This next chapter is thankfully rather short, but it’s got some interesting stuff in it.

Jaehaerys’ arrival in King’s Landing is quite dramatic in a “dark and stormy night” kind of way. Circling the city is quite smart symbolic politics.

I remain quite amused by the way in which GRRM is laying more groundwork for the Blackfyre theory by emphasizing how Blackfyre was “the sword of kings” and enough signifier of royal status for Jaehaerys,

I would have liked to have overheard the discussion between Alyssa and Jaehaerys, since we don’t get the clearest portrait of their relationship. (Also, I wonder how much his Edward III-like experience of her as his regent paved the way for his somewhat chauvinist attitudes later on.)

So let’s talk about the first formal small council. The members include: Daemon Velaryon as Hand of the King. A smart mix of continuity and rewarding someone loyal to Jaehaerys himself. Lord Corbray as Commander of the City Watch. Much the same situation, although further evidence that the Commander used to be on the Small Council. I’ll have to keep an eye out for when that position was demoted. Albin Massey as Master of Laws . Here we see Prentys Tully paying the price for supporting Alyssa over the King, although it’s a good sign that Jaehaerys is picking quality as well as loyalty in choosing a half-maester for such a learned position. Manfryd Redwyne as Master of Ships . The first non-Velaryon…possibly because Jaehaerys wanted to balance out Daemon’s power? In any case, the vector for Ryam to enter the story, although as I’ll discuss later we really don’t get much about one of the most famous Kingsguard and infamous Hands. Rego Draz as Master of Coin . Ultimately one of the most controversial picks, Draz seems to be something of a mix of Edward III’s bankers the Bardi and the Peruzzi of Florence (maybe with a dash of Spinello Tolomei) and Thomas Cromwell. In the short run, however, picking a Pentoshi avoids the political entanglement with the Lannisters and Hightowers, and gives Jaehaerys the ability to reach out to Essos for loans to restart the economy without the need for Celtigar’s taxes, a good example of successful stimulative fiscal and monetary policy. More on this later.

What’s almost as interesting is the absences: there’s no Master of Whisperers, perhaps because of the memory of Tyanna of the Tower and the tyranny of Maegor; also, Grand Maester Benifer isn’t mentioned in relation to the Small Council, which is odd since we know he was still around at this time.

Perhaps because Septon Barth arrives on the scene as Jaehaerys’ librarian (not unlike Cardinal Wolsey’s start as confessor to Henry VII), so the Grand Maester no longer has as much of a monopoly on higher learning in the royal councils.

I also liked that Jaehaerys “made a clean sweep of dozens of lesser officers as well,” because often it’s the mid-level bureaucrats who do the bulk of the real decision-making by structuring the options presented to their superiors.

As I discussed last time, I’m less interested in his reconciliation with Rogar Baratheon. While the stage-managing is impressive – especially the bit with the dragon – I don’t really see much of a narrative purpose for the reconciliation. Rogar doesn’t do anything for the rest of the manuscript that he couldn’t have done in disgrace at Storm’s End.

Back to economic policy! Rego Draz’ three-way loan is quite clever, and kicks off a nice bit of public works stimulus, but more interesting is the bit where Jaehaerys decides to base the royal revenues on luxury taxes: “Silk would be taxed, and samite; cloth-of-gold and cloth-of-silver; gemstones; Myrish lace and Myrish tapestries; Dornish wines (but not wines from the Arbor); Dornish sand steeds; gilded helms and filigreed armor from the craftsmen of Tyrosh, Lys, and Pentos. Spices would be taxed heaviest of all.”

This is pretty in-line with medieval taxation, which did tend to focus on import taxes (due to their ease of collection), although it borrows somewhat from sumptuary laws as well. Given the lesser incidence of taxation, this probably brought in less revenue than general port fees, although I think Jaehaerys is right that the Veblen good nature of these products would mean that demand wouldn’t decline in the face of higher taxes.

The tax on crenellations is a good pull from medieval history: one of the problems that crept up during medieval civil wars is that local lords would build so-called “adulterine” castles without royal license. After the Anarchy, the reforming king Henry II (not a bad parallel for J-man, btw) engaged in a massive process of “slighting” these castles, rendering them useless for defensive purposes. Similarly, Henry VII’s attempts to prevent any recurrance of the Wars of the Roses by heavily taxing lords who wished to maintain private retinues often went hand-in-hand with crackdowns on fortified manor houses.

So let’s talk about Jaehaerys’ plan to get the population to accept his marriage through a combination of weaponizing the draconic progresss and his Seven Speakers.

Septon Baldrick…I see what you did there, GRRM.

I’m surprised Mother Maris is a septa from the Vale, because thatname really suggests a syncretic tradition from the Reach.

As readers of my headcanon fanfic are probably unsurprised to learn, I’m a huge fan of Barth and Jaehaerys’ collaboration in framing the “Doctrine of Exceptionalism” as a doctrinal solution to the problem of Targaryen incest that emphasizes both hard power (dragons) and soft power (the mythology of Targaryen specialness).

I still would have liked the section from WOIAF where Barth negotiates with the High Septon though. Not letting that one go.

Finally, let’s discuss Rhaena. As I said last time, one of Rhaena’s major problems as a politician is that she either alienates or is too afraid of (political) capture all of her allies. If she had managed to keep the Lannisters, Marbrands, Reynes, Leffords, Vances, Pipers, etc. in her camp, that might have been a political constituency that she could have done some work with on behalf of her daughter’s claim. But pushing them away meant that she didn’t have any way to push her “better claim than your own, brother.”

Nevertheless, Jaehaerys giving her Dragonstone for her lifetime only is a good way to finesse the confrontation with a minimum of long-term consequences.,

Sadly, there’s not much Alysanne in this chapter. Really, she’s just settling in to both the Small Council room and the court, establishing herself as the patroness-in-chief in”tapestries and carpets…murals, statuary, and tilework” as well as the arts.

And most importantly from a dynastic perspective, Alysanne’s prodigious childbearing begins now. More on the next chapter.

What’s the point of the Orryn Baratheon footnote? Puzzling.