Aenys I and Alyssa Velaryon

Aenys I and Alyssa Velaryon were spouses, parents of six children, and the founders of a branch of the royal family whose births repeatedly altered the question of succession. Their marriage, made between two fifteen-year-olds in 22 AC, was described as both happy and fruitful. Its private history receives little detail, but its dynastic importance is clear: Alyssa’s children became central to the future of House Targaryen, while her actions as a widow placed her and them beyond the immediate reach of Maegor’s new regime.

Marriage and dynastic alliance

Aenys was the first of the sons of Aegon I to marry. His bride was Lady Alyssa, daughter of Aethan Velaryon, Lord of the Tides and the king’s lord admiral and master of ships. The match also joined two families of Valyrian descent. The Velaryons shared the Targaryens’ silvery hair and purple eyes, and Aegon’s own mother had been a Velaryon; accordingly, the marriage was regarded as one between cousins.

The wedding in 22 AC connected the royal house to an established seafaring family already represented in Aegon’s service. The account does not portray the marriage as merely an arrangement between political houses: it explicitly describes the union as happy as well as fruitful. At the same time, the births that followed gave that marriage consequences far beyond the couple’s household, adding heirs and daughters to a dynasty whose succession had not been settled for every generation.

Children and the succession

In 23 AC, Alyssa gave birth to their first child, a daughter named Rhaena in honor of Aenys’s mother. Like Aenys, Rhaena was small at birth, but she proved healthy and lively. The birth brought rejoicing across the realm. Aegon himself reportedly wept when the infant was placed in his arms and thereafter doted on her; she may have reminded him of the lost queen whose name she bore.

Rhaena’s arrival also raised a question about the place of Aenys’s half-brother Maegor in the succession. Aenys was accepted as heir, but it was disputed whether Maegor remained second in line or whether the newborn princess should stand ahead of him. Queen Visenya proposed betrothing the infant to Maegor, then eleven. Aenys and Alyssa opposed the match. The High Septon also warned Aegon that the Faith would not favor it, and proposed his own niece, Ceryse Hightower, as Maegor’s bride instead. Aegon accepted that alternative, mindful of the advantages of closer ties with Oldtown. Thus, the couple’s first child made their family part of an immediate debate over royal precedence, even though the proposed marriage that would have tied Rhaena to Maegor did not proceed.

Alyssa and Aenys’s next child was a son, Aegon, born the following year. His birth was celebrated throughout the Seven Kingdoms, and Aegon I praised the boy’s robust appearance. The account presents Aegon as the expected successor after his father: with Aenys following the Conqueror and Aegon following Aenys, the line appeared clear, though the earlier question about Maegor’s place had not simply vanished.

The family continued to grow. Alyssa gave birth to Viserys in 29 AC, Jaehaerys in 34 AC, and Alysanne in 36 AC. The account records Alysanne’s birth when Rhaena was thirteen, and notes how delighted the older girl was with her baby sister. In all, Alyssa bore six children with Aenys: Rhaena, Aegon, Viserys, Jaehaerys, Alysanne, and one further child not identified in the supplied account of their births. The surviving details show how each addition enlarged the royal family, while Rhaena’s birth in particular had already made the succession a matter of competing claims and proposed matches.

Aenys’s death and Alyssa’s flight

Aenys died on Dragonstone after a period of illness and fear amid the Faith Militant crisis. His death separated the couple’s story from its earlier focus on marriage and childbearing and made the safety of their children an urgent political matter. At his funeral, their sons Viserys and Jaehaerys and their daughter Alysanne attended; they were twelve, seven, and five. Alyssa sang a dirge for her husband. Aenys’s dragon, Quicksilver, lit the funeral pyre, with Vermithor and Silverwing also adding their fire.

Alyssa did not remain on Dragonstone after the funeral. Within hours, she took her children to the nearby castle of her father, Aethan Velaryon, on Driftmark. The account places this departure alongside Maegor’s seizure of the crown: Alyssa and the children were absent from his coronation. Maegor’s response was to retire to the Painted Table chamber and dictate letters to lords across the realm. The contrast is consequential: while the new king began asserting authority through proclamations, Aenys’s widow had removed his children from the place where that authority was being claimed.

The danger to the family persisted. A later account reports that, after Queen Visenya’s death, Alyssa and her children escaped Dragonstone with Vermithor and Silverwing, and that they also took the Valyrian steel sword Dark Sister. Maegor ordered his Kingsguard to seize his squire, Viserys, and question him about his mother’s whereabouts. The episode underscores how the bond between Alyssa and her children had become inseparable from the struggle over Aenys’s inheritance: their movements, and the resources they carried with them, mattered to the rival royal claims.

Significance of the relationship

The evidence gives Aenys and Alyssa’s relationship a clear arc: a young marriage regarded as happy, a succession of births that enlarged and complicated the royal line, and a widowhood defined by the need to take their children away from a dangerous court. Their union linked the crown to House Velaryon through Alyssa’s parentage, while their children made the marriage central to the dynasty’s continuity. After Aenys’s death, Alyssa’s departures from Dragonstone show that the family connection endured as an active political reality, not only as a record of lineage. Their marriage therefore stands at the intersection of household life and royal succession: the children it produced became both the legacy of the union and the people most exposed to the conflict over who should rule.