Millennia before the War of the Five Kings and the Game of Thrones tv series began, the
Seven Kingdoms were just that: Seven independent Kingdoms ruled by their own royal families,
and it had been this way for thousands of years.
However, three centuries before the events in Game of Thrones, an event would occur that
would shift the balance of power completely.
Aegon’s attack on Westeros was one of the decisive events in history of the continent
and it culminated at the battles of the Last Storm and the Field of Fire.
To celebrate the upcoming new series of Game of Thrones, welcome to our first video on
the wars of the world of Ice and Fire!
The mighty Valyrian Freehold dominated vast areas of Southern and Western Essos by 300
BC from its capital of Old Valyria, winning wars against Old Ghis and the Rhoynar during
their expansion.
The ruling caste of this realm were the Dragonlords; forty powerful noble families with the ability
to raise and ride dragons.
One of these noble houses – Targaryen was far from the most powerful, but its head Aenar
had a daughter called Daenys the Dreamer, who predicted the catastrophe which would
end Valyria and heeding her warning in 126 BC he sold his lands and moved his entire
family and court to the backwater location - the Western colony of Dragonstone in the
Narrow Sea.
The prophesied catastrophe, later called the Doom of Valyria, would occur in 114 BC and
the empire would end in fire and ash.
The Targaryens, with their dragons and their allies - Houses Velaryon and Celtigar now
controlled the crucial trade routes from Westeros to Essos.
Despite this, the Dragonlords of Dragonston took little interest in Westeros for the next
hundred years.
This would all change with the birth of Aegon, who was born in 27 BC and had two sisters
– the older Visenya and the younger Rhaenys.
It was Valyrian custom to marry brother to sister and so Aegon married both.
In their youth, the siblings began to occasionally visit Westeros on their dragons as guests
of several local lords.
Westeros was divided into seven constantly warring kingdoms.
In the North, the Starks ruled from their castle at Winterfell.
To the far south in the Dornish deserts, House Martell reigned from Sunspear.
The gold-rich Westerlands were dominated by House Lannister while the neighboring House
Gardener held dominion over the fertile lands of the Reach and the mountainous realm of
the Vale belonged to House Arryn.
Closest to Aegon’s sphere of influence were House Hoare’s expansionist kingdom and that
of the declining Storm Kings of House Durrandon.
They had once ruled half of Westeros, but their realm had been chipped away at by their
neighbors for decades.
The leader of Hoare Harren the Black, had almost completed a colossal castle named Harrenhal
and would soon be able to pursue new conquests in the Stormlands.
Fearing this threat, Argilac Durrandon sent an envoy to Dragonstone offering his daughter’s
hand in marriage along with the land from the God’s Eye to the Trident as a dowry,
attempting to establish the Valyrians as a buffer between him and the Iron Islanders.
However, Aegon instead offered the marriage with his friend and rumoured bastard brother
Orys Baratheon.
Angered by this insulting proposal, Argilac cut the hands off the envoy and sent them
back to Aegon, stating; “These are the only hands your bastard shall have of me.”
In response the Aegon summoned his friends, allies and bannermen to Dragonstone.
The Velaryons and Celtigars answered their lord’s call dutifully.
They were joined by the Emmons and Masseys, who despite being sworn to Durrandons, had
closer ties to the Dragonlords.
After seven days of counsel, a cloud of ravens burst from Dragonstone to all corners of the
Seven Kingdoms carrying one message; ‘From this day forth there would be but one king
in Westeros’.
Those who bent the knee would keep their lands and titles, those who resisted would be humbled
and destroyed.
In 2 BC Aegon set sail from Dragonstone with his sisters, three dragons and a few hundred
to a few thousand retainers.
This was the force which landed at the mouth of the Blackwater Rush and proceeded to encamp
on the largest of three hills in the area; starting construction of the Aegonfort.
The Targaryen would-be king quickly constructed a makeshift palisade and dispatched Rhaenys
and Visenya on their dragons Meraxes and Vhagar, to secure nearby castles.
Rhaenys captured Rosby without a fight and Visenya was attacked briefly until she showed
Vhagar’s power, and the defenders surrendered.
Nearby Houses Darklyn and Mooton saw the threat and marched south with 3,000 men to attack
Aegon’s beachhead.
The Dragonlord placed Orys in command of his ground forces, while he descended on the enemy
from above on his own dragon; the monstrous Balerion the Black Dread.
Both enemy commanders were killed, and these castles bent the knee.
After subduing a dozen castles, Aegon summoned their lords.
As they had bent the knee, he raised them up and confirmed their lands and titles, while
to his oldest supporters he granted council positions.
Daemon Velaryon was made Master of Ships, Triston Massey Master of Laws and Crispian
Celtigar Master of Coin.
Above all others he placed Orys Baratheon, his greatest confidant, as the first Hand
of the King.
After this, Aegon’s knights unfurled a great three-headed red dragon banner breathing fire
on a black field.
The lords gathered now truly knew Aegon was one of them and a worthy High King.
Queen Visenya then placed a Valyrian steel crown on his head, while Queen Rhaenys hailed
him as ‘Aegon, First of His Name, King of All Westeros and Shield of His People.’
While those in attendance hailed their new ruler, the seven kings of Westeros were preparing
for the war that was soon to come.
Within days of the coronation, Aegon’s armies marched once again in three directions.
The Targaryen fleet left for Gulltown and the Vale, accompanied by Visenya.
The king thrust northwest towards Harrenhal, while the majority of his forces commanded
by Orys Baratheon, crossed the Blackwater Rush accompanied by Rhaenys.
Their vanguard was ambushed as they crossed the Wendwater River and they lost a thousand
men before Rhaenys burned their attackers’ forest hiding place to the ground.
Meanwhile in the north, Aegon and Balerion obliterated King Harren and his entire family
by bypassing the walls of the fortress and melting its stone towers.
This, and the news that Rhaenys and Meraxes accompanied the Targaryen forces invading
the Stormlands worried Argilac, and he began to gather his main force at Storm’s End.
He wasn’t going to meet the same fate as Harren and so he began his march north to
meet the army of Orys.
The airborne Rhaenys witnessed Argilac’s departure and the composition of the enemy
army, reporting the details back to the Hand of the King.
Realising the Storm King’s army outnumbered his, he set up a strong defensive position
on the hills south of Bronzegate and dug in, awaiting the arrival of his enemy.
As Argilac closed on the invading force in the morning, a steady rain began to fall,
which then became a howling gale and torrential downpour, turning the ground into to a soft
mud and also rendering Meraxes unable to fly.
The battle of the Last Storm had begun.
Argilac’s commanders urged the Storm King to delay his attack until the next day in
hopes that the rain would pass.
But the Stormlander army outnumbered the army of Orys 2 to 1, and had four times the amount
of armoured knights and heavy horses.
Angered by the dragon banners flapping on his own hills, and noting that the rain and
wind was blowing north into the invading armies face, the King gave the command to attack.
Argilac’s heavy knights galloped through the rain across the mud-soaked battlefield
and up the hill, crashing into the Targaryen spearmen at the summit.
However, the uphill charge in addition to the sticky mud bogged down the knights’
warhorses, and the charge lost its coordinated momentum and cohesion.
Giving the order for the knights to pull back to the bottom of the hill, The Storm King
led his knights twice more in charges up the hill, attempting to break through the enemy
centre, but the assaults became less effective with each attempt as the ground was ploughed
up by the previous charges.
Finally, the battered and broken knight formations were called back to regroup, the Targaryen
pikemen only having suffered light casualties.
Instead, the King’s army sent its spear bearing infantry up the hill to attack the
enemy flank and, with the invaders blinded by the heavy rainfall, they did not see Argilac’s
men until it was too late.
Orys’ archers attempted to shower them with a rain of arrows, but the weather had made
their bows useless.
The hills anchoring the Targaryen left and right flank fell to the enemy and reserves
from the centre had to be sent to bolster the line.
Then, Argilac led his knights in a final charge up the hill, which broke the enemy centre.
But they now crashed against Rhaenys and Meraxes, and the dragon queen proceeded to slaughter
the knights of the King’s personal vanguard and one of his commanders with dragonflame.
The other warhorses, frightened by the roaring dragon’s fire panicked and fled in terror,
crashing into the riders behind them and turning the charge into chaos.
King Argilac himself was thrown from his saddle but continued to battle on the hill.
The Targaryen forces now gained the upper hand and Orys Baratheon charged down the hill
towards Argilac, who had slain many soldiers by himself.
The invading commander offered a final chance to yield, which was refused.
The two now fought, and each wounded their opponent once.
After a fierce duel, Argilac was killed and his army routed.
With the army of the Stormlands destroyed, Orys Baratheon’s host marched on Storm’s
End, which was surrendered by the garrison along with the late King’s daughter, whom
Orys then married, forming House Baratheon.
Meanwhile to the West, hearing of Argilac’s defeat the King of the Rock Lore I Lannister
and king of the Reach Mern IX Gardener had combined their forces at Castle Goldengrove
creating the mightiest host the Kingdoms had ever seen.
The two kings quickly marched northeast through the fields and crops of mid-Westeros.
Advised of their march at his camp near the God’s Eye, Aegon was able to move south
much quicker than his foes, as he had a smaller force.
When they arrived at the Stoney Sept his queens with their dragons joined him.
The two armies came together on the wide-open plains south of the Blackwater Rush, which
were covered in dry grass and wheat as far as the eye could see.
The sun shone down severely on the unshielded plains and seared the land, as there had been
no rain for more than a fortnight.
Wind also blew strongly across the flat land.
The allied Lannister-Gardener army sent scouts to perform reconnaissance against the invaders
and they returned with the good news; Aegon’s host was small and theirs was massive.
32,500 soldiers from the Reach took to the field that day, including several hundred
vassal lords of House Gardener and several thousand mounted knights.
22,500 Lannister levies also accompanied them, again with several hundred Lords of the Westerlands
and several thousand mounted knights.
As King Mern had brought more men to the field than King Loren, he demanded the honour of
commanding the center for his House.
His son Edmund and himself commanded this armoured wedge of knights, while Lork Oakheart
led the left and the King of the Rock commanded the right flank.
In total, this army consisted of around 55,000 troops.
Opposite them, Aegon formed up his own army in a crescent facing towards the enemy line.
His front ranks consisted of spears and pikeman with archers and crossbowmen behind them,
while light cavalry manned both flanks.
Most of the soldiers under Aegon’s banner were untested and consisted of the levies
of the recently allied Riverlords, whose loyalty to the Targaryen cause was far from certain.
Outnumbered 5 to 1, the Targaryen host probably numbered around 11,000 soldiers and was commanded
by Jon Mooton, Lord of Maidenpool; while the Targaryen royals circled overhead on their
three dragons.
The two kings sounded their trumpets and began marching forward under a sea of banners.
King Mern led the heavy cavalry charge against the enemy center on his golden stallion.
While the Targaryen archers and crossbowmen dealt some damage to the charging knights,
it was not enough.
The first line of spearmen was swept aside and a bloody battle began.
The conflict seemed like it would be a massacre in favour of the allied army, but then a great
roar was heard, and the three dragons began to descend from the skies.
Rhaenys set fires in front of the enemy army, the wind blowing the produced acrid smoke
towards and blinding them and their mounts, who also began to panic.
Visenya on Vhagar used their dragon flame to cut off any possible withdrawal, while
Aegon flew over the massive host and continuously bathed it in flame.
The remainder of the Targaryen ground force who were safely upwind of the conflagration,
waited with bow and spear, ready to make short work of the burned and burning men periodically
emerging from the inferno.
By the end of the day, over 4.000 allied soldiers perished in the dragonfire and over 20,000
suffered burns, while another 1,000 died by conventional weaponry.
The Targaryen force suffered less than 100 dead.
King Mern and his entire family perished in the inferno, while the King of the Rock promptly
bent the knee to Aegon.
The victor marched to secure Highgarden and eventually installed the House Tyrell, as
the new Lords of the Reach.
A few months later, both king Torrhen Stark and Sharra Arryn pledged their loyalty.
Although Dorne continued to resist for over a century, the Targaryens ascended to the
Iron Throne of Westeros.
Their reign would not be tranquil however, and many rebellions would occur.
One of these rebellions will be covered in the next video, so make sure you are subscribed
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