Strength of the Northern Houses

[Lord Stark]

Inspired by the thread on how power House Starks personal levies are.

I would like to start a healthy debate on and size and strength of the Noble houses of the North, those sworn directly to Winterfell and are lords in their own right. For the sake of this thread lets assume that the North has a force of 45k. I know many think they have less the. That, and many more think they have more but let's just leave it there in the middle for this thread to figure out the strength of the lords of the North

If with 45k or more, I do not believe the North can field an army of more then 30k south of Moat Cailin. Supplying an army that big at Moat Cailin likely begins to put a strain on their supply lines as the North is vast, and the further south you go the less men you can take because of supply issues.

I do look forward to everyone's view and if all goes well perhaps to do more on other regions although we know most about the North.

House Stark - 6000

Once ruled as King of Winter and Kings in the North, House Stark should have vast lands of which would have been used to bring the North under their heal. I also consider House Tallhart and House Glover to be simple small Houses in the service of House Stark. As Masterly Houses they are Knightly Houses in all but name, and such houses are often small and sworn to other lords or petty lords of a lord, unless, such in this case they are part of a Lord Paramont's personal lands. Think about what the Crownlands are to King's Landing.

Further I believe that House Starks personal lands are all of the Wolfswood, from Deepwood Motte, and the sea around it, to Torrhen's Square, the White Knife, and the border of the lands of the Northern Mountain Clans. How far south north along the White Knife I have no idea. I also don't think their lands extend to the Stoney Shore or Sea Dragon Point. Likely they could muster up to 8k but that would go over the 45k limit.

This makes House Stark the strongest house within the North

House Manderly - 5000

They rule the only city in the North, and on top of that it is a vast trade port. They are rich in silver, and once held the mint of the North. Their lands are almost the further south in what appears to be good lands, and it is rare for The Bite to Ice over, although it is known to happen. I once considered them much stronger but that doesn't seem to work out so well, still this places them tied for second strongest house in the North.

House Manderly is ordered by both Ned and Robb to defend White Harbour and the coast, yet still bring a force to go south, wage war against House Bolton, build new defences, and a sizeable navy of 50 warships. This all points to a strong house. It was smart to grant the lands to House Manderly as they follow the Seven ad will find little in the way of allies if they ever try to go against House Stark.

We might see a larger Manderly army in the coming books but it should be noted that this army would be made up of the refuges that Wyman has been taking in as well as Hornwood men, Locke men, and likely Flint of Widow's Watch men.

House Bolton - 5000

Once kings within the North, they rivalled House Stark for much of their history, and even when they bent the knee they were still powerful enough to rebel against House Stark a number of times, as well as survive a four year siege of the Dreadfort. In the series their power is well known. They sent large reserves south with Robb, but also kept a strong garrison of the Dreadfort of some 600 troops I believe. Further they were able to still wage a war over Hornwood lands, and allow Ramsey to do other things.

Likely once more powerful then now, they still seem to rival House Stark and House Manderly.

Northern Mountain Clans - 4000

The Northern Mountain Clans is made up of 2 scores of clans, but there seem to be 7 major clans. They sent men south with Robb and took heavy losses but are still able to supply Stannis with 3k. It should be noted that these 3k might be because of The coming winter and we know that the old within the clans will go hunting during winter to ensure they are not a drain of their friends and family, and never be seen again. To free arya may be seen as a more noble way to go out before winter truly comes.

House Karstark - 3000

We know that House Karstark sent close to 2300 men south, and have since created another smaller force. This has put strain on the area around Karhold with the coming winter, how much the surrounded lands are affected we don't know but I would say this is the max they can field. Should be noted that these lands may have once belonged to the Bolton kingdom, but we can't know for sure.

House Umber -3000

House Umber is in the same position as Hous Karstark. They sent many men south, but have since formed two smaller hosts, but the fields around Last Hearth have suffered for it. Add this to the fact of constant Wildlings threats, we know a cousin was the Greatjon was taken by one, and this seems to be about the max they can muster, but still a respectable and powerful number, and on par with most houses in the area.

House Hornwood - 3000

We know little of House Hornwood. We know they sent men south with Robb as well as fought to defend their homeland from House Bolton. They sit between House Stark, House Bolton, and House Manderly, which suggests they have good lands such as theirs. It is also suggested in a small way that House Umber, House Hornwood, and House Erwyn are roughly equal in strength.

House Ryswell - 3000

Little is know. Of House Ryswell. We know they sent men with Robb south, but not hoe many. We can guess they are prized horse breeders, and we know the heir to Winterfell fostered with them. They also control lands in the south of the North, which likely provides better then some of the more northern houses. My guess is this House would be on par with the other top lord of the North.

House Dustin - 3000

Again we know little of House Dustin. They sent as little men as they dared south with Robb. They control the largest town within the North, big enough for one of their vassals to have their seat of power at the gate. Again they also control lands in the south of the North. I put their power at equal to the other major Houses of the North because of their town.

House Cerwyn - 2500

Just a few days ago I considered them much weaker then I do now. Their castle is close to Winterfell, and it is slightly suggested that they are roughly equal to House Umber and House Hornwood in power. Because they are so near to Winterfell and the lands of the Starks I would guess that they can field about 2500. They did Mach south with Robb, as well as form up part of Rodrik's army.

House Reed - 2000

They control little in the way of good land, most of it being a swamp, but it is a vast area. We know their was once a Marsh King that a King of Winter slew and married his daughter. They may well have less then 2k men, but I find it unlikely.

Skaggos - 1500

We know only rumours about them. There are three noble houses listed on the island, but if they are in fact noble or more clan like is unknown. I once considered them more powerful but it doesn't fit right if they are. They should be less powerful then any mainland house in the area as they are from an island in the far north, and one which is known to be rocky. The name skagosi means Stoneborn, so it doesn't suggest they have vast good lands. Still we know they rebelled against House Stark and a Lord Stark died but we know nothing else, other houses could have taken part or it cold have all been fought on Skagos, and with no navy only a small force sent to fight them in their homeland. Regardless I do not believe they will be all that power in strength.

House Mormont - 1000

Another island, one which belonged to the Ironborn at some point and was won by House Stark in a wresting match. Again i do not believe they cannot be more powerful the the mainland Houses of the area. We know Jorah couldn't afford to keep his Hightower bride happy but that is no surprise as the Hightowers are one of the most wealthy Houses. Still the fact that women are considered more equal than elsewhere in the North does suggest they are either not that wealthy or don't have that large of a populations and therefore women share the workload. I would place them as bottom tier of the major houses of the North.

House Locke - 1000

Nothing is known of House Locke other then their seat of power is Oldcastle. This does suggest an old house but that can only be guessed at. As we know next to nothing of them, I rate them bottom tier until more information comes out.

House Flint of Widow's Watch - 1000

Again we know next to nothing about this house. We know their seat of power is Widow's Watch and it is on the east coast, where most houses are powerful and wealth, but without more information I can't rate them higher then Jon's statement that any one of his fathers Lord Bannermen control more men then the Night's Watch.

House Flint of Flint's Finger - 1000

Again we know little to nothing. We only have the statement that any of House Starks Lord Bannermen can field more men then the Night's Watch, so this means at least 1000 men. It should be noted that they are close to the Iron Islands and likely have long been the subject of raids and while their lands are not a swamp, they border one and so may not be wealthy or much more powerful

Lord Stark

[Earth 1 Andrew]

House Hodor: 1337.

[Lord Stark]

I believe that at the very least the North has 45k in terms of manpower. Any less really weakens the more southern houses of the North, as well as House Stark itself, which to me doesn't seem quite right. I wouldn't be surprised if there are another 5k troops which would be split most likely between House Locke, and House Flint of Widow's Watch, and some others to beef up their numbers, but that is mostly a guess and gut feeling.

Look forward to seeing some input.

[Free Northman]

To the OP:

Good estimates. Some are too high, and some too low, though. A few that I disagree with.

Skagos:

Note that the west coast of the Lands Beyond the Wall is frozen solid, while the east coast is forested for another 600 miles North of the Wall. This signifies that the seas around Skagos are likely significantly warmer than those around Bear Island. Skagos is also at least 3 times the size of Bear Island. I would therefore put the Skagosi at the very least at around 3 times the strength of House Mormont, and possibly even 5 times.

Skagos should be at around 3000 - 5000 in my view.

House Flint of Widow's Watch:

They are located in the most fertile part of the North, in the far southeast, on the rich trade routes of the Narrow Sea. They likely rule their entire peninsula, right up to the Broken Branch river that seperates their lands from the Hornwoods. I would put them at no less than the Karstarks at around 3000. They are also an ancient House and quite influential, I believe.

Manderly:

There is no way that he is at only 5000. His lands must by far be the most densely populated in the North. White Harbor is the New York city of the North, and the surrounding land are the North's economic hub, compared to the Karstark and Umber lands which are more like Nebraska in terms of population density. The White Knife basin is probably the most fertile and populated area of the North, and all trade up and down culminates in White Harbor.

They will have more people in their lands than the Starks or any other northern lord, just like the Hightowers have far more people in their lands than the Tyrells. If the Karstarks can raise 3000 men, the Manderlys can surely raise at least twice, and likely 3 times that number. 8000 men is a likely level for them, in my view.

Boltons:

The Boltons have already demonstrated the ability to raise around 5000 men in the series, and we have no indication if this has tapped their full strength yet. So I'd put them as high as 6000, potentially.

[Four-Eyed Crow]

Nice write up, but you forgot House Hodor.

[Lord Stark]

Free Northmen please note that I am working with the idea that the North can raise 45k, so if you raise troops from one house you have to lower them from another.

Skagos is large but it is also rocky, as I mentioned, rocky islands are not known for great population sizes. Being called Stoneborn suggests to me that the island is more stone then forest or fields for crops. Also well the east may be warmer it is still north of Bear Island. I once considered them on par with the likes of House Karstark and House Umber but that view has dimmed for me. Those two houses from the mainland, which control more land, should be more powerful then the Skaggs.

I too believe that House Flint is likely stronger then what I suggest but we have very little information on them. We can try and guess but for them it is all a shot in the dark. For that reason I placed them little then they likely are. For all we know they only control a small tact of lands, which makes sense since they border House Locke, House Manderly, and House Bolton.

The issue with House Manderly is that we aren't stated they have 3 times for troops then anyone else in the North like House Hightower. Again we don't know the size of their lands, but even still I think being stated as tied for the second most powerful house in the North s a great feat. Well the White Knife may be well populated we don't know how far Stark lands reach and Manderly. Also House Stark likely controls twice if not more lands then House Manderly, same with House Bolton. House Manderly is the newest lordly house of the North. Well granted rich lands it is unlikely that they would have also been granted lands as large as House Stark or other important houses of the North.

House Bolton may not be stretched thin as of yet, but as mentioned, we don't know that. They also could have shored up their numbers with Hornwood men. Still I think controlling 5k out of 45k is a respect amount, plus being tied for second strongest.

[Goldhand the Just]

Good post.

I always thought that House Manderly had the most troops in the North. I agree with the 8000 Free Northman said. It takes alot of men to man their 50 ships(if that is a true number). That along with their infantry and cavalry puts them over 5k in my opinion.

[Free Northman]

Here's a list I had saved on my phone, which I did some time ago. It is a conservative one in my view.

8000 - Manderly

5000 - Bolton

4000 - Stark

4000 - Mountain Clans

2500 - Umber

2500 - Karstark

3000 - Dustin

3000 - Skagos

1500 - Glover

1500 - Tallhart

2000 - Ryswell

2000 - Hornwood

2000 - Reed

2000 - Flint of Widow's Watch

1000 - Flint of Flints Finger

1000 - Mormont

1000 - Cerwyn

46000.

[Lord Stark]

Good post.

I always thought that House Manderly had the most troops in the North. I agree with the 8000 Free Northman said. It takes alot of men to man their 50 ships(if that is a true number). That along with their infantry and cavalry puts them over 5k in my opinion.

The issue with 8000 men is you then have to take them from other Houses to get the numbers to work, as well as beef up House Stark as I do find it unlikely House Stark has less troops then anyone else but it is possible.

We should also note though that warships aren't going to be manned by soldier or foot soldiers, they are going to come from a different source such as fisher men and the poor to row. Even if they do come from the fighting force that wouldn't keep their strength the same but instead lower it to man those ships.

If a 50k or 55k total was worked out for the north I would likely agree about bumping them up more but numbers that high are often still debated although I think it is possible. After all there are still members on this board that think the North can only gather 25k to 30k, even if the numbers don't work out. With rough input I would be willing to raise the total for the north though.

[Lord Stark]

Free Northmen I could likely agree to those numbers if House Tallhart and House Glovers troops are counted as House Stark troops, pushing them to 7000. Ahead of the Boltons but leaving room for House Manderly to be a little higher. I would also likely take 1000 from House Dustin and give them to House Cerwyn. The citadel suggests that House Umber, House Hornwood, and House Cerwyn are equal in strength. That would place them all roughly on the same footing.

I should note that when you look at other regions and the amount of total lordly houses in them the Northern Houses are about equal with most of them expect a few powerful ones in their regions like House Manderly.

[Free Northman]

Look, obviously we don't know enough to allocate exact numbers to each House. You'll note that I left out entirely Houses like House Locke of Oldcastle and whoever holds Ramsgate etc. At the same time I have Karstark at 2500, when they have already put 2800 men into the field up to Dance.

So these are rough figures. But what becomes clear to me from such a simple exercise is that it is very difficult to contain the North below 45k men if you just run through all the Houses, and in fact 45k is probably a minimum number for their full strength.

Take the Boltons for example. Roose had 3500 with him, Ramsay has brought another 1000 or so with him. At the same time, they don't fully trust the Umbers and they have a hostile Stannis in the North. The Dreadfort clearly will not be left undefended and exposed to these northern enemies. So there is obviously more defenders left at the Dreadfort to see off these threats. Who knows what the Boltons full strength is therefore?

[WildBlood]

Did Skagos actually send any soldiers to fight with Robb?

[Free Northman]

No, none. They didn't even reply to his call to banners.

[Free Northman]

It is not clearly stated, but it would seem that the Flints of Widows Watch didn't send men either due to sickness in their region at the time. But I could be wrong on this. Certainly they used the sickness excuse to someone else not long after - either to the Night's Watch or to Ser Rodrik.

[Lord Stark]

I agree that 45k must be the minimal amount the North can gather but even still it gives you a working number with to try and figure out the strength of the houses compared to one another. The information will never be 100% we have to do a lot of guess work, but still gives you a rough idea and is fun at the same time.

On House Bolton, yes we know that they have gathered roughly 4500 men, but it is doubtful they have an army waiting in their lands also. Another 500 men to garrison the Dreadfort sounds about right. I believe at one point before Ramsey started his fun and games it was mentioned that there were 600. Also in that 1000 troops that Ramsey gathers you also have to consider that some could be Hornwood men, although that can't be clear. Still a castle which held out for for years against the Starks is likely not seen to be in much risk if it has a well garrison, and so Ramsey would likely have taken all the troops he dared to attack Moat Cailin as he had no idea what to expect.

The Flint's of Widows Watch do not send troops to the Hornwood war because of the ruling Lady is with child and there is a sickness in the Widow's Watch.

[Free Northman]

Yes. The basic premise is that unless the Karstarks are disproportionately powerful compared to the other Northern Houses - and their northern and heavily forested lands would actually suggest the opposite - it is fairly simple to show that a 45k number is very easily achieved by adding the northern lords together.

[Lord Stark]

Agreed.

You can also do the same, although a lot rougher with the other regions. For example the Westerlands have roughly 50k manpower. There are 35 Lordy houses sworn to House Lannister. If you go on par with the North and agree that each Bannermen can field 1000 troops, that is 35k there and leaves 15k to strengthen up some of the more powerful houses, as well as grant House Lannister it's fair share of troops. This makes the Westerlands houses on average a little weaker then the northern Houses, but there are twice as many of them, and it explains why since the Rains of Castamere there seems to be no powerful rival to House Lannister, because the power is split between too many houses. Although to go in an assign numbers to each house in this case is rather hard, but if you continue with this for each region, then you see that the Northern Houses are pretty much average to what most second tier houses can muster throughout Westeros.

[Free Northman]

Ran has stated that we don't have a full list of Houses in the wiki, so it is incorrect to say the West has for example 35 Houses or the North has 42 or whatever. There are apparently a lot of as yet unnamed Houses.

[Lord Stark]

Yes that goes without saying but chances are we have close to a full list of major houses, that is houses which are nobles and sworn directly to The Lord Paramont of the regions. A few more can be added but this numbers aren't likely to ballon upwards. What will is a list of petty lords, lords and knightly/masterly houses sworn to the second tier houses.

For example there seems to be 9houses within the Neck, House Reed has lordship over the neck and these houses are sworn to House Reed directly instead of to House Stark. We may see more second tier houses but I wouldn't bet too much much that the list will swell too much.

[Free Northman]

But I highly doubt that the West has 35 Houses sworn directly to Casterly Rock. Surely some of those are also third tier Houses sworn to bannermen of the Lannisters.