The Coronation and Wedding of Aegon III joined dynastic marriage to the public transfer of the crown at a moment when the realm was emerging from civil war. On the seventh day of the seventh moon of 131 AC, ten-year-old Aegon married Jaehaera Targaryen and was proclaimed king. With the Dragonpit still largely in ruins and no dragons to lend the ceremony their former spectacle, the outdoor rites on Visenya’s Hill presented a fragile political settlement as both a royal wedding and the beginning of a new reign.

Setting and Ceremony

The damaged Dragonpit dictated the ceremony’s setting. Instead of an indoor wedding beneath its dome, the celebrations took place at the top of Visenya’s Hill, where towering grandstands gave the nobility a comfortable, unobstructed view. Septon Eustace recorded a cold but sunny day and the date, the seventh day of the seventh moon, as especially auspicious. The High Septon came from Oldtown to perform the marriage rites himself.

The smallfolk’s response made the marriage a public event as well as a dynastic one: a deafening roar rose when the High Septon declared the children joined. Tens of thousands crowded the streets to cheer as Aegon and Jaehaera were carried in an open litter to the Red Keep. There Aegon placed a plain circlet of yellow gold on his bride’s head, then was proclaimed Aegon of House Targaryen, Third of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, and Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. The simplicity of his crown stood against the scale of the crowd and the carefully constructed grandstands.

A Dynastic Marriage and a Changed Kingship

The marriage joined the children of the two sides that had fought over the crown. It was therefore more than a private match: the new king and queen embodied a proposed reconciliation between the branches of House Targaryen. Yet the account does not present the spectacle as a complete restoration. The Dragonpit remained in ruins, there would be no dragon flight around the city or majestic descent into the castle yard, and Alicent Hightower was conspicuously absent. As Jaehaera’s grandmother, the Dowager Queen might have been expected to attend; her absence marked a limit to the appearance of family unity.

The pageantry also belonged to a longer history in which crowns, anointing, and public recognition made rival claims visible. Aegon the Conqueror had first been crowned at the mouth of the Blackwater and later anointed by the High Septon in the Starry Sept at Oldtown; the latter ceremony became the recognized start of his reign. During the Dance, Aegon II was crowned with the Conqueror’s iron-and-ruby crown, while Rhaenyra was crowned on Dragonstone with the crown of Jaehaerys the Conciliator. Aegon III’s outdoor coronation followed those competing claims, but its modest circlet and the lack of dragons gave it a different character: the ceremony announced continuity of rule without recreating the old grandeur.

The Regency and the Balance of Power

Because Aegon was only ten, his first act as king was to name those who would protect and defend him and govern until he came of age. Ser Willis Fell, the sole survivor of King Viserys’s Kingsguard, became Lord Commander of the White Swords, with Ser Marston Waters as his second. The remaining Kingsguard places went to men identified with the blacks, while the two senior appointments among the white cloaks were considered green. The distribution made factional balance part of the new government’s structure rather than leaving it solely to the language of reconciliation.

Ser Tyland Lannister, recently returned from Myr, became Hand of the King; Lord Leowyn Corbray was named Protector of the Realm. Tyland had been a green and Leowyn a black. A council of regency was to sit above them, comprising Lady Jeyne Arryn, Lord Corlys Velaryon, Lord Roland Westerling, Lord Royce Caron, Lord Manfryd Mooton, Ser Torrhen Manderly, and Grand Maester Munkun, newly chosen by the Citadel to replace Grand Maester Orwyle. The account also reports that Lord Cregan Stark was offered a place among the regents but refused, underscoring that the settlement depended on choices beyond the royal family itself.

Reconciliation and Its Limits

Observers disagreed over what the regency promised. Septon Eustace approved of a council he viewed as a fitting collective authority, while Mushroom judged seven regents excessive and worried for the young king. Their contrasting assessments frame the practical uncertainty beneath the ceremony: Aegon was crowned, but the power to govern was distributed among appointed adults whose political affiliations crossed the former divide.

The wedding and coronation thus offered a visible, hopeful beginning without erasing the damage and tensions that preceded them. The crowd’s cheers, the High Septon’s participation, and a council containing representatives of both sides lent the new order public and religious recognition. But the ruined Dragonpit, the absent Dowager Queen, and the need for regents all qualified the image of a settled realm. Aegon III’s accession was made ceremonial and legitimate before the gathered city; his capacity to rule remained deferred.