The Regency of Aegon III

The Regency of Aegon III was the government that ruled in the name of a child king after the Dance of the Dragons, seeking to restore order while the realm remained divided and damaged. Its council brought former opponents together under a shared responsibility for the crown, but the arrangement never erased factional distrust: authority shifted between regents, the Hand, and a king who was often kept from meaningful decisions. Its end came when Aegon III turned sixteen and reclaimed the governance of the Seven Kingdoms.

A Council for a Child King

Aegon III was ten years old when he became king. The first appointments set out to protect him and govern for him until he came of age. Ser Willis Fell, the sole surviving Kingsguard from King Viserys’s time, became Lord Commander, with Ser Marston Waters as his second. Ser Tyland Lannister, recently returned from Myr, was named Hand of the King, while Lord Leowyn Corbray became Protector of the Realm. The distinction between those senior offices mattered: the council did not initially place all governing authority in one person.

The council of regency comprised 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 succeed Grand Maester Orwyle. The membership crossed the divisions left by the war. Willis Fell and Marston Waters were regarded as Greens, while the remaining Kingsguard places went to Blacks; likewise, Tyland had been a Green and Leowyn a Black. The arrangement attempted to make rule acceptable to competing factions by distributing offices rather than entrusting the kingdom to one side alone.

Lord Cregan Stark was reportedly offered a place among the regents but refused. Other conspicuous omissions included Kermit Tully, Unwin Peake, Sabitha Frey, Thaddeus Rowan, Lyonel Hightower, Johanna Lannister, and Benjicot Blackwood. Septon Eustace praised the council as six strong men and one wise woman, while Mushroom’s contrasting judgment was that seven regents were six too many. Their disagreement captures the central tension of the arrangement: a broad council could represent rival interests, yet its many members also made decisive, unified rule difficult.

Reconstruction and the Limits of Shared Rule

The new government inherited a realm in urgent need of repair. Winter had descended and would last four years; trade had collapsed during the Dance, settlements and castles had been destroyed, and outlaws and broken men haunted the roads and woods. Tyland Lannister set out to revive commerce and begin reconstruction. One of his first popular measures was to abolish the taxes imposed by Queen Rhaenyra and Lord Bartimos Celtigar. He also set aside a million golden dragons in loans for lords whose holdings had been ruined in the war. The loans helped reconstruction but strained the Iron Throne’s relationship with the Iron Bank of Braavos.

Tyland’s plans extended beyond financial relief. He ordered three large fortified granaries built—in King’s Landing, Lannisport, and Gulltown—and arranged for them to be filled with grain. Buying so much grain drove prices sharply upward. Sellers of wheat, corn, and barley benefited, while innkeepers, pot-shop proprietors, and the poor faced greater hardship. The policy therefore revealed a recurring problem of the regency: an attempt to prepare for scarcity could aid some communities while worsening the immediate burden on others.

The Hand also halted work on the enormous statues of Prince Aemond and Prince Daeron, although their heads had already been carved, and directed hundreds of stonemasons, carpenters, and builders to repair the Dragonpit. He ordered King’s Landing’s gates strengthened and announced crown funding for fifty new war galleys. The declared purposes were to employ the shipyards and defend the city against the Triarchy. Many suspected, however, that Tyland also wished to reduce the crown’s dependence on House Velaryon. Reconstruction thus served practical needs while carrying political consequences: rebuilding the capital and its defenses could also alter the balance of power among the great houses.

The King and the Regent’s Power

The council’s authority became more contentious after Tyland’s death. Still short of his thirteenth nameday, Aegon attempted to make appointments without consulting the remaining regents. He passed over Marston Waters, named Ser Robin Massey Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, and gave Ser Robert Darklyn a white cloak. He also sought to recall Lord Thaddeus Rowan as Hand and to make Alyn Velaryon his admiral. Aegon explained his confidence in Rowan by recalling that Tyland had considered him suitable to marry the king’s sister; he wanted Baela back at court as well and regarded Alyn as the proper successor to his grandfather in command of the fleet.

Unwin Peake rejected the king’s decisions. With only Peake, Manfryd Mooton, and Munkun remaining in King’s Landing, Mooton argued that action should wait until absent regents returned. Peake instead maintained that those who had left the capital had surrendered their places. With Munkun’s support, he set aside Aegon’s appointments, arguing that a twelve-year-old could not judge such matters. Marston Waters was confirmed as Lord Commander; Massey and Darklyn were ordered to surrender their cloaks. Orwyle was returned to his cell to await execution. Rowan received a place on the council and the offices of justiciar and master of laws, but Alyn was not offered the admiralty. Peake combined the offices of Hand and Protector of the Realm in his own person.

Accounts differ over how Aegon received this reversal. One describes him protesting that Kingsguard served for life; another says he accepted the decrees courteously and acknowledged that he was still a boy. In either telling, he did not overturn Peake’s decision. For the remainder of his minority, Aegon took little part in government beyond signing and sealing documents presented to him. He appeared on formal occasions, seated on the Iron Throne or receiving envoys, but was rarely seen elsewhere in the Red Keep and never beyond its walls. Peake consequently governed in all but name for nearly three years as Lord Regent, Protector of the Realm, and Hand.

Resignations and the Regency’s Final Years

Peake’s dominance did not make his position secure. After the council rejected his demands over the settlement concerning Viserys’s return and the king’s choice of Daenaera over Peake’s daughter Myrielle, he threatened to resign as Hand. The council accepted the resignation and appointed Thaddeus Rowan in his place. Peake withdrew to Starpike, but many of his associates remained in office; he also left Tessario and his Fingers to his successor, declaring that the Hand, like the king, required guards. The episode showed that even a powerful regent could lose office when the council would not yield to his pressure.

The regency continued through further changes in its membership. Manfryd Mooton, weakened after the Winter Fever, died, and Rowan chose Ser Corwyn Corbray, husband of Lady Rhaena, to take his place. Later, after Rowan was broken by imprisonment and unable to resume his duties, Munkun persuaded Aegon to relieve him. Rowan left for Goldengrove intending to recover, but died on the road with two of his sons. Munkun then served as both regent and Hand for the rest of that year. Because he considered it improper for a maester to judge high lords and anointed knights, the accused conspirators remained imprisoned while the realm awaited a new Hand.

A large assembly of lords gathered in King’s Landing in 136 AC to choose regents who would govern until Aegon came of age. It was the greatest gathering of nobles since the council at Harrenhal in 101 AC, but more than a fortnight of deliberation brought no agreement. Factional grievances resurfaced, and neither the powerful lords nor the lesser ones could secure a consensus. Munkun proposed choosing three regents by lot; Viserys supported him, and the lots fell to Willam Stackspear, Marq Merryweather, and Lorent Grandison. The lords chose Torrhen Manderly as Hand, while Isembard Arryn was named master of coin. The new arrangement reflected how difficult it had become to find appointments acceptable to all parties.

Aegon Takes Power

When Aegon reached sixteen, he ended the regency in a brief, public exchange. Accompanied by four Kingsguard and Sandoq the Shadow, he entered the council chamber and asked Torrhen Manderly his age. On hearing that he was sixteen and a man grown, Aegon declared that he would take the governance of the Seven Kingdoms into his own hands, then told Manderly, “You are sitting in my chair.” The Hand gave up the seat, and Aegon’s rule in his own right began.

The dismissal came without ceremony or negotiation. Manderly and his party sailed north aboard the Jolly Salt, and the Hand regarded the king’s abrupt ending of the royal progress as a personal humiliation. Aegon had made an enemy of a servant who had been among his most devoted supporters. The regency therefore ended not with a settled transfer arranged by its council, but with the king asserting his authority and displacing the man who had served as its latest Hand. Its history is defined by that unresolved contrast: the regents rebuilt institutions and tried to govern across wartime divisions, while the king’s minority left him dependent on their decisions until he could reclaim the power they had exercised in his name.