The Lannister campaign in the Iron Islands

The Lannister campaign in the Iron Islands was a 134 AC intervention in the succession struggle that followed the death of The Red Kraken. Lady Johanna Lannister sent a fleet and thousands of Lannister soldiers into the islands, seeking to bring them under her son’s rule. The campaign failed to achieve that political objective, but left the Iron Islands badly damaged and Rodrik Greyjoy in her power.

A succession war in the Iron Islands

After The Red Kraken died, the islands divided among three claimants. Toron Greyjoy, still a boy, held the Seastone Chair, but his three sisters and their husbands seized him and put his mother to death. Toron’s cousins, with the support of the lords of Harlaw and Blacktyde, raised his half-brother Rodrik as a rival. On Great Wyk, men rallied behind Sam Salt, who claimed descent from the black line.

The contest had already lasted half a year when the Lannister force arrived. The rival claims and divided island loyalties made the conflict an opening for outside intervention, but also meant that defeating one faction would not necessarily settle the succession.

Lady Johanna’s intervention

Ser Leo Costayne brought the fleet and landed thousands of Lannister swords and spears on Pyke, Great Wyk, and Harlaw. Lord Oakenfist had refused to take part in House Lannister’s vengeance against the ironborn. Lady Johanna’s entreaties changed his position; the account suggests that her promise to marry him if he delivered the Iron Islands to her son may have helped persuade him. The promise was conditional, and the campaign did not deliver the islands as she hoped.

Costayne’s expedition met a costly end on Great Wyk. Arthur Goodbrother killed him among the island’s stony hills, and three-quarters of the Lannister ships were seized or sunk. The fleet’s losses and the failure to bring the islands under Lady Johanna’s son made the scale of the landing an uncertain measure of success: a large force could reach the islands without being able to impose a settlement there.

Destruction and the limits of victory

Although Lady Johanna’s wish to put every ironman to the sword was frustrated, the Lannisters inflicted extensive losses. Hundreds of longships and fishing boats, along with as many homes and villages, were burned. The wives and children of ironborn who had ravaged the Westerlands were killed wherever the Lannister forces found them. Nine of The Red Kraken’s cousins and two of his three sisters, together with their husbands, were among the dead. The slain also included Lord Drumm of Old Wyk, Lord Goodbrother of Great Wyk, and the Lords Volmark and Harlaw of Harlaw, Botley of Lordsport, and Stonehouse of Old Wyk.

The destruction continued through the campaign’s material consequences. Lannister forces carried off stored grain and salt fish and ruined what they could not take; thousands more islanders died of starvation before the year ended. The losses thus extended beyond the fighting itself, striking the islands’ food stores, homes, and means of transport.

Outcome

The attack on Pyke did not dislodge Toron: his defenders beat off the Lannister assault, and he remained on the Seastone Chair. Rodrik, however, was captured and taken to Casterly Rock. Lady Johanna had him mutilated and made him her son’s fool. The campaign therefore ended with the ruling claimant still in place, one rival removed from the islands, and a devastated population—an outcome that showed the difference between punishing the Iron Islands and winning control of them.