#wyman webber

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

Hi, I was wondering if you could answer a question I had about how much authority a lord has over his extended family members. Like if a lord wants to marry off one of his brother’s daughters, can he do so even if his brother refuses to agree? Who holds the most authority in a situation like that? Does it change depending on the status of the lord in question- like if he was a king, lord paramount or someone from a great house rather than a more typical lord?

Again re feudalism, a lord has as much authority as his vassals allow him, and vassals include family members. (And "allow" includes what they feel they must do per traditions and societal pressures.) Look at how Hoster Tully tried to marry off his brother Brynden to Bethany Redwyne. Brynden refused, and though this pissed off Hoster and strained his relationship with his brother, that's how he left it. A more cruel lord, who loved his brother less and his status more, might use more pressure to get his way. Lords are not bound by any law or custom to support their family members, so in the case you mention, that lord might then tell his brother "fine, then, you and your daughters have to leave". And faced with having to make his own way in the world while supporting his girls, the brother might bow his head and submit. Or maybe he would decide to be a hedge knight after all, or maybe he'd have in-laws he could look to for support, it all depends.

Though again re feudalism (because the feudal contract goes both ways), theoretically this brother could try to go over his lord brother's head and appeal to their overlord. See for example Lord Wyman Webber, who when faced with a daughter, Rohanne, who refused to marry per his command, instead wrote a will that said she had to marry within two years of his death or the lordship and the castle of Coldmoat would go to her cousin instead. It was asked within the story, couldn't Lady Rohanne appeal to her overlord, Lord Rowan, and have him override the will? Well, she tried, but that Webber cousin just happened to be married to Lord Rowan's sister, and so he upheld the will. But maybe in a different situation something could be done -- perhaps the overlord is known to be particularly noble, or perhaps this pressured brother has a connection to the overlord (maybe via his wife, maybe they were companions in battle or as squires). But still, the brother would have to take his daughter with him during this appeal, or he might return to find out she's been married off in his absence.

And as for the girl herself, could she not refuse? Even if she's underage, isn't it true, as Sansa thinks, "Not even the High Septon himself could declare a woman married if she refused to say the vows"? Well, we have Sansa's own example, where when she was faced with marrying Tyrion, Cersei told her she could be dragged to the altar and make a spectacle to be laughed at but they'd still make her do it anyway... and so Sansa submitted and said the vows. See also how Randyll Tarly forced his son Sam to join the Night's Watch. Sam didn't have to submit, there is no law saying he had to obey, but his father threatened to kill him if he didn't, and due to Sam's experience with his father's abuse (and what that abuse did to his personality), he fully believed him. Someone once asked me if an overlord could help there (though weirdly they mentioned Stannis, who wouldn't be able to do anything even if he wanted to), and the point I had to explain was that Sam was so beaten down by the abuse he never would have even considered going over his father's head, even if he could have somehow escaped his father's guards on the way north.

So with these examples, you can see where the status of the lord in question may change things -- a king, for example, has no overlords to appeal to. A lord paramount's brother could only appeal to the king. This status also changes what pressure the lord can bring to bear -- a very small lord may only have a sworn sword to threaten his brother with, a bigger lord could have a whole garrison, and the king would have not just the Kingsguard and the castle guard and the city guard but theoretically every lord and soldier in the country to use as pressure. Again, feudalism works both ways.

And generally none of this is even stated aloud. Everybody just knows the answer to "you and what army?" and so even family members understand what their lord pressuring them means. (Girls particularly innately understand this, along with patriarchal pressure; like Roslin Frey had no real choice at the Red Wedding but to obey her father, brothers, uncles, and cousins.) So, like so many things in ASOIAF's medieval-inspired era, the personal is the political. Only the personalities of the people involved, and their means of pressure or access routes to escape, are what truly defines what can happen in cases like this.

[moonlitgleek]

How much power do legal wills have? Cersei ripped up Robert's but Daeron honored his father's commitments to the bastards. Rohanne would have lost her inheritance b/c of her father's.

I’m a bit out of my depth here because my knowledge of legal matters are fairly limited and I don’t have enough historical knowledge to pull from. My only source of info would be the text and the examples we have of legal wills so if you want a more comprehensive answere, you might be better served checking with someone like @racefortheironthrone for that.

As far as the text goes, we have a few examples of wills, most of which are related to matters of inheritance which makes things murkier, but they are still informative. The most famous - and infamous - will in Westerosi historiography is the one left by Aegon IV Targaryen in which he legitimized all his natural children on his deathbed. While Daeron II might not have appreciated his father’s last spiteful act and the dangers it brought, he was in no position to rescind a royal edict because to do so would be tantamount to denying that his father had the royal authority to legitimize bastards. Daeron couldn’t very well claim that he inherited his royal authority from his father (which he was very conscious to emphasize, as evidenced by him crowning himself with his father’s crown, to counter the doubts cast upon his own legitimacy by Aegon) and simultaneously try to argue that his father didn’t posses the full authority of a king. And since legitimizations can not be rescinded in general, there was nothing Daeron could do. Note that the continuance of incomes bestowed on Aegon’s natural children through Daeron’s reign was not a part of the will. Daeron II simply chose to allow them to continue, honored the betrothal Aegon made for Daemon and additionally granted him a tract of land to build a castle on, probably in the hopes that the crown’s generosity towards his newly legitimized siblings, especially Daemon who was primed for an attempted usurpation by the machinations of Aegon IV, would curtail any thoughts of rebellions.

Technically the same circumstances should have applied to Robert’s will naming Ned regent to his heir. That was a royal edict presented by the Hand of the King who, by law, speaks for the king in his absence. In normal circumstances, that will should have installed Ned as regent, as the king has the authority to choose the regent and Robert chose Ned. Cersei planned a coup though. With the exception of Barristan Selmy (who absolutely should have fought for Ned in that throne room but, well, Selmy tends to ascribe to a very narrow view of a Kingsguard’s duty and has shown an inability to take a stand in morally complicated situations), and Ned and his men who were promptly arrested and slaughtered respectively, everyone present was either Cersei’s man, in her pocket, or in Littlefinger’s. There was no one left to enforce Robert’s will after the showdown in the throne room and no one to challenge Cersei after she destroyed the physical will and accused Ned of treason.

Also a royal edict is Robb Stark’s will in which he legitimized Jon Snow as Jon Stark and names him his heir, but this one has its own complications. Between the fact that we don’t know where the written will is and that all the witnesses are in no position to do anything with the information; that Stannis Barartheon is in the North and that he definitely does not recognize Robb’s authority as king to accept his legitimization of Jon as a Stark and certainly not as the next King in the North; that Jon is dead and about to be resurrected which is bound to change a lot of things; that there are schemes aimed to bring Sansa and Rickon back to the North with the explicit goal to install each as the ruler of Winterfell by their own factions which will certainly conflict with the edicts in the will; that, oh yeah, Jon is not biologically Ned’s son which is known by Howland Reed (currently the host of Galbart Glover and Maege Mormont, two of the witnesses of Robb’s will), almost certainly known by Benjen Stark and is bound to be discovered by Bran Stark, I think it’s unlikely that it will be allowed to stand.

That leaves the two non-royal wills. The first one is the will left by Wyman Webber dictating that his daughter Rohanne had to marry within two year of his death or Coldmoat would go to her cousin. In normal circumstances Lady Rohanne might have had grounds to protest the unnecessary stipulation and argue that this will undercuts normal Andal-First Men succession laws but the cousin that was designated as heir in case she failed to meet her father’s conditions was married to her overlord’s sister so Lord Rowan was more prone to enforce Wyman’s will than to set it aside. Too, Ser Lucas Inchfield, her castellan and the man Lord Webber installed to “scare off unworthy suitors”, looked to use the will to corner her into marrying him so she wouldn’t lose her inheritance. It was pretty hard for Rohanne to challenge her father’s will without support from any side.

Lastly, there is the document Ramsay Snow forced Donella Hornwood to sign naming him heir to the Hornwood. Everything about this was made under duress and so should have easily been set aside but Ser Rodrik Cassel certainly seemed to give it weight when discussing the matter with Maester Luwin, despite the maester arguing that vows made at sword point do not count. But Cassel pointed out that Roose Bolton might not agree and try to press the claim. And while Robb probably wouldn’t have allowed the Boltons to appropriate the Hornwood if he’d survived, Roose’s treachery and alliance with the Lannisters meant that Wyman Manderly did have to concede the Hornwood lands that he seized after Lady Donella’s death to the Boltons on grounds of her marriage to Ramsay and her will.

It’s also worth mentioning that GRRM identified “will of the deceased” as one of the things that makes inheritance laws vague and contradictory, which suggests that this is one of the things that gives one a claim in succession. So I don’t think there is a clear cut answer, not in practice at least. It seems that, like inheritance laws, the acceptance of a will is as dependent on politics and force of arms as it is on legality. In a strictly legal sense, the king’s last will and testament should be binding as a royal decree otherwise his heir risks his own authority. But we’ve seen royal wills destroyed or ignored for the lack of an authority to enforce it. Vows made under duress shouldn’t count, but politics could force the recognition of a claim made through those vows. I think it’s mostly a case by case thing where the presence of an authority to either enforce or override a will, the political and/or military weight of the parties involved and the recognition of the authority of the testator and their right to make such a directive all play a part in whether a will is followed or not. At least that’s as far I can tell.

[moonlitgleek]

Can a king force a second marriage? Like Aegon dies after Naerys has Daeron, could Viserys force her to remarry? Is being stepfather to a king a lucrative position?

He certainly could. A father or a head of house, not even particularly a king, has the power to marry his daughter off any number of times he wants, and her approval isn’t exactly a requirement. Westeros treats women as property of their fathers so they can marry them however they want, and widowhood doesn’t miraculously grant a woman more power unless it’s derived from her children. Even then, a particularly powerful or controlling father might still strongarm his daughter into a second marriage. Indeed, Tywin Lannister tried to do just that by attempting to arrange a match between Cersei and Willas Tyrell, and he had every intention of finding her another husband after the Tyrells refused the match to get her out of King’s Landing. Cersei was the queen regent, the most powerful woman in the Seven Kingdoms, and yet Tywin had plans to force her to submit to his marital designs because Tywin didn’t think of his children as people but rather as things to move on his chess board. Hell, Kevan tried to make Cersei wed when he set his terms for accepting the Handship, though he lacked the power of force her.To the same effect, Lord Wyman Webber married his daughter Rohanne off four times in his life, and mandated another marriage within two years of his death in his will as a stipulation of her keeping Coldmoat. And while not forced in the sense of the previous two examples, we also have Princess Elaena Targaryen who wed for a second time to Ronnel Penrose at the behest of Daeron II, and Kiera of Tyrosh who wed Daeron the Drunken after the death of her first husband Prince Valaar, probably by the machinations of the Hand, Lord Brynden Rivers (the marriage that is, not Valaar’s death).

Thus, Viserys, as both Naerys’ father and later king, had the authority to make her wed again if he so wished, unless one of his kings (Aegon III, Daeron I, or Baelor) forbade it. The question is, would he want to? Viserys already forced one husband on Naerys, one that raped and abused her on a regular basis and routinely jeopardized her life despite warnings that pregnancy could kill her to the point where Baelor the Blessed had to send Aegon on “a diplomatic” mission to Braavos to give the poor princess time to recover from childbirth. Marriage was, quite literally, a risk for Naerys’ health considering her delicate health and dangerous pregnancies that Aegon made her go through enough of. Forcing her to marry against her will for a second time after the ordeal of her marriage to Aegon would strike me as singularly cruel to her.

As for being a stepfather to a king, of course it’s a lucrative position, though the extent depends on the circumstances. If a noble marries the king’s mother when the king was a child, it would give him the chance to establish himself as a beloved father figure to the king, and he’d made for a natural choice for Protector of the Realm or the Hand during the king’s minority (with possibility to keep the Handship or a seat on the Small Council after the king reaches his majority). He might even hope for the regency if the stars aligned, or he made them align like in the case of Petyr Baelish. While not a king, the power Petyr derived from Robert Arryn stands as an example of the kind of power a noble could procure through his stepson. Perhaps possible advantages of being the king’s stepfather could be is clearer in the case of Lord Robar Baratheon who wed the Dowager Queen Alyssa Velaryon after her son King Jaehaerys I reached his majority. Already esteemed by Jaehaerys for his loyalty and protection of Queen Alyssa, Jaehaerys and Alysanne during Maegor’s reign, and for being the first lord to declare for the then-minor and vulnerable Jaehaerys, Robar was further rewarded when Jaehaerys chose his half-sister Jocelyn, Robar’s daughter by Alyssa, as bride for crown prince Aemon. Similarly, a king’s stepfather might also hope for a royal match for one of the children he has by the king’s mother as a more traditional nuptial choice for the Targaryens. Even if none of that was feasible like in Daeron’s case since he had already reached his majority when Viserys became king and since the prospect of having a child by Naerys was doubtful due to her health, being kin to the king is always an advantage that could easily translate to being entrusted with a high office in his government and the advancement of one’s house.But even without an official position, being the goodson of one king and the stepfather of another with easy access to them both is definitely nothing to sneeze at.