Jaehaerys Forgives and Reappoints Rogar

Jaehaerys Forgives and Reappoints Rogar is the settlement between the young King Jaehaerys Targaryen and his former Hand, Lord Rogar Baratheon, after Rogar’s opposition to the king’s marriage and his political maneuvering threatened their alliance. Jaehaerys summoned him to King’s Landing, accepted his submission, and pardoned him on strict conditions rather than sending him to the Wall. The episode established the king’s authority while turning a former protector and potential opponent back into a servant of the crown.

Background and Summons

Before summoning Rogar, Jaehaerys had begun putting his own administration in place. He replaced officials across the Red Keep and other royal offices, and ordered the black cells emptied so prisoners could be examined and appeal. Only after the new appointments were in place did he send Grand Maester Benifer’s raven to Storm’s End, calling Rogar back to the capital. The sequence made the summons a deliberate act of a king preparing to govern in his own right, rather than a request issued from a position of dependence.

Rogar’s history with Jaehaerys made the meeting more complicated than a reckoning between ruler and rebel. When Jaehaerys and his mother had needed refuge, Rogar had sheltered them at considerable risk to himself. He had sworn his sword to the young king and called his banners in support of him. Later, however, he had opposed Jaehaerys’s marriage to Alysanne Targaryen and discussed setting Princess Aerea on the Iron Throne in Jaehaerys’s place. He had also sent his brother to remove his niece Rhaella from her motherhouse. The king recognized these as serious disloyal intentions, but distinguished them from acts of treason actually carried through.

Rogar’s brothers disagreed about how to answer the summons. Borys Baratheon, usually regarded as the most volatile of the brothers, advised Rogar to go to the Wall rather than risk the king’s anger. Garon and Ronnal urged defiance, arguing that Storm’s End was strong enough to resist. Rogar rejected both courses. He chose to face Jaehaerys and believed that, if the king condemned him, he could still ask to take the black. He set out for King’s Landing with only six longtime knights, a small escort that underscored his decision to submit rather than test the strength of his castle.

The Audience Before the King

Jaehaerys received Rogar seated on the Iron Throne, crowned and surrounded by the members of his council. Ser Joffrey Doggett and Ser Lorence Roxton stood at its base as Kingsguard. The rest of the throne room was empty. Grand Maester Benifer’s account emphasizes that this arrangement spared Rogar the added humiliation of making his submission before the full court, while still placing him before the symbols and officers of royal authority.

Rogar walked the length of the hall, knelt, bowed his head, and laid down his sword. He asked Jaehaerys to do as he wished with him but to spare his brothers and House Baratheon. Before Rogar could finish explaining himself, the king stopped him. Jaehaerys said he knew what Rogar had done, said, and planned, but believed that Rogar had not meant to harm either him or his queen. The distinction shaped the entire judgment: Jaehaerys did not deny the threat, but treated unfulfilled schemes differently from treasonous actions.

The king also recalled what Rogar had done for him in the past. He reminded his former Hand that Rogar could have imprisoned him and his mother and delivered them to Jaehaerys’s uncle, but instead had sheltered them and supported his claim. The remembered debt did not erase Rogar’s later conduct; it gave Jaehaerys a reason to consider whether punishment was the only answer. He presented the two men not as permanent enemies but as former allies who had disagreed, and told Rogar that the realm still needed his strength and service.

Pardon, Conditions, and Punishment

Jaehaerys offered Rogar the choice of taking the black or remaining in royal service. Rogar accepted the offer of service. The king then made the pardon conditional: Rogar must never again speak against Jaehaerys or Alysanne, must defend the queen against criticism, and must treat his mother, Queen Alyssa Targaryen, with honor and courtesy. Alyssa was to return with Rogar to Storm’s End, where they would live as husband and wife again. Thus the settlement addressed both the public danger to the king’s marriage and a breach within the royal family.

Rogar agreed, then asked what would happen to Orryn Baratheon. Jaehaerys promised to have Lord Hightower release Orryn and the men who had accompanied him to Oldtown, but did not treat their release as acquittal. Rather than impose the permanent sentence of the Wall, he ordered ten years of exile. They could sell their swords in the Disputed Lands or seek their fortunes in Qarth; if they survived and committed no further crimes, they could return after the term. Rogar accepted this penalty as just.

The exchange also clarified what kind of assurance the king required. Rogar asked whether Jaehaerys would demand hostages, offering the young children of three of his brothers. Instead, Jaehaerys led him from the throne room to the inner ward, where Vermithor was being fed. The king declined the proposed hostages and said that Rogar’s word was enough. The scene joined a personal pledge to a visible reminder of royal power: Benifer understood that, with Jaehaerys riding Vermithor, the people of the stormlands were in effect within the king’s reach. Rogar understood the unspoken warning as well as the trust conveyed by the refusal to take his kin.

Reconciliation and Consequences

The peace was confirmed that night at a feast in the great hall. Rogar sat beside Queen Alyssa, now his wife again, and publicly toasted Queen Alysanne, pledging her his love and loyalty before the assembled lords and ladies. The ceremony made his changed position visible: the man who had questioned the royal marriage now stood before the court as its champion. Four days later he left for Storm’s End, accompanied by Alyssa, Ser Pate the Woodcock, and a hundred men-at-arms assigned to escort them safely through the kingswood.

The settlement restored an important political alliance without pretending that Rogar’s earlier opposition had been harmless. Jaehaerys preserved the crown’s right to punish actions, imposed exile on those who had taken part in the Oldtown mission, and attached explicit obligations to Rogar’s pardon. At the same time, he used past loyalty to make renewed service possible. With Rogar and Alyssa returned to Storm’s End, the king had removed one immediate source of division as his secret marriage became increasingly difficult to conceal and the royal treasury demanded urgent attention. The episode shows Jaehaerys exercising authority not by treating every threat alike, but by pairing mercy with enforceable terms.