Poxy Jeyne Poore’s attempted rescue

Poxy Jeyne Poore’s attempted rescue was a failed intervention in King Maegor’s campaign against the outlawed remnants of the Faith Militant. In 45 AC, as the king’s forces hunted Poor Fellows in the woods south of the Blackwater, the planned execution of their elusive leader drew a group of followers into a trap. The episode demonstrated how royal force could defeat an armed rescue while adding to the resentment already turning smallfolk and lords against Maegor.

Pursuit and the planned execution

Maegor had taken the field to continue his war against the Faith Militant. His forces hunted down scores of Poor Fellows sheltering in the great wood south of the Blackwater; many were sent to the Wall, while those who refused to take the black were hanged. Poxy Jeyne Poore evaded the king until three of her own followers betrayed her. In return, they received pardons and knighthoods.

Three septons traveling with the king declared Poxy Jeyne a witch, and Maegor ordered her burned alive in a field beside the Wendwater. By the time appointed for the execution, the conflict had moved beyond a search for fugitives: the king’s sentence made the attempt to save their leader an immediate test of whether his opponents could challenge his forces in the open.

The rescue attempt

Three hundred of Poxy Jeyne’s followers, including Poor Fellows and peasants, burst from the woods to rescue her. Maegor had anticipated an attempt and placed his men ready for it. The rescuers were surrounded and defeated before they could free their leader. Poxy Jeyne’s fate is not separately specified in this account, which describes the destruction of the rescue party rather than the execution’s final outcome.

Among the last to die was Horys Hill, the bastard hedge knight who had escaped the slaughter at the Great Fork three years earlier. His presence disclosed that he, not Poxy Jeyne, was leading the rescue. His earlier escape had not spared him from another confrontation with the king’s forces.

Wider consequences

The defeat took place amid a broader collapse of support for Maegor. Smallfolk and lords alike had come to despise his cruelties, and some gave aid to his enemies. Septon Moon, whom the Poor Fellows had raised as their High Septon in opposition to the figure in Oldtown they called the High Lickspittle, moved through the riverlands and the Reach, attracting large crowds when he emerged from hiding to preach against the king. In the hill country north of the Golden Tooth, Joffrey Doggett held sway in all but name, while smallfolk helped other fugitives evade royal forces.

When Maegor returned to the Red Keep in 46 AC, he brought two thousand skulls from a year of campaigning and displayed them beneath the Iron Throne as the remains of Poor Fellows and Warrior’s Sons. Many believed that some belonged instead to ordinary crofters, fieldhands, and swineherds with no crime beyond their faith. The failed rescue thus sits within a campaign whose victories did not restore the king’s standing: the use of force and the uncertain reach of its punishments helped sustain the hostility his enemies could draw upon.