremony. Alysanne later said that she had insisted on it because she was ready and wanted no further questions about whether she was truly married. The marriage was at last consummated in Maegor’s Holdfast, ending the interval in which its legal and public standing could be questioned.

The marriage’s secrecy was therefore temporary, not its defining outcome. The private ceremony established the couple’s commitment before the regents could redirect their futures; the long delay in public recognition exposed that commitment to political control. Its eventual public celebration turned a concealed and unconsummated union into an acknowledged royal marriage, while the contrast between the couple’s shared life on Dragonstone and the regents’ efforts to preserve their options shows how family authority, religious procedure, and royal power converged around their choice.