Sharra Arryn

Sharra Arryn was regent for her son, the boy king Ronnel Arryn, during Aegon Targaryen’s conquest. Remembered in her youth as the Flower of the Mountain, she faced the advancing Targaryen power with both diplomacy and preparations for defense. Her submission to Visenya Targaryen brought the Vale into her brother’s realm, while Ronnel’s transformation from king to lord marked the end of Arryn rule as an independent kingship.

Regent of the Vale

As regent for Ronnel, Sharra directed the Vale’s response to the threat posed by Aegon’s advancing forces. She took refuge in the Eyrie, strengthened the defenses of Gulltown, sent a strong host to the Bloody Gate, and tripled the garrisons at Stone, Snow, and Sky—the waycastles guarding the approach to the Eyrie. These preparations show that her government did not simply await the conqueror’s arrival: it sought to secure the principal approaches to the Vale.

Sharra also tried to influence Aegon through marriage. Once praised as the fairest maid in the Seven Kingdoms, she sent him a portrait and offered to marry him on the condition that he name Ronnel as his heir. The portrait reached Aegon, but the account leaves uncertain whether he ever replied. Sharra was ten years older than Aegon and, by this point, described as a faded flower; Aegon already had two queens. Her proposal made her son’s succession the explicit price of the match, but the evidence records no agreement or response.

Visenya at the Eyrie

Sharra’s defenses could not prevent Visenya from reaching the Eyrie. Riding Vhagar, Visenya flew over the guarded approaches and landed in the inner courtyard. Sharra hurried out with a dozen guards to confront her, but found the queen beside Ronnel, who sat on Visenya’s knee and stared at the dragon in wonder. The encounter proceeded through courtesies rather than threats or angry words.

The contrast was decisive: the Vale had fortified its roads, gates, and castles, yet Visenya’s dragon had carried her past them. Sharra then sent for three crowns—the coronet she wore as regent, Ronnel’s small crown, and the Falcon Crown of Mountain and Vale, worn by the Arryn kings for a thousand years—and surrendered them to Visenya, along with the swords of the garrison. Her act formally yielded the symbols of rule as well as the Vale’s military submission.

Ronnel’s Change of Status

After Sharra’s surrender, Ronnel reportedly flew three times around the summit of the Giant’s Lance and landed to find himself a lord rather than a king. The episode gives the change in political status a personal and immediate shape: the boy’s wonder at flight accompanied the transfer of his crown and the end of his independent royal title. Through Visenya’s mission, the Vale entered Aegon’s realm without a battle being recounted.

After the conquest, Ronnel married a daughter of Torrhen Stark as part of the wider effort by Aegon and his queens to bind the conquered lands through noble marriages. The account does not attribute that match to Sharra, but it places her son’s future within the political settlement that followed submission. Sharra’s brief but consequential role thus joins two forms of response to conquest: an attempt to secure her heir through negotiation, followed by a surrender that preserved the Arryn lordship within the new realm while ending its kingship.