King's Small Council

The King's Small Council was the court body through which successive Targaryen rulers discussed affairs of state and assigned important work to trusted officers. Its composition changed with the needs of the Crown: the council could be dominated by a regent and Hand, reshaped by a young king, or supplemented by the queen’s participation. The appointments recorded in the reign of Jaehaerys Targaryen show a body that joined administration to politics, while later councils helped manage fiscal pressures, succession disputes, diplomacy, and war.

Offices and composition

The council’s practical character is visible in the appointments made during Jaehaerys Targaryen’s regency. Edwell Celtigar returned to court as lord treasurer and master of coin; Daemon Velaryon became lord admiral and master of ships; Prentys Tully was summoned to serve as master of laws; and Qarl Corbray received command of the King's Landing City Watch. Above these officers stood Rogar Baratheon as Hand of the King. Their posts linked the council to the Crown’s finances, laws, fleet, and largest armed force in the capital, while their different political histories connected the regency to lords who had served, or broken with, earlier regimes.

The council’s formal membership did not make every member equally powerful. During the regency, Jaehaerys Targaryen attended most of its meetings and made his opinions known, but final authority rested with Alyssa Targaryen and Rogar Baratheon. The arrangement placed a young king inside the work of government without giving him the decisive voice in every matter. It also made the council a setting in which royal authority was exercised jointly, and at times uneasily, by the monarch’s family and appointed ministers.

Renewal under Jaehaerys

As Jaehaerys Targaryen began ruling in his own right, he remade the council rather than simply preserving the regency’s appointments. He confirmed Daemon Velaryon as Hand and retained Qarl Corbray in command of the City Watch. Prentys Tully was thanked, reunited with his wife, Lucinda Tully, and sent back to Riverrun. For master of laws, the king appointed Albin Massey, Lord of Stonedance, who had been among the early visitors to Jaehaerys on Dragonstone. Massey had begun forging a maester’s chain, but the deaths of his two elder brothers and father had unexpectedly made him lord; a twisted spine left him walking with a limp. His learning and appointment mattered more to the king than the physical impression that, Massey knew, could lead others to misjudge him.

The king’s choice for Hand also reflected a deliberate search for qualities he thought the existing council lacked. Its members included learned men, so Jaehaerys sought an older and battle-tested warrior whose experience would balance his youth and whose reputation might deter the Crown’s enemies. After a dozen names were considered, he selected Myles Smallwood, Lord of Acorn Hall. Smallwood’s record included fighting for the king’s brother beneath the Gods Eye, battling Wat the Hewer at Stonebridge, and riding with the late Lord Stokeworth to bring Harren the Red to justice during Aenys’s reign. The choice joined military standing and long service to the political office of Hand.

The king’s renewal of the council did not mean that its meetings remained an exclusively male space. When Alysanne Targaryen began attending, some members were initially surprised, though their objections were voiced privately and soon faded. She proved wise, well-read, and clever, and became a welcome contributor to discussion. Her presence altered the council’s practice through participation rather than a change to its named offices: she was not merely represented by the king, but took part in deliberation herself.

Advice, trust, and limits

The council could bring sharply different proposals to a crisis. When the High Septon’s succession became an urgent concern, Rego Draz suggested that bribes might influence the Most Devout. Daemon Velaryon and Qarl Corbray advocated force, with Daemon proposing a fleet and Qarl offering to lead an army. Albin Massey raised the possibility of a mysterious death for Septon Mattheus. Septon Barth, Grand Maester Benifer, and Alysanne Targaryen opposed these schemes, and Jaehaerys rejected them. He chose instead to travel with Alysanne to Oldtown for the High Septon’s burial, treating the dead prelate’s service to the gods and friendship with the Iron Throne as reasons for their presence.

That decision exposed a limit to the council’s advice: a range of views could be heard, but the king retained the authority to choose among them. It also revealed that counsel was shaped by judgments about personal reliability. Before the journey, Septon Barth and Daemon Velaryon warned that the king and queen could be at risk in Oldtown. Manfryd Redwyne questioned whether Donnel Hightower could be trusted to protect the monarch, describing his priorities as bound to himself, his house, and Oldtown. The council’s deliberations therefore concerned not only policy but also the dangers of relying on powerful allies whose interests might diverge from the Crown’s.

The departure of Daemon Velaryon as Hand likewise made trust and suitability central questions. His age and wish to spend his remaining years with his children and grandchildren on Driftmark were given as his reasons for leaving. Jaehaerys considered Albin Massey, Rego Draz, and Septon Barth as possible successors, but each presented a political obstacle as well as strengths. Barth’s low birth and suspected loyalty to the Starry Sept made him unacceptable to great lords; Rego’s Pentoshi origins and mercantile background made another appointment of a foreign-born master of coin difficult to sustain; and Massey believed his appearance would cause the ignorant to see him as a villain. The king’s eventual choice of Myles Smallwood followed an assessment of what the council needed, not simply a search for the most capable adviser in the abstract.

Finance, policy, and public purpose

The council’s responsibilities were constrained by the Crown’s resources. During Alyssa Targaryen and Rogar Baratheon’s regency, the wars of Maegor had exhausted the royal treasury. Earlier tax increases and new levies had brought in less gold than expected while deepening the lords’ hostility to the king. Jaehaerys’s coronation and Alyssa Targaryen’s Golden Wedding had helped win affection from lords and smallfolk, but their splendor had added to the expense, with another major cost looming.

As master of coin, Edwell Celtigar again proved ineffective. Unwilling to offend fellow lords, he turned instead to the smallfolk of King's Landing, imposing higher charges close at hand: port fees were tripled, certain goods were taxed on both entry to and exit from the city, and new levies were imposed on innkeepers and builders. The measures illustrate how a council officer’s fiscal decisions could distribute the cost of royal government unevenly, and how practical efforts to replenish the treasury could carry political consequences.

The council also considered how spending might serve the city as well as the Crown. As the Dragonpit neared completion, Manfryd Redwyne proposed a great tourney to mark the building’s completion and his arrival as Hand. Good harvests, revenue from Rego Draz’s taxes, and increasing trade were cited in support; visitors and their purses were expected to benefit King's Landing as well. Jaehaerys accepted that a tourney could give the smallfolk something to cheer and help them forget their troubles. The proposal presented public celebration not as a substitute for administration, but as one of the ways the court sought to make royal rule visible and welcomed.

The council across changing reigns

Under Jaehaerys, the council was not the only forum for shaping policy. In the autumn of 55 AC, after Jaehaerys had been unable to find his lost niece, he began work in the Red Keep’s library on a comprehensive organization and reform of the kingdom’s laws. He worked with Septon Barth, Grand Maester Benifer, Albin Massey, and Alysanne Targaryen, calling this group his even smaller council. The project began with the painstaking collection and study of existing laws and would require years before reforms followed. Septon Barth ultimately contributed more than any other man to the resulting Books of Law. The episode distinguishes the council’s broader governing role from a smaller working circle assembled for a particular intellectual and administrative task.

In later reigns, the council remained the setting for delegated rule, but its members and political weight changed. During Viserys Targaryen’s reign, the routine work of governing was left largely to the council and the Hand, Otto Hightower. As Otto’s influence grew, lords and princes resented his manner and his access to the Iron Throne. His hostility toward Prince Daemon Targaryen helped shape decisions about Daemon’s removal from the offices of master of coin and master of laws; yet command of two thousand men in the City Watch made Daemon more powerful than before. The council’s ministerial arrangements could therefore alter the balance of power without settling the rivalries they were meant to manage.

The succession crisis made that tension still more visible. The Great Council chose Viserys Targaryen as heir by a lopsided margin, a decision later treated as a powerful precedent in disputes over succession. Meanwhile, disagreements surrounding Alicent Hightower’s supporters led Viserys to remove Otto Hightower as Hand in 109 AC and appoint Lyonel Strong. During the Dance of the Dragons, a newly assembled Green council took immediate steps to divide and secure the royal treasury, placing portions in the Iron Bank of Braavos, Casterly Rock, and Oldtown, while reserving the rest for gifts, bribes, and sellswords. Its plans included seeking Dalton Greyjoy’s allegiance by offering him the admiralty and a council seat. On Dragonstone, Rhaenyra Targaryen’s supporters planned their response through their own deliberations, coordinating an attack on Harrenhal, a naval blockade, dragon protection for the fleet, and approaches to prospective allies.

Across these episodes, the King's Small Council appears less as a stable institution with an unchanging membership than as a recurring instrument of royal government. Appointments brought expertise, military reputation, and political allegiance into the king’s service; resignations and replacements forced rulers to weigh ability against acceptability; and advice could be accepted, rejected, or overtaken by factional rivalry. Its work ranged from legal reform and diplomacy to taxes, security, and the financing of war, while its influence always depended on who held authority beyond the council chamber.