Oldtown’s submission and Aegon’s coronation

Oldtown’s submission and Aegon I Targaryen’s second coronation turned the peaceful surrender of Westeros’s greatest city into a public affirmation of the Conqueror’s authority. By opening its gates rather than resisting, Oldtown preserved its people and sacred institutions; by anointing Aegon in the Starry Sept, the High Septon gave his rule religious recognition before a vast crowd. The ceremony’s influence outlasted the day: it was this coronation, rather than the first, makeshift crowning at the Blackwater, that became fixed as the start of Aegon’s reign.

Oldtown opens its gates

Oldtown was the greatest city in Westeros, enclosed by massive walls and governed by the Hightowers, one of the Reach’s oldest and most powerful houses. Its importance was not only political. The city was the center of the Faith, home to the High Septon and the Starry Sept, and a base for the Faith Militant, whose fighting orders were known among the smallfolk as the Stars and Swords. Aegon’s approach therefore presented Lord Manfred Hightower with a choice whose stakes extended beyond his own city: resistance might expose the institutions of the Faith, as well as Oldtown itself, to destruction.

The High Septon withdrew into the Starry Sept for seven days and seven nights after news of Aegon’s landing reached the city. Taking only bread and water, he prayed from altar to altar for guidance. On the seventh day, he understood a vision of the Crone’s golden lamp as a warning: if Oldtown fought Aegon, the city, the Hightower, the Citadel, and the Starry Sept would be cast down. Lord Manfred, a cautious and devout ruler, accepted the High Septon’s counsel. One of his younger sons served with the Warrior’s Sons, while another had recently taken vows as a septon; the choice to yield was thus made in a city whose ruling house was bound to the Faith in more than one way.

When Aegon and his host arrived, the gates stood open and Lord Manfred waited to submit. He offered his sword, city, and oath rather than force of arms. The choice spared Oldtown from the destruction the High Septon had foreseen, and meant that no Oldtown men burned in the Field of Fire, despite the Hightowers’ place among the bannermen of Highgarden. Some accounts add that Lord Manfred offered Aegon the hand of his youngest daughter; Aegon politely declined, mindful of his two queens. This reported offer did not alter the terms of the surrender, but it underscores the difference between an act of submission and a marriage alliance.

The coronation in the Starry Sept

Three days after the surrender, the High Septon anointed Aegon with the seven oils, placed a crown upon his head, and proclaimed him king of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm. The title invoked a united kingdom even though Dorne had not submitted and would remain outside Targaryen rule for more than a century. The ceremony’s language thus announced the political claim Aegon meant to establish, rather than a uniform reality already achieved.

This crowning followed Aegon’s first coronation at the mouth of the Blackwater. There, a great silken standard bearing a red, three-headed dragon on black had marked the Targaryens’ entry into the heraldic customs of Westeros. Visenya Targaryen placed a ruby-studded Valyrian steel circlet on her brother, and Rhaenys Targaryen hailed him as king before lords, knights, and smallfolk. Oldtown’s ceremony gave that earlier act a different kind of authority: not merely the acclaim of a newly conquered realm, but anointing by the leading religious figure in Westeros. The first crowning had been witnessed by only a handful of lords; hundreds attended the ceremony in the Starry Sept, including maesters and archmaesters of the Citadel.

Public recognition and the beginning of a reign

The scale of the welcome continued after the anointing. Tens of thousands cheered as Aegon rode through Oldtown on Balerion’s back. Accounts differ about the size of the crowd at the ceremony itself, but both the disagreement and the recorded public celebration make clear that the coronation was remembered as an event witnessed beyond the court. Its setting, officiant, and audience gave visible form to a claim that the conquest alone could not settle: Aegon was to rule not just as a victorious dragonlord, but as king over the peoples and institutions of Westeros.

The Citadel’s presence may help explain why later histories dated Aegon’s reign from the Oldtown coronation rather than from the crowning at the Blackwater on the day of his landing. The ceremony did not merely repeat his earlier assumption of kingship. It supplied a recognized public marker by which the reign could be counted, joining the Faith’s anointing and the assembled realm to the record maintained by the Citadel.

Settlement and the choice of a royal seat

The submission helped bring the Seven Kingdoms together under Targaryen rule, but Aegon’s subsequent choice of capital showed that Oldtown would not become the center of his government. Although many expected him to establish his royal seat in Oldtown, while others thought he would return to Dragonstone, he chose the new town rising on the three hills at the mouth of the Blackwater, where he and his sisters had first landed. It became King’s Landing, and its royal seat was the Iron Throne, forged from the weapons of Aegon’s fallen foes. Oldtown had furnished the religious setting for his most enduring coronation; the new capital placed the ongoing business of rule elsewhere.

The broader work of reconciliation continued through court and marriage. Aegon encouraged former enemies to send children to King’s Landing, where boys served as pages, cupbearers, and squires and girls as handmaidens and companions to the queens. There they could witness royal justice and be treated as subjects of one realm rather than as people defined only by their regions. Visenya Targaryen and Rhaenys Targaryen also arranged marriages between houses from distant parts of Westeros, including matches intended to bind former rivals. Oldtown’s surrender and coronation did not by themselves erase regional loyalties, but they offered a powerful public image of how submission, religious recognition, and the work of political integration could reinforce one another.