Prince Aegon and Lady Betha (220 AC)

egg and betha 👑🥚🐦‍⬛❤️🖤🤍

these two canonically described their relationship as 'boyfriend-girlfriend'

Aegon V & family 🐉 🐦‍⬛

queen betha blackwood, during the long winter that began her husband, king aegon v’s reign, 234 AC

visenya and rhaenys, alyssa velaryon, the six wives of maegor, alysanne, aemma arryn, alicent hightower and rhaenyra i, helaena, jaehaera, daenaera velaryon, daena the defiant, naerys, myriah nymeros martell, aelinor penrose

Rhaelle Baratheon neé Targaryen

The youngest child of Aegon V and Betha Blackwood, she was married to Lord Ormund Baratheon. When all four of her elder siblings broke their betrothals to the great houses, the Baratheons were amongst those spited. After a short rebellion and a trial by combat, she was betrothed to Ormund and sent to Storms end to act as cupbearer to Lord Lyonel. She married Ormund and had her son Steffon a year later. She’s marriage to House Baratheon helped lead to the downfall of House Targaryen as her grandson Robert Baratheon used his relation to her as his claim to the Iron Throne after he rebelled against and nearly decimated House Targaryen. I like to think that she was still alive in the current timeline.

Sneak peek of what’s next: Rhaenys Targaryen daughter of Rhaegar

“Aegon V had married for love, taking to wife the Lady Betha Blackwood, the spirited (some say willful) daughter of the Lord of Raventree Hall.”

a belated birthday present for my friend & ceo of eggbetha @wodania

Heavy is the head who dons the crown…

Aka the queens who’ve lived past a terrible civil war and inherited a reign of stolen childhoods, tyrannical brother-husbands, and a second terrible civil war. Love it when the cycles keep cycling don’t you?

(Individual icons beneath the cut!)

TARGARYEN WEEK 2023: DAY FIVE  — FAVOURITE PAIRING

 Aegon V had married for love, taking to wife the Lady Betha Blackwood, the spirited (some say willful) daughter of the Lord of Raventree Hall, who became known as Black Betha for her dark eyes and raven hair.  In the years that followed, Black Betha gave Aegon three sons (Duncan, Jaehaerys, and Daeron) and two daughters (Shaera and Rhaelle).

Nothing much, just thinking about how the Brackens felt, when Betha Blackwood, A BLACKWOOD. Let me repeat, a blackwood of raventree hall. Became Queen Consort of the Seven Kingdoms. Just thinking...

Forgive me if you’ve addressed this before over the years. You’ve covered a lot.

As far as is know, is Betha the only Queen of the Seven Kingdoms to, based on her familial background and upbringing, likely keep the Old Gods? If so, do you imagine this was a factor raised at the Great Council by lords aligned strongly with the Faith against Aegon?

That’s actually a great question, and one I haven’t considered! 

Yes, as far as we’re aware, no other queens during the Targaryen kingdom in Westeros (and obviously not under the Baratheon dynasty either) worshipped or otherwise honored the old gods. (This conclusion obviously does not count de facto crown princess Sansa, of course.) Granted, we know very little about the personal piety of virtually any of the Targaryen queens (Betha included); Naerys, and to a much lesser extent Alysanne and Aelinor Penrose, represent pretty much the only queens about whom GRRM has given any insight regarding their personal religious feelings. However, given that there were no queens from the North, nor any other Houses (besides House Blackwood) which are specifically noted to worship the old gods elsewhere (of which House Blackwood is really the only certain one anyway), I think it’s fair to say that none of the other Targaryen-era queens worshiped the old gods. 

Whether Betha’s religious feelings (real or presumed) would have factored into the debates at the Great Council of 233 AC and even beyond … maybe. Certainly, Westerosi politics historically has been no stranger (no pun intended) to criticisms of religiously unorthodox figures and their supposedly negative influences, from Lelia Lannister during the Hoare dynasty on the Iron Islands to Larra Rogare during the Lysene Spring under Aegon III (and indeed, I’ve suggested such criticisms may have been leveled against Jeyne Manderly, wife and perhaps widow of Rickon Stark). Too, according to Yandel, that “most outspoken of [Aegon V’s] foes” specifically referred to the “gods-given rights and liberties” of which the king allegedly sought to deprive his vassals; however, the quote does not mention which “gods”, old or new (or both), to which the speaker referred, nor the source of the complaint, leaving the potential religious context to the issue unclear. We also do not have a strong understanding of the relationship between the Faith and the crown in 233 AC (or, indeed, during Aegon V’s reign afterward), although there certainly had already been intriguing intersections between the two entities: consider, say, the High Septon under Daeron II, who used the Faith's prejudice against bastards to explain and criticize the rebellion of Daemon Blackfyre, or the nameless septon who used specifically theological arguments to denounce Bloodraven (and was executed for doing as much), or even my speculation on the installation of the office of High Septon permanently in King’s Landing (in its Avignon-esque exile from Oldtown). More directly, the fact that the High Septon of 233 AC was willing to absolve Aemon of his maester’s vows so that Aemon could become king might, perhaps, suggest a desire on the part of the Faith to support the surviving son of Maekar who had no troublesome ties to the old gods, rather than the son whose wife worshiped those strange and ancient gods. 

Again, none of this is explicit canonical evidence, but all of these ideas and suggestions may indicate that Betha’s familial religion was used as an argument against Aegon V’s kingship , at the time of the Great Council and/or during his reign. How could Prince Aegon be trusted as a prospective defender of the Faith, so the argument might have gone, when his own queen worshiped god who were, to borrow Yandel’s phrase when describing the Andal Invasion, “little more than demons”? How could the Faith support the succession princes who may well, so these Faithful might have feared, have been raised to worship those same old gods, and been encouraged by their no-good-very-bad mother to turn away from the light of the Seven? Would Betha have been assumed to share the penchant for sorcery and evil popularly associated with that other Blackwood-blooded old gods worshiper, Brynden Rivers? For those perhaps already inclined to distrust the hedge knight-trained "half a peasant" Prince Aegon, the fact that the prince's wife and the mother of his heirs worshiped gods other than the Seven might have been useful ammunition in their arguments against his accession, or during his reign afterward.

king and queen of the seven kingdoms

currently reading the Dunk & Egg novellas so I'm in a bit of an Aegon V mood 👑🥚

TARGARYEN PORTRAITS: PART 9

by riotarttherite on twitter

featuring: King Maekar (1), Lady Dyanna Dayne (2), Prince Daeron (3), Princess Vaella (4), Prince Aerion (5), Prince Maegor (6), Princess Daella (7), Princess Rhaelle (8), King Aegon V (9), Queen Betha Blackwood (10)

black betha

Queen Betha Blackwood, wife of King Aegon V Targaryen, while Betha married her husband for love she arranged politically advantageous betrothals for her children, but her children would break all of these betrothals angering many great houses. She was known as Black Betha for her dark eyes and hair and it is unknown if she died in the Tragedy of Summerhall.

Queen Betha Blackwood

“Aegon V had married for love, taking to wife the Lady Betha Blackwood, the spirited (some say willful) daughter of the Lord of Raventree Hall…”