Wait that's Lord who's castle?

[LindsayLohan]

5 hours ago, Mick of House Guinness said:

It's interesting that in A Dance with Dragons Appendix Rolland Storm, The Bastard of Nightsong and castellan of Dragonstone, is listed as Pretender Lord of Nightsong.

His current whereabouts are unknown but if he reappears to press his claim, he could cause Ser Phillip some problems. He is a stormlander, a seasoned warrior and is held in high regard by Davos and Stannis.

He's held in high regard by Cersei, too.  Being married to Robert Baratheon obviously made her privy to a lot of warrior-talk, and she (sometimes more than the men around her) knows the difference between a gloryhound and a warrior.  When Loras went to take Dragonstone, Cersei's thoughts were "And perhaps the first to fall. The pox-scarred bastard that Stannis had left to hold his castle was no callow tourney champion but a seasoned killer."

[sweetsunray]

40 minutes ago, Joe Yeardley said:

Assuming that Lady Bethany was indeed the heir of Rosby, then Olyvar's older brother Ser Perwyn Frey is the Lord of Rosby. Olyvar would be 3rd in line, behind his nephew and niece. Roslin would be next, interestingly. It seems odd to me that Lord Gyles had never named an heir; his death was a long time coming. 

A ward or the parent of a ward does not have to be the closest relative.

When it comes to inheritence, George himself said it's not all that clear cut and dried as in "the" closest remaining relative, nor the children or grandchildren of a lord before their uncles.

Take the Freys for example: Stevron is Walder Frey's 1st son. Stevron's eldest son is Edwyn Frey and his sole child is 9 year old Walda. So, Stevron died, and now Edwyn Frey is Walder Frey's supposed heir. And yet Black Walder (the younger brother) is suspected of trying to steal in on the inheritance and we can indeed expect some type of deadly brawl between those two brothers and whichever half brother or brother or sister supports a side. Now let's say that Edwyn Frey is killed, and Black Walder survives. In that situation, who's the heir? Black Walder or 9 year old Walda? It should be Walda, but no way that's gonna happen, unless she's married off to a young man with huge political and military support. She might have a chance if a half-uncle marries her, and it wouldn't surprise me if Black Walder tries to secure such a scenario from happening by marrying herself, even if he's her full uncle. Anyway, the physical, political and the backing of those living at the keep has its ultimate say. So, even when it comes to choosing between a daughter or a brother things aren't really written in stone.

The ward we're initially introduced to is Theon, and we learn that Ned Stark and Robert were Jon Arryn's wards too. Theon was a hostage, reared amongst the Starks like a family member, but he isn't actual kin in blood or even kin of in-laws. Same thing for Ned and Robert. They're not Jon Arryn's kin. But wards are still seen as being part of the family, and they are used in the power play for inheritance and keep a house going. Take the Hornwood case for example. Donella Hornwood's husband, the Lord Hornwood dies and so do their sons. On the one hand the lord's bastard son is a ward of the Glovers, and then there's Beren Tallhart, the 2nd son of Lord Tallhart who's married to the sister of late Lord Hornwood. Beren is the late lord's nephew. And the Tallharts advocate Donella to adopt or take Beren as her heir and ward at Hornwood. Beren would then change his name to Hornwood and in this way continue the line. So, that's a sitaution of a recognized natural son of the Lord with the political backing of the Glovers versus the trueborn 2nd nephew with political backing of the Tallharts. The decision who will be appointed heir is differred to the future, by Luwin, Rodrik and Bran, even though strictly speaking the trueborn Tallhart nephew would have legal rights over a natural son. Ramsay solves it by forcibly wedding Donella, have her sign of Hornwood to him, and then let her die from starvation, which is odd, since Donella isn't actually a Hornwood by blood, nor the heir and a forced marriage at swordpoint isn't even legal. And yet, the whole point that it doesn't make any legal sense is moot. It's generally accepted as a fact that Ramsay is now the Lord of Hornwood, and will remain so, until someone manages to kill him. When that happens, the bastard and Beren come back into the picture. 

Now the advantage of being a ward of a lord at his estate, especially if you're a distant relative, is that such a person is already established as part of the household. A ward has far more sway over the guards and castellan and maester who are important in helping secure a castle or keep than say a closer relative that grew up someplace else. That was the reason why Lord Tallhart didn't just forwarded his second son as heir, but tried to have Donella adopt him/ take him as a ward. Beren would then have an edge over the bastard who grows up at Deepwood Motte.

Now Walder Frey has many sons and grandsons, we know. Still he tries to take care of his own. He has some pledged to the Faith, others studying for maester, which solves inheritance issues (since both foreswear inheritance) for these boys. The others are apprenticed, squired out or taken in as wards, usually with the help of the House of their mother. Emmon Frey and his children with Genna Lannister lived mostly in the Westerlands and the children were pages or squires of Lannisters or their bannermen. They're Freys, but mostly taken care of by the Lannisters. Merret was a squire with Crakehall together with Jaime. His mother was a Crakehall. Another son (who's dead) married a Waynwood, and his daughter Cynthea (Walder's granddaughter) is a ward of Anya Waynwood. So, you can bet on it that Walder made sure that one of his children with Bethany Rosby was raised at Rosby.

We can exclude the dead Benfrey, since he's well dead, and he was the sole son of Bethany who has no issues with cooperating during the Red Wedding. And Willamen is a maester. It ain't Roslin, as she was kept as Walder's prize to snare himself a future LP of the RIverlands for years. So, that leaves us Perwyn and Olyvar. Perwyn was kept away from the Twins, because he disagreed with the plan of the Red Wedding. Olyvar was away "on business". And while Perwyn we know disdained of the Red Wedding, he was not the one who wanted to remain with Robb Stark even after he married Jeyne Westerling. That was Olyvar. So, of all the Freys with a Rosby mom, Olyvar shows the least loyalty to House Frey.

There's the subtle misdirection that George does with both the "ward" as well as Olyvar. Olyvar became Robb's squire and his eagerness to remain with Robb gives us the impression that he's a boy, a kid, but in actuality Olyvar is older than Robb. He's a young man, not a boy. It's not youth that explains why Olyvar isn't so much into "being a Frey", but something else. If he was raised at Rosby as Gyles' ward (and thus basically adopted) that would explain this attitude far better, because as the ward-heir of childless Gyles Rosby, Olyvar would take on the name Rosby. Olyvar would consider himself Olyvar Rosby rather than Olyvar Frey. He would consider himself free from the loyalty to the Twins, the half-brothers, half-nephews. And since his own full sister Roslin was not particularly promised to Robb, he wouldn't have seen it as a slight of his sister either. 

Then there's the oddity of him having to squire still. He can't get knighted at a sept, unless he served as a squire. His brother Perwyn and Benfrey were knighted. But he isn't. And yet he's eager and brave. As Gyles' ward though it would have been difficult to squire. Gyles was an old sickly man and not in any way described as a fighting man. Olyvar simply hadn't been able to squire yet, because he had to be a war to a man he couldn't squire for.

Now the ward of Rosby is someone who refuses Falyse and her husbands as guests (well the castellan informs her the ward refuses). Falyse makes a disparaging remark regarding the trustworthiness, as if there's a stain on the ward's origin family. Couple it with "guest rights" and we come up with the Frey name.

Quote

We thought to spend the night at Rosby, but that young ward of Lord Gyles refused us hospitality." She sniffed. "Mark my word, when Gyles dies that ill-born wretch will make off with his gold. He may even try and claim the lands and lordship, though by rights Rosby should come to us when Gyles passes. My lady mother was aunt to his second wife, third cousin to Gyles himself."

The ward must be an adult already to be able to command the castellan and have the castellan follow his orders, but also still young enough to be called "young ward" by Falyse. If the ward was a minor, the castellan would make his own decisions and be a stand-in guardian (see Penrose as Castellan of Storm's End with Robert's minor bastard son as ward). It's not a secret who the ward is to Cersei, Falyse, Pycelle and others. It's only kept secret from us. Olyvar being 18 seems of the right age. Perwyn wouldn't be called "young ward" anymore.

Falyse tries to paint her mother and herself as the closest relatives to Gyles, but if she's third cousin once removed, it's probably no better than Bethany Rosby.

Cersei declares he's not a Rosby, but within the context of what Cersei says next, we can take her flippant dismissive with a serious grain of salt. We're in la-la-Cersei-land.

 

Quote

 

"No children of his body, but there is a ward . . ."

". . . not of his blood." Cersei dismissed that annoyance with a flick of her hand. "Gyles knew of our dire need for gold. No doubt he told you of his wish to leave all his lands and wealth to Tommen."

 

 

She likely dismisses his connection because he doesn't have the Rosby name. Facts aren't Cersei's special forté.

Now, I do think it's likely that Perwyn is inside Rosby, having joined Olyvar, but putting the pieces together the likeliest ward is Olyvar, not Perwyn. The reason why George would keep him under wraps for the reader would be because he's known to the reader as the faithful Frey who chose Robb over his Frey family had he been allowed to do so. To know someone with such Wolfish sentiments so near KL and with the ability to blockade and starve the city if he wishes it, might give his intentions away too early.

There are supposed to be six claimants for the Rosby estate per Kevan during the epilogue coouncil. Those would be:

• Tommen/Crown per Cersei making the false claim that Gyles's last wish was to give it to the crown
• Falyse Stokeworth. Though she's dead, only Cersei and Qyburn know of this. I doubt that Pycelle and Kevan are aware she's dead. Falyse made sure to tell everyoen and everybody that she had a claim to Rosby imo.
• Lollys Stokeworth + Bronn
• The ward, Olyvar
• Walder Frey claiming it for Perwyn
• Kevan considering it possibly for Roslin's child as it would solve the threat Edmure's child poses for Genna and her children, and it would give the Lannisters and the crown the power to take Edmure's child as a ward-hostage, marry it into the Lannister family. Sort of like they did with baby Ermisandra

[Joe Yeardley]

/

[sweetsunray]

6 minutes ago, Joe Yeardley said:

Thanks for this detailed reply, a really interesting read. 

While the Houses do not adhere strictly to male-preference primogeniture, I think it's more likely that they do so when the Lord has close living relatives, as can be seen with Cregan Karstark, who does not question Alys Karstark as the heir to Karhold but seeks to control it through marriage to her. The Arryns also seem to hold the "daughter before an uncle" law in high regard, recognising Harrold Hardyng as the heir to the Eyrie ahead of more distant Arryn cousins. This makes me think that Edwyn Frey's daughter will not be so easily discounted from succession to the Twins, but that the Frey civil war may revolve around controlling and/or marrying her. In the case of the Rosby inheritance, Falyse Stokeworth's claim to the estate suggests that Bethany Rosby was something of a distant cousin to Lord Gyles herself, and I imagine that the succession of distant relatives would be much more flexible. 

Having looked at the evidence you've presented I agree that Olyvar Frey/Rosby does look very likely to be the mysterious Ward of Rosby. 

 

Here's George's SSM about inheritence:

Quote

Well, the short answer is that the laws of inheritance in the Seven Kingdoms are modelled on those in real medieval history... which is to say, they were vague, uncodified, subject to varying interpertations, and often contradictory.

A man's eldest son was his heir. After that the next eldest son. Then the next, etc. Daughters were not considered while there was a living son, except in Dorne, where females had equal right of inheritance according to age.

After the sons, most would say that the eldest daughter is next in line. But there might be an argument from the dead man's brothers, say. Does a male sibling or a female child take precedence? Each side has a "claim."

What if there are no childen, only grandchildren and great grandchildren. Is precedence or proximity the more important principle? Do bastards have any rights? What about bastards who have been legitimized, do they go in at the end after the trueborn kids, or according to birth order? What about widows? And what about the will of the deceased? Can a lord disinherit one son, and name a younger son as heir? Or even a bastard?

There are no clear cut answers, either in Westeros or in real medieval history. Things were often decided on a case by case basis. A case might set a precedent for later cases... but as often as not, the precedents conflicted as much as the claims.

In fact, if you look at medieval history, conflicting claims were the cause of three quarters of the wars. The Hundred Years War grew out of a dispute about whether a nephew or a grandson of Philip the Fair had a better claim to the throne of France. The nephew got the decision, because the grandson's claim passed through a daughter (and because he was the king of England too). And that mess was complicated by one of the precedents (the Salic Law) that had been invented a short time before to resolve the dispute after the death of Philip's eldest son, where the claimants were (1) the daughter of Philip's eldest son, who may or may not have been a bastard, her mother having been an adulteress, (2) the unborn child of the eldest son that his secon wife was carrying, sex unknown, and (3) Philip's second son, another Philip. Lawyers for (3) dug up the Salic Law to exclude (1) and possibly (2) if she was a girl, but (2) was a boy so he became king, only he died a week later, and (3) got the throne after all. But then when he died, his own children, all daughters, were excluded on the basis of the law he's dug up, and the throne went to the youngest son instead... and meanwhile (1) had kids, one of whom eventually was the king of Navarre, Charles the Bad, who was such a scumbag in the Hundred Years War in part because he felt =his= claim was better than that of either Philip of Valois or Edward Plantagenet. And you know, it was. Only Navarre did not have an army as big as France or England, so no one took him seriously.

The Wars of the Roses were fought over the issue of whether the Lancastrian claim (deriving from the third son of Edward III in direct male line) or the Yorkist claim (deriving from a combination of Edward's second son, but through a female line, wed to descendants of his fourth son, through the male) was superior. And a whole family of legitimized bastard stock, the Beauforts, played a huge role.

And when Alexander III, King of Scots, rode over a cliff, and Margaret the Maid of Norway died en route back home, and the Scottish lords called on Edward I of England to decide who had the best claim to the throne, something like fourteen or fifteen (I'd need to look up the exact number) "competitors" came forward to present their pedigrees and documents to the court. The decision eventually boiled down to precedence (John Balliol) versus proximity (Bruce) and went to Balliol, but those other thirteen guys all had claims as well. King of Eric of Norway, for instance, based his claim to the throne on his =daughter=, the aforementioned Maid of Norway, who had been the queen however briefly. He seemed to believe that inheritance should run backwards. And hell, if he had been the king of France instead of the king of Norway, maybe it would have.

The medieval world was governed by men, not by laws. You could even make a case that the lords preferred the laws to be vague and contradictory, since that gave them more power. In a tangle like the Hornwood case, ultimately the lord would decide... and if some of the more powerful claimants did not like the decision, it might come down to force of arms.

The bottom line, I suppose, is that inheritance was decided as much by politics as by laws. In Westeros and in medieval Europe both.

 

[winstonwelles]

Since nobody seems to have focused on it, re Rosby...

On 1/5/2017 at 7:16 PM, Joe Yeardley said:

• Falyse Stokeworth. Though she's dead, only Cersei and Qyburn know of this. I doubt that Pycelle and Kevan are aware she's dead. Falyse made sure to tell everyoen and everybody that she had a claim to Rosby imo.
• Lollys Stokeworth + Bronn

Rosby is one of King's Landing's wealthiest bannermen, along with Stokeworth, and it's right next door, and Bronn is raising men at arms, and the crown keeps refusing to officially settle the Rosby lands on a worthy claimant.

Cersei is once again unwittingly giving Bronn chances to get ahead in life. He is in a position to seize Rosby by force, either killing Olyvar or taking him hostage, and can subsequently back up his (wife's) claim. None of the other claimants (save the Crown itself) are in any position to back up their claim with force. As we've seen with Hornwood before, in cases of unclear succession the guy whose arse is on the seat and backed up with armed men has a massive advantage over other claimants. Especially if the throne changes hands and Bronn makes himself useful to the new king, who might also reward his "son" Tyrion with legitimacy...

-----

Another interesting one: Brightwater Keep is given to Garlan Tyrell, but it used to be the seat of House Florent, and who's married to the heir to Florent? Stalwart servant of the crown Randyll Tarly. Many people have suggested that he'll take offence at having his wife's lands given away, among other insults, and will turn on the Tyrells and Lannisters and join Aegon.

[Shouldve Taken The Black]

On 05/01/2017 at 10:36 AM, sweetsunray said:

 

Though the identity of the ward of Rosby is unconfirmed and the crown has not yet decided on who is the legal possessor of the Rosby lands, we can deduce that Olyvar Frey is the likeliest candidate, and since the ward obviously took possession of Rosby and physical posession still trumps a paper, we can consider Olyvar Frey as the non-canon Lord of Rosby.

 

There's a SSM http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/1255 where someone asked about Rosby's ward. Granted, the questioner asked whether the ward is Aegon, but GRRM answered "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar". Which suggests to me that there is no mystery or upcoming reveal about the identity of Gyles's ward. 

If Olyvar was going to claim Rosby, wouldn't the Freys send some men with him? They send a whole gang of them to help claim Darry, and that wasn't even going to a Frey, but to Lancel. 

[sweetsunray]

19 minutes ago, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

There's a SSM http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/1255 where someone asked about Rosby's ward. Granted, the questioner asked whether the ward is Aegon, but GRRM answered "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar". Which suggests to me that there is no mystery or upcoming reveal about the identity of Gyles's ward. 

If Olyvar was going to claim Rosby, wouldn't the Freys send some men with him? They send a whole gang of them to help claim Darry, and that wasn't even going to a Frey, but to Lancel. 

Mention is made of Walder Frey putting forward several "claims". Again this is cut off by Cersei, as does Kevan put aside the claims for Rosby as one that could wait. Walder Frey doesn't need to send an army or men to Rosby while Gyles is alive still. By the time Gyles dies, Walder Frey has men at Darry's, men at Seagard, a siege at RR and 2000 other men at WF, with plenty of those acquiring an estate that is hostile towards them in war-torn territory infested with outlaws and broken men and Saltpan raiders.

I don't see how "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar" discount the theory that Olyvar Frey is the ward of Rosby. Olyvar is quite a logical candidate to be the ward: fits the age, the family connection, Walder's MO. It is not a secret or big mystery for Cersei, Kevan, and other characters in Westeros. They all know who the ward is. It's only kept a mystery to the reader, something that George has been unwilling to reveal. So, it makes perfect sense for George to respond in that way to the proposal whether it might be Aegon. But it does not make Olyvar unlikely at all. The idea that it's Olyvar at best is followed with the sentiment of "Oh, Olyvar? That'd be nice," but nothing earth-shattering or shocking.

[Shouldve Taken The Black]

4 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

I don't see how "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar" discount the theory that Olyvar Frey is the ward of Rosby. Olyvar is quite a logical candidate to be the ward: fits the age, the family connection, Walder's MO. It is not a secret or big mystery for Cersei, Kevan, and other characters in Westeros. They all know who the ward is. It's only kept a mystery to the reader, something that George has been unwilling to reveal. So, it makes perfect sense for George to respond in that way to the proposal whether it might be Aegon. But it does not make Olyvar unlikely at all. 

Out of interest, what impact do you think Olyvar being the ward will have on the story?

[sweetsunray]

5 minutes ago, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

Out of interest, what impact do you think Olyvar being the ward will have on the story?

The same impact that is hinted by the books regarding the ward holding on to Rosby (and Bronn doing the same) will have: Stokeworth and Rosby keeping food from going to King's Landing from the Northern road, a food blockade at King's Landing doorstep. I expect Aegon to march towards King's Landing from the Stormlands. I see the Tyrells jumping ship and join Aegon and blockade their food. That leaves food normally still trickling in from the Crownlands, Rosby, Stokeworth, Duskendale, and Maidenpool from the RL. But they will blockade food going for KL as well imo.