The Sistermen’s Rebellion was a bid by the lords of the Three Sisters to establish independence during Aegon’s Conquest. Its defeat restored their allegiance to the Vale, but the settlement also imposed hostages and exile, showing how the new Targaryen order combined military force with political guarantees.

Rebellion amid the Conquest

As Aegon’s forces advanced, the lords of the Three Sisters exploited the upheaval to declare themselves a free nation and crown Lady Marla Sunderland as queen. The revolt formed part of a wider crisis of allegiance: Aegon’s conquests had not yet secured obedience throughout the realm, and the young King Ronnel Arryn faced rebellion in the islands even as other powers challenged the new order.

The rebellion persisted after Aegon’s coronation at the Starry Sept in Oldtown, where the High Septon anointed him king of the Seven Kingdoms. That title claimed a realm whose submission remained incomplete: Dorne had not yielded, and the Three Sisters had broken from the Vale. The islands’ revolt was therefore both a local bid for independence and a test of whether the conquest’s new political hierarchy could be enforced.

The royal campaign

The Arryn fleet had been largely destroyed during the Conquest, limiting the Vale’s ability to put down the rising on its own. Aegon consequently ordered Torrhen Stark, his Warden of the North, to suppress it. A northern force sailed from White Harbor aboard hired Braavosi galleys, commanded by Ser Warrick Manderly.

The appearance of the northern sails coincided with Queen Visenya and Vhagar appearing in the sky above Sisterton. The show of force broke the Sistermen’s resolve; they deposed Marla in favor of her younger brother rather than continuing the rebellion. The account describes no drawn-out battle: the combination of an approaching army and a dragon’s arrival was enough to bring the revolt to an end.

Submission and punishment

With Marla removed, Steffon Sunderland renewed his fealty to the Eyrie and bent the knee to Queen Visenya. He also surrendered his sons as hostages to secure his good behavior. One was to be fostered with the Manderlys and the other with the Arryns, placing the settlement’s guarantees in the hands of both the northern force that had helped end the revolt and the Vale to which the islands returned.

Marla’s fate was harsher. Exiled and imprisoned after her deposition, she remained in confinement for five years before her tongue was removed. She then spent the rest of her life with the Silent Sisters, tending to the noble dead. The contrast between Steffon’s negotiated submission and Marla’s prolonged punishment marks the different terms imposed on the new ruler and the displaced queen.

Outcome and significance

The rebellion ended with the Three Sisters restored to the Vale’s allegiance, but not through Arryn arms alone. Aegon’s intervention supplied the force the weakened Arryn fleet could not, while the hostages made submission a continuing political obligation rather than a single gesture of defeat. The episode captures the unfinished work of conquest: royal titles could proclaim a united realm, but loyalty still had to be secured island by island through armed intervention and enforced settlement.