In our previous videos on the history of Westeros, we discussed the Targaryen conflicts of Aegon’s
Conquest and the First Blackfyre rebellion. Now we must move forward to the War of the
Five Kings, which was a devastating, multi-theatre conflict, resulting from the unresolved succession
of Robert Baratheon, and the scheming of House Lannister and many nobles at court. Profound
political change occurred during the war, and many tragedies with it. One of the theatres
in the conflict set the Starks of Winterfell, and their allies in the Riverlands, against
the Lannisters of Casterly Rock. Welcome to our video on the Battles of the Green Fork
and the Whispering Wood.
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House Targaryen ruled Westeros for almost three-hundred years after the conquest of
the Seven Kingdoms by Aegon I, but all this would change during the reign of King Aerys
II. By this time, the so-called ‘Dragonlords’ had no dragons left, and their power had diminished.
The new monarch started his rule well in 262 AC, but descended into insanity as the years
progressed. After he committed a series of atrocities
against House Stark’s patriarch and his son, half the realm rose up against him. After
a year of rebellion, in 282 AC he was dethroned and killed during the Sack of King’s Landing
by Tywin Lannister and his forces, with the king being personally slain by Tywin’s son
Jaime. As the rebels convened after the victory,
they agreed to grant the throne to Robert Baratheon, who appointed Lord Jon Arryn as
Hand of the King. Despite taking the throne by choice, Robert hated the responsibilities
he now held. Instead of attending council meetings and seeing to the administration
of the realm, the King simply indulged in luxuries and hunting, leaving governance to
his Hand. Before the rebellion, Robert had been betrothed
to, and had deep feelings for, Lyanna Stark, sister of Lord Eddard. She had perished near
the end of the revolt and the new king did not intend to marry. However, Lord Arryn advised
him to wed Cersei, the daughter of the powerful lord of the Westerlands, Tywin Lannister.
The two married in 284 and the marriage was predictably unhappy, with Robert mourning
Lyanna and Cersei engaging in an incestuous relationship with her brother Jaime.
In 286, 289 and 290AC Cersei gave birth to her three children; Joffrey, Myrcella and
Tommen, who were secretly bastard offspring of Jaime rather than trueborn Baratheons.
This would have dire consequences in the years to come.
Stannis Baratheon, Robert’s younger brother, eventually became suspicious of the royal
childrens’ parentage, investigating the matter with Lord Arryn. However, before they
could bring their findings to King Robert, his Hand suspiciously passed away. Stannis,
believing the Lannisters had poisoned Lord Arryn due to their discovery, fled to his
seat in Dragonstone. Seeking a new Hand, Robert travelled north
to Winterfell in 298, aiming to appoint his friend Eddard Stark. Initially Eddard refused
the offer, but he changed his mind after receiving a letter from the widow of Jon Arryn, Lysa,
stating that the Lannisters murdered her husband. Seeking answers, Lord Stark accepted the position.
While the royal court was present at Winterfell, the young son of Eddard, Bran Stark, witnessed
the incestuous relationship between Cersei and Jaime. Not wanting their secret revealed,
Jaime pushed Bran off a large tower, and the latter went into a coma.
After the royal court, along with Eddard, left Winterfell for King’s Landing, an assassin
attempted to murder the comatose Bran Stark, before being killed by the boy’s direwolf.
Eddard’s wife Catelyn Stark travelled south to secretly alert her husband of the assassination
attempt. Upon her arrival at the capital, she was informed by her childhood friend,
Petyr Baelish, that the assassin’s weapon belonged to Tyrion Lannister, the second son
of Lord Tywin. After Catelyn shared this information with
her husband, she travelled back north and encountered Tyrion Lannister at the Crossroads
tavern, arresting him for the apparent assassination attempt. When his father Tywin learned of
this affront to House Lannister, he began rallying his levies and ordered Ser Gregor
Clegane to conduct brutal raids into the Riverlands, the home of Catelyn’s family, the Tullys
of Riverrun. These attacks forced many of the Riverlords back to their own holdings,
leaving them unable to rally with the main Tully army. After his champion won a trial
by combat, Tyrion was released from the captivity, but events were already in motion.
Meanwhile in King’s Landing, Jaime Lannister, who had learned of his brother’s imprisonment,
attacked Lord Stark in the street and severely wounded him. This prevented the Hand from
moving into the Riverlands to investigate the covert Lannister raids, and forced him
to send Lord Beric Dondarrion with a small force. Tywin’s son had inadvertently foiled
his father’s plan to capture Eddard and bring a quick end to the war.
Jaime then fled west to Casterly Rock. Soon after, Lord Stark managed to discover the
truth about Cersei’s children on his own, and confronted her, offering safe passage
to flee before he informed the King. She refused, and began to plot against him.
As all this was happening, King Robert was on a hunting trip organised by Cersei. Knowing
the king was a heavy drinker, the Queen tampered with Robert’s wine so that he would become
more inebriated than usual. This caused him to be fatally injured by a boar during the
hunt, leading him to appoint Lord Stark as the Regent on his deathbed. Robert Baratheon
died in early 298, never knowing the truth of his children’s parentage.
In the short power struggle that followed, Lord Stark attempted to stop the coronation
of Robert’s illegitimate son, Joffrey, in favour of Lord Stannis, but was betrayed by
Petyr Baelish as well as the City Watch, and imprisoned. When Winterfell learned of their
Lords arrest, the son of Eddard, Robb, summoned his father’s bannermen and marched south
with a hastily assembled force of 12,000 men, gradually accumulating more as he went.
In 299, as the northmen began to rally for their Lord, war finally broke out in the Riverlands.
A Tully army moved west to occupy a defensive position in the hills near the Golden Tooth.
Meanwhile Tywin had assembled a formidable force of 35,000 men, which he split in two.
20,000 would accompany Tywin in the south as he attacked in the direction of Harrenhal,
while the other 15,000, commanded by the recently arrived Jaime Lannister, would push through
the Golden Tooth and march straight to the Tully capital at Riverrun. Meanwhile in the
Lannister heartland, Stafford Lannister remained to raise another army.
On the border between Riverlands and Westerlands, Jaime won the first battle of the war at the
Golden Tooth, breaking the smaller Tully host and killing Lord Vance. Lord Piper and the
surviving forces retreated towards Riverrun, with Jaime’s army constantly harrying them.
Meanwhile, a small force commanded by Beric Dondarrion was crushed by Tywin and Gregor
Clegane while they were crossing the Mummer’s Ford, before continuing north towards the
Trident. Beric’s defeated forces formed the Brotherhood Without Banners and began
to harass Tywin’s supply lines from the Westerlands.
After his victory at the Golden Tooth, Jaime advanced eastward and met the massed forces
of House Tully outside the walls of Riverrun, defeating them, capturing Ser Edmure and putting
the castle to siege. With its main centre of power besieged and its heir captured, the
war seemed lost for House Tully. Their only hope lay to the north, where Robb Stark, the
Young Wolf, was marching south. After assembling his force as the march progressed,
Robb reached Moat Cailin, the gate of the North, with around 18,000 men. Here he was
joined by his mother Catelyn and another 1,500 men from White Harbour, bringing his total
to almost 20,000. Robb assembled his war council, and before they continued the southward march,
the northern lords decided to assist Riverrun, hoping that the relieved Tully forces would
join them in the war. Realizing that the hastily assembled northern
army could not match the numerically superior Lannister forces in an open battle, Robb decided
to execute a risky, but potentially brilliant plan. When he reached The Twins, a castle
under the Dominion of House Frey, he made an alliance with them by promising to marry
a daughter of Lord Walder, who then contributed 4,000 men to the Stark forces.
Then, he split his army into two parts. 17,000 of his men, mainly infantry, moved south down
the King’s Road in order to confront Lord Tywin’s host, while 5,500 cavalry secretly
crossed the Green Fork at the Twins, hoping to surprise and ambush Jaime Lannister, who
was besieging the Tully capital. As they marched south, this smaller army was joined by parts
of the defeated Tully forces and additional levies from House Mallister.
The 17,000 strong force commanded by Lord Roose Bolton marched down the King’s Road
throughout the night in an attempt to surprise Tywin’s force. The Noble houses arrayed
within the Stark army included Houses Cerwyn, Karstark, Hornwood, Glover and Frey. They
arrived in the early morning and prepared to launch their attack, though the Lannisters
arrayed themselves in time to meet their opponents face to face.
Their army, commanded by Tywin Lannister, was comprised of around 20,000 soldiers. In
the centre, Tywin’s brother Kevan commanded 10,000 mixed infantry and 300 heavy horsemen.
On the right, Ser Addam Marbrand led 4,000 knights and heavy lancers, while on the left,
Ser Gregor Clegane rode at the head of a ragtag mix of 1,000 mounted clansmen of the Vale,
freeriders, sellswords and raw recruits from Lannisport. Lord Tywin himself commanded 2,500
foot and another 2,500 horse in reserve. The battle took place in between the eastern bank
of the Green Fork and the Kingsroad. Believing the inexperienced Robb Stark was
the commander of the opposing army, Tywin had placed a weaker force of new, inexperienced
soldiers, such as the mountain clans, as well as his son Tyrion, on the left flank. Using
this force as his vanguard, they charged forward and struck the Stark contingent opposite them.
His plan was to bait Robb into the gap after his vanguard routed, but this was foiled.
Firstly, Roose Bolton was the commander, rather than Robb. Secondly, perhaps due to exhaustion
caused by the night march, the 1,000 strong Lannister left flank unexpectedly smashed
through the Stark right wing, but still suffered heavy casualties, with two of the clan leaders
being killed. Roose deployed a part of his center to this area to steady the line, but
then Kevan sent his heavy horsemen and some of his infantry to crush this flank. The overwhelming
force of the Lannister centre’s push jammed the Stark forces against the river and the
hills behind the battlefield. Meanwhile on the right, the 4,000 strong cavalry
contingent under Marbrand swept the Stark left flank away, the formation of purely infantry
on this side of the field was no match for the overwhelming force of the Westerland knights.
After their victory, they charged to the left and joined the rest of their army in crushing
the northern forces. Many were killed or captured, but Roose Bolton managed to steady them and
retreat north with a large portion of his army.
Realising that the Young Wolf and his cavalry were not present, Tywin immediately called
off the chase of the northern infantry and turned to help Jaime. Though he had suffered
a defeat and lost 5 thousand of his warriors, with the Lannister casualties below 1000,
Lord Bolton’s feint against the Lions of Lannister would prove crucial.
As his vassal was defeated by the second Lannister army, Robb quickly rode south towards Riverrun
with 5,400 of his cavalry. With the efforts of his great uncle Ser Brynden Tully, this
march was kept a complete secret. He and 300 handpicked outriders shot down Lannister ravens
and slew their scouts in the region. As the massed cavalry army of the northerners approached
Riverrun, they dispatched a tiny force of Tully soldiers under Brynden to raid the Lannister
cavalry and draw them from their camp, while the main Stark force took up hiding positions
in a forested valley. Bored of sieging the almost unbreakable castle, Jaime regularly
rode out and engaged with enemy guerillas. Predictably, he fell for the trick, and, expecting
to only be fighting a small force, pursued Robb’s bait with around 2,000 of his own
cavalry north of the Tumblestone, both knights and lords among them. Crossing this small
river ensured that his army would not be able to escape.
At the valley ambush site, Lady Maege Mormont, Lord Jason Mallister and Greatjon Umber waited
on the east side of the valley. Lord Rickard Karstark was to the north and Ser Stevron
Frey, along with Lord Stark himself, were to the west. Jaime’s oblivious cavalry contingent
followed Brynden’s squadron into the valley, closely followed by the sound of one horn,
then several others. Suddenly, the Lannisters began to be hit by
arrows coming from the treeline, which caused some losses in men and horses. A few moments
later, the Stark forces charged from their hiding place in the treelines and attacked
Jaime from three sides. Taken completely by surprise, the Westerland riders fought bravely,
but were eventually broken. When Jaime saw the battle was lost, he rallied
his elite retainers and charged towards Robb Stark’s position, trying to kill him in
single combat. He failed, and was stopped and arrested, but not before the Kingslayer
cut down Daryn Hornwood as well as the two Karstarks - Eddard and Torrhen, who formed
Robb’s personal guard. The battle ended with a victorious howl from Robb’s direwolf
Grey Wind. The Starks killed ten Lannister men for each
man they lost. The bounty in enemy captives from this battle was massive: almost 100 lords
and knights were seized, chief among them Jaime Lannister. The Starks only suffered
around 200 losses. The night after the Battle at the Whispering
Wood, the leaderless Lannister siege army at Riverrun was crushed by the Stark cavalry
in the Battle of the Camps, relieving the beleaguered Tully castle. The Lannisters lost
more than 8,000 troops. As planned, the Riverlords now joined the
northerners in their war against the Lannisters, with their combined forces outnumbering their
enemy. Despite their victory, in King’s Landing Eddard Stark was executed soon after
on the orders of King Joffrey. This ended any chance of peace between the Lion and the
Wolf. The War of the Five Kings was just starting.