Unwin Peake's Father-Daughter Relationship and Royal Marriage Plan for Myrielle

Unwin Peake’s effort to make his daughter Myrielle the next queen turned a father’s care for his only surviving child into a conspicuous bid for political advantage. After Jaehaera Targaryen’s death, he argued that Aegon Targaryen the Younger should remarry and presented Myrielle as the ideal choice. The plan brought the Peakes into conflict with the regents and other families, and ended not with Myrielle’s elevation but with her remembered as Lady Turnips.

Family and Dynastic Context

Unwin had married three times and fathered seven children, but Myrielle was the only one still living. The losses had come over many years: his firstborn son and both daughters by his second wife died in infancy; an eldest daughter from another marriage survived long enough to marry but died in childbirth at twelve; and a son fostered on the Arbor drowned in a sailing mishap at the same age. Ser Titus, Unwin’s heir, was knighted for valor after the Battle of the Honeywine, only to die six days later in a skirmish with broken men. Myrielle, left as his last surviving child, was also the sole remaining prospect for the continuation of his immediate line.

The proposed royal marriage belonged to a political world in which marriage could bind distant houses, answer old grievances, and shape succession. Targaryen queens had arranged matches between noble families to draw the realm together, while the promise of Princess Viserra to a Manderly ancestor had been remembered at White Harbor as a pledge left unfulfilled. When Aegon’s council considered a bride for him, a royal marriage therefore carried significance beyond the couple: it could reward a house, recognize an old claim, and redistribute access to the crown. Unwin’s plan for Myrielle placed his own family within that same system of dynastic bargaining.

The Marriage Plan

Seven days after Jaehaera’s body had been consigned to the flames, Unwin visited the grieving king with Grand Maester Munkun, Septon Bernard, and Marston Waters of the Kingsguard. They told Aegon that he must put aside his mourning and marry again for the realm’s good, and that a bride had already been chosen. Unwin described Myrielle as the suitable match: she was the king’s age, came from one of the realm’s noble houses, and had been educated by septas to read, write, and do sums. He also stressed that her mother had been fertile and presented this as a reason to expect Myrielle to bear sons.

Aegon’s reluctance exposed the distance between a royal marriage as a matter of governance and a marriage as a personal choice. He asked what would happen if he did not like Myrielle. Unwin replied that affection was not required: the king needed to marry her and father an heir. He then compared the match to turnips the king disliked but ate when cooks prepared them. The comparison escaped the private conversation and spread through the realm, giving Myrielle the unwanted sobriquet Lady Turnips. The nickname made her father’s blunt calculation memorable, but it also attached the marriage scheme’s indignity to the daughter it was meant to advance.

Opposition and the Maiden’s Day Ball

Unwin’s proposal alarmed the regents and other powerful figures, who objected that a marriage of such importance belonged to the council. Thaddeus Rowan and Manfryd Mooton were angry that they had not been consulted; a note from the Vale and objections from riverland lords and Cregan Stark further widened the resistance. Even Munkun, while speaking well of Myrielle, warned that the king’s servants could appear to be advancing Unwin’s family for its own power and glory. The criticism was not simply that Myrielle was unsuitable. It challenged Unwin’s attempt to settle the king’s marriage without shared approval.

Other families quickly put forward their own candidates. Lady Johanna Lannister recommended her daughters; Elenda Baratheon proposed hers; Lord Torrhen Manderly recalled the broken marriage promise to his house; and Sharis Footly nominated herself. Lady Samantha of Oldtown offered several candidates from connected houses and even proposed that the king might marry two women, one to rule beside him and another to provide heirs. The range of proposals showed how quickly a decision presented as the king’s private future became a contest among noble families for royal connection.

Faced with this pressure, Unwin changed the means without abandoning his purpose. He announced a Maiden’s Day ball at which eligible maidens from across the Seven Kingdoms could appear before Aegon and let him choose. The public language gave the king a choice, but before the announcement Unwin had already summoned Myrielle from Starpike. Although the ball was still three moons away, he wanted her at court early enough to befriend the king. According to the account, he also set secret efforts in motion against likely rivals. Stories damaging to several young women circulated, though the history presents the alleged plots as rumor rather than established fact.

Myrielle at Court and the Outcome

Unwin arranged for Myrielle to spend part of each day in Aegon’s company. During the fortnight before the ball, she shared half a dozen suppers with him. Mushroom, who was often present, described the king as quiet and ill at ease, though not actively displeased by Myrielle’s company. Three days before the event, Aegon handed her one of Jaehaera’s dolls. Myrielle took the gift as a sign of affection, and Unwin was pleased. The doll linked the proposed new match to the dead queen’s place in the king’s household, but the account does not establish that Aegon intended it as a promise.

At the ball, Myrielle carried the doll in her arms. Unwin had positioned her late in the first hour: not so early that he could be accused of giving his daughter precedence, but early enough, he hoped, that the king would not yet be weary. When Aegon greeted her by name and acknowledged that she liked the doll, Unwin believed his preparations might have succeeded. Yet the long presentation of more than a thousand maidens left the king increasingly restless. The spectacle that was meant to give him a choice also offered Unwin a chance to exploit his fatigue, since each weary response seemed, in his calculation, to improve Myrielle’s prospects.

Those prospects were unsettled when Baela Velaryon and Rhaena Corbray arrived after most of the maidens had been presented. They rode into the hall together, brushed aside Marston Waters’s demand that they dismount, and addressed Aegon as their brother. Rhaena announced that they had brought his new queen. This turn displaced Unwin’s carefully arranged presentation of Myrielle and brought the king’s half-sisters directly into the choice. The account states plainly that Myrielle never became Queen Turnips. Her failed elevation is the decisive outcome of the relationship’s political arc: Unwin could arrange access, cultivate a favorable impression, and attempt to manage the field of candidates, but he could not command the royal decision.