The Tully's claim on the Riverlands

[Lord Varys]

Technically, Lord Jon Mooton was the first Riverlord to swear fealty to the Conqueror. Lord Darklyn would have been a Riverlord, too, at this point, as would have been the Stokeworths and Rosbys who were the first lords to yield to Aegon.

However, Edmyn Tully really seems to have been the first major lord of those Riverlords we know in the main series. Whether he truly was the first to yield when Aegon marched against Harren we cannot know with absolute certainty but his defection to Aegon with a lot of men in tow clearly greatly profited Aegon's cause - and that's why he was later rewarded and named the new Lord Paramount of the Riverlands.

Aegon didn't so much care about claims and stuff, he wanted to reward those people who declared for him, people he thought he could trust and people who actually happened to owe everything to him. And if you check the hints Yandel gives us about the lords at court during the early days of the Targaryen they are almost entirely made up of lords that had proven their loyalty to the Targaryens. The Velaryons and Celtigars are there considering that they are their oldest allies. The Baratheons play in the same league. Next come the Stokeworths and Darklyns, followed by the Tullys. Just check the known names of the early Hands. Orys Baratheon, Edmyn Tully, Osmund Strong, Alyn Stokeworth, etc.

It is the same with the Tyrells. They realize Aegon has won and hand Highgarden to him, but they receive the entire Reach and the castle from him - and thanks to their essentially no existing claim to Highgarden (many other houses in the Reach must have been related to the Gardeners in a similar or closer degree than the Tyrells).

The fact that the Florents are still pissed about not getting Highgarden could be an indication that the Lord Florent during the Conquest was the son of a daughter or sister of Mern IX Gardener (or the guy who became the Lord Florent after the Field of Fire was related to Mern IX in such a degree). If he was the closest Gardener cousin through the female line then he would have had the best claim to Highgarden, and given that up would have been pretty hard to swallow.

[Armstark]

On 13.4.2016 at 9:15 AM, Lemon of Lemonwood said:

On the possible Hoare, my impression is that by the time of the conquest the Hoares were reviled by their riverlander to say the least. So, I think that a blood relation between House Hoare and house Tully wouldn't help to consolidate the latter's claim of the Riverlands, far from it.

Also,given the importance of the rock wife in ironborn culture, I doubt ironborn nobblewomen were given as wives to foreigners -at least we have no records of such matches,while the opposite did happen-

To be fair, house Tully was a good choice on Aegon's part for many reasons. They were loyal to him, had enough past royal connections to be accepted by their vassals and no blood feud that we know of.

Those past royal connections are what exactly? It is either a Hoare connection or one that goes back 350years plus as I have tried to show in my OP. Furthermore, I think a Tully dominion over the Riverlands would be easier to accept for the Riverlords  if he had a real claim to that title, be it derived through the ironborn rule or not.

 

 

1 hour ago, The hairy bear said:

In the appendixes: "The Tullys never reigned as kings, though they held rich lands and the great castle at Riverrun for a thousand years.  (...) A vain and bloody tyrant, Harren the Black was little loved by those he ruled, and many of the river lords deserted him to join Aegon's host. First among them was Edwyn Tully of Riverrun. When Harren and his line perished in the burning of Harrenhal, Aegon rewarded House Tully by raising Lord Edmyn to dominion over the lands of the Trident and requiring the over river lords to swear him fealty. "

Thank you, but I don't think it's definitive either way. It certainly does not rule out a Hoare connection.

[Lemon of Lemonwood]

On 14/4/2016 at 4:03 PM, Armstark said:

Those past royal connections are what exactly? It is either a Hoare connection or one that goes back 350years plus as I have tried to show in my OP. Furthermore, I think a Tully dominion over the Riverlands would be easier to accept for the Riverlords  if he had a real claim to that title, be it derived through the ironborn rule or not.

Probably yes, marriage ties to the Teagues are possible,although the Tullys did rise against the Teagues, the history of Westeros shows that marriage ties don't always guarantee alliances. Also,it is fairly reasonable to think that, since they were considered very powerful in their history, they would have often intermarried with Blackwoods, Brackens, Vances, Mudds, Justmans and any other riverlander house with royal pedigrees.
 

As for the Hoare connection, in the Iron Islands the Volmark claim might have had a better chance of being acceptable, but at least I find it hard to imagine that a blood tie with the universally despised -in the Riverlands at least- Hoares would help easing the transfer to Tully rule.
 

 

[Bright Blue Eyes]

Aegon didn't exactly name Edmyn Tully Lord Paramount. What he did was rubberstamping a fait accompli: Edmyn Tully had united the Riverlords against House Hoare and was willing to bend the knee to Aegon, despite outnumbering his forces twenty to one. Aegon would have had to fight another war, just to name anybody else.