The Vale succession war

The Vale succession war was a three-sided struggle over the inheritance of the Eyrie after Jeyne Arryn died in 134 AC. Her testament named Joffrey Arryn as heir, but the choice was challenged by Arnold Arryn’s son Eldric and by Isembard Arryn, head of the wealthy Gulltown branch. A ruling for Joffrey did not settle the dispute: the death of Corwyn Corbray at Runestone reignited the fighting, and the regency’s attempts to end the rebellion by decree gave way to plans for a military campaign into the Vale.

Jeyne Arryn’s Testament and the Competing Claims

Jeyne died at Gulltown, forty years old, in the Motherhouse of Maris on a stony island in the harbor. A cold that had settled in her chest proved fatal. At her deathbed she dictated a final testament naming her cousin Joffrey as heir. He had served her for ten years as Knight of the Bloody Gate, defending the Vale against the wildlings of the hills. Her designation placed loyalty and an expressed choice at the center of the succession, but it did not silence those who argued from blood proximity and established inheritance custom.

Arnold Arryn, Jeyne’s first cousin, was a closer blood relative than Joffrey, who was only a fourth cousin by degree. Arnold had twice tried to depose Jeyne and was imprisoned after his second failed rebellion. Years in the Eyrie’s sky cells and the dungeons beneath the Gates of the Moon had left him mad, but his son Eldric was sane, shrewd, and ambitious. Eldric came forward to pursue his father’s claim, and many Vale lords joined him. They maintained that long-standing inheritance laws could not be set aside by the choice of a dying woman. Their challenge therefore opposed not only one claimant to another, but a testamentary designation to a claimed customary right.

A third claimant, Isembard Arryn, represented a more distant branch of the house. The Gulltown Arryns had separated from their noble kin during Jaehaerys I Targaryen’s reign, entered trade, and accumulated great wealth. Isembard used that fortune to attract support, bribing lesser lords and bringing sellswords across the Narrow Sea. His golden falcon arms earned him the name the Gilded Falcon, an emblem that captured how commercial wealth had become a means of pressing a dynastic claim. His supporters remained consequential even after he was taken prisoner.

A Ruling That Failed to End the War

Corwyn Corbray ruled that Jeyne’s will should prevail and declared Joffrey the rightful Lord of the Eyrie. The other claimants refused to accept the decision. Corwyn imprisoned Isembard and his sons, and executed Eldric; Arnold nevertheless escaped and fled to Runestone, where he had once served as a squire. The ruling thus gave Joffrey formal recognition without securing acceptance from the rival parties, while the arrests and execution deepened the conflict.

The crisis turned further at Runestone. Corwyn arrived to draw Arnold from sanctuary, and Gunthor Royce, the aged lord of the castle, rode out in ancient bronze armor to confront him. The exchange escalated from words to curses and threats. When Corwyn drew Lady Forlorn, a crossbowman on Runestone’s battlements shot him through the chest. The account leaves uncertain whether Corwyn meant to strike Gunthor or merely threaten him; it does establish that his death followed the confrontation and that the precise intent behind his drawn sword could not be known.

Corwyn’s death carried consequences beyond the immediate dispute. He was uncle to Quenton Corbray, husband to Rhaena Targaryen, brother-in-law to her twin Baela, and, through marriage, kin to Alyn Oakenfist. Killing one of the king’s regents was treated as an act of treason comparable to an attack on the king himself. The event therefore joined a contested local inheritance to the authority and family ties of the realm’s ruling court, and war flared across the Vale again.

Factions and the Regent’s Failed Intervention

The Corbrays, Hunters, Craynes, and Redforts supported Joffrey, the heir Jeyne had chosen. The Royces of Runestone and Arnold, now known as the Mad Heir, were joined by the Templetons, Tolletts, Coldwaters, and Duttons, as well as lords from the Fingers and the Three Sisters. Gulltown and House Grafton continued to back Isembard despite his captivity. The resulting division did not reduce to two claimants: a substantial third faction remained organized around the imprisoned Gilded Falcon.

In King’s Landing, Thaddeus Rowan sent another flight of ravens ordering the lords who supported Arnold and Isembard to lay down their arms, warning that otherwise they would provoke the Iron Throne’s displeasure. No answer came. Rowan then consulted Oakenfist and made plans to end the rebellion by force. Earlier efforts to manage the wider troubles had already shown the limits of his authority: he had ordered the Lannisters to withdraw from the Iron Islands, sent food toward the North, and summoned the Arryn claimants to the capital to present their cases to the regents. The Lannisters and the claimants ignored his decrees, and the shipments to White Harbor fell far short of what was needed to relieve famine. Although Rowan was well-liked, neither he nor the boy king he served inspired fear; courtiers increasingly whispered that power lay with the moneychangers of Lys rather than the regents. The Vale campaign was thus prepared by a government whose commands had already proved difficult to enforce.

The Crown Prepares a Campaign

With spring, the high road through the Mountains of the Moon was expected to become passable again. A force of five thousand set out up the kingsroad under Ser Robert Rowan, Thaddeus Rowan’s eldest son. Levies from Maidenpool, Darry, and Hayford increased the host as it marched. After crossing the Trident, the soldiers were joined by six hundred Freys and a thousand Blackwoods under Benjicot Blackwood, bringing the force to nine thousand as it entered the mountains. The route and season shaped the operation: the advance depended on the reopening of the high road, and the army grew substantially before undertaking the mountain passage.

A second attack was organized by sea. Rather than rely on the royal fleet commanded by Gedmund Peake, Thaddeus Rowan turned to House Velaryon for ships, and Alyn Oakenfist was to command them. Baela went to Dragonstone to comfort her widowed twin, Rhaena, and also to ensure that Rhaena did not seek to avenge Corwyn herself by flying Morning against his killers. The proposed expedition put both land and naval forces into motion while the succession remained unresolved.

Rowan announced that Moredo Rogare, Larra’s brother, would command the army Alyn was to carry to the Vale. Moredo was described as a formidable fighter: tall and stern, with white-blond hair and blazing blue eyes, and carrying a Valyrian steel longsword named Truth. The account records the campaign’s preparation and its chosen commanders, but not its outcome. At this point the succession war had widened from a dispute over Jeyne’s testament into a confrontation involving rival Vale coalitions, the king’s regents, and an expedition assembled to impose the Crown’s decision by force.