#House Penrose

[bardsansa]

queen aelinor penrose, consort of king aerys i, 215 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

[goodqueenaly]

This is such a niche question, but how do you make sense of the Penrose family tree during Daeron ll’s reign? We have Elaena marrying Lord Ronnel Penrose and having 4 kids with him, Aelinor Penrose who is Aerys’ cousin somehow, and the 4 sons that Quentyn Ball murders during battle. They’re mostly irrelevant but I’m scratching my head thinking how this all works

A niche genealogical-dynastic question? You’ve come to the right place! 

While Elio Garcia confirmed (here and here) that Aelinor was a cousin of her husband Aerys, he did not confirm the specific nature of this familial relationship. (And for what it’s worth, I’m supposing that Aelinor and Aerys were very roughly of an age.) If I were to guess, I would suppose that Aelinor was a descendant of either Baela or Rhaena Targaryen - a mid to late grandchild, maybe, of Baela’s marriage to Alyn Velaryon or Rhaena’s marriage to Garmund Hightower). Whether Aelinor was specifically a daughter of the ruling Lord (presumably a lord) of Parchments or the daughter of a male-line descendant of the family we can’t know for now, until and unless GRRM specifies (in Fire and Blood Volume 2, perhaps, or the Tales of Dunk and Egg), but I think the best guess is that Aelinor was something like the future King Aerys I’s second cousin once removed (again, assuming that being Aerys’ cousin didn’t mean that Aelinor was, say, descended from one of Aemma Arryn’s half-siblings, or one of Queen Alyssa’s Velaryon nephews, though I doubt GRRM intends Aelinor to have been so distantly removed a relation). 

If we can say very little about Aelinor’s place in the Penrose dynasty, we can say even less about her relationship to either Ronnel Penrose or the unnamed “Lady Penrose” whose youngest son Quentyn Ball supposedly spared, much less the relationship of the latter two to one another. Clearly, from both the Targaryen family tree and from Elio’s statements referenced above, Aelinor was not a daughter of Ronnel and Elaena themselves. If we are to guess - admittedly rather a thin guess, but not totally illogical - that Ronnel was closer to Elaena’s age than Aelinor’s (and so more obvious a marriage partner for the roughly 30-something Elaena, then perhaps Ronnel belonged to the generation of Aelinor’s father (presumably father, given the Westerosi patriarchal tendency to identify dynasts along male lines), maybe born, at an extremely rough estimate, around the 140s or 150s. 

So my guess is that Aelinor was a granddaughter of one of the twin daughters of Daemon and Laena (perhaps Baela more likely, given the relative geopolitical advantage of uniting Parchments and Driftmark, compared to Parchments and Oldtown, a consideration of cross-country marriage making I discussed), and a daughter of the unnamed Lord of Parchments. Maybe because Daeron II liked the fact that Aelinor was a cousin of himself and his children (just far enough, perhaps, from religiously objectionable degrees of relation while still having that familial connection); maybe he thought that Aelinor, coming from a family with at bare minimum a heraldic respect for the written word, would be an attractive partner for his bookish second son (as Jaehaerys so badly failed to understand with his son Vaegon); maybe Daeron felt the Penroses were a worthy ally in the Stormlands to draw more would-be or actively anti-Dornish families away from the pro-war, and perhaps increasingly pro-Daemon, camp; maybe for any combination or none of these reasons - but whatever the rationale, King Daeron decided to betroth Prince Aerys to Lady Aelinor. Then, I think, when Aerys failed or refused to consummate his marriage, Daeron II tried to save face with the Penroses by offering Ronnel - who I think may have been Aelinor’s paternal uncle - to his eligible widowed cousin, Princess Elaena. The “Lady Penrose” of the First Blackfyre Rebellion may have been Aelinor’s (unnamed, because of course GRRM) mother, with the boys nearly all slain by Fireball perhaps Aelinor’s younger brothers - a heartbreaking personal loss, if so, for a war which saw other bitter personal losses for figures like Eustace Osgrey and Bloodraven.)

These are all guesses, obviously, very much complicated by the extremely limited information we have and the lack of clarity provided by what is there (not only the historical error on Jeor Mormont’s part, but also the vague reference to the First Blackfyre Rebellion’s “Lady Penrose” - seemingly the wife or widow of a Lord of Parchments, but complicated by the sometimes overbroad use of “lady” as a title in Westeros, as seen for example in references to Sybelle Locke as “Lady Glover” despite being only the sister-in-law of the Master of Deepwood Motte). All we can say is that Aelinor was in some fashion related to Aerys, but not through Elaena, and that we’re probably bound to learn more in Fire and Blood Volume 2 or future Tales of Dunk and Egg.

(It me, so I have to wonder if GRRM used “Aelinor” as her name not only to add a little dose of Valyrian-ness to her, but also because of its similarity to “Alienor”, the spelling used by Maurice Druon in The Accursed Kings for the woman most of us probably know better as Eleanor of Aquitaine. I don’t find Aelinor, to the very limited extent we know her, similarly either to the historical Eleanor or Druon’s typically misogynistic pseudo-historical references to her - but then I also don’t see the similarity with Alysanne, for what it’s worth.)

[targsource]

TARGARYEN PORTRAITS: PART 7

by riotarttherite on twitter

featuring: Ser Jon Waters (1), Lady Jeyne Waters (2), Lord Ossifer Plumm (3), Lord Viserys Plumm (4), Lord Ronnel Penrose (5), Lord Robin Penrose (6), Lady Laena Penrose (7), Lady Jocelyn Penrose (8), Lady Joy Penrose (9), Ser Michael Manwoody (10)

[thetorturedlover]

Aelinor Penrose

[highgardenart]

Queen Aelinor Penrose

“[Aerys] small council…urged him to put her aside to take another wife. But he would not hear of it.”

[ophelias-lamentation]

Princess Elaena Targaryen, daughter of Aegon III Targaryen and Daenaera Velaryon, wife to Ser Ossifer Plumm, Lord Ronnel Penrose, and Lord Michael Manwoody, mother to Jon and Jeyne Waters, Viserys Plumm, and Robin, Laena, Jocelyn, and Joy Penrose. Elaena was one of the sisters who was locked in the Maidenvault by her brother Baelor the Blessed. She was not a pretty girl, with her crowning beauty being her hair, when her brother locked her up she cut off her hair as protest.

[chic-beyond-the-wall]

Rings of the Stormlands

[atopvisenyashill]

This Is How I Can Still Win: How The Penroses Are Related to House Targaryen

SO. In case you don’t remember - you probably don’t, it’s a throwaway line and likely just George retconning and not doing it on purpose - Jeor Mormont misremembers Aelinor Penrose as being Aerys I’s sister instead of her cousin. Here’s the quote, from Jon I in A Clash of Kings:

"No, this was Aerys the First. The one Robert deposed was the second of that name.” “How long ago was this?” “Eighty years or close enough,” the Old Bear said, “and no, I still hadn’t been born, though Aemon had forged half a dozen links of his maester’s chain by then. Aerys wed his own sister, as the Targaryens were wont to do, and reigned for ten or twelve years."

Potentially, this means that Aelinor has ~the Valyrian look~ and that’s why Jeor got them mixed up. But when you look at the information surrounding the Penroses that existed in this era, it looks a little wonky because of this line from The Mystery Knight:

"At the crossing of the Mandel, he cut down the sons of Lady Penrose one by one. They say he spared the life of the youngest one as a kindness to his mother."

So how can Elaena marry Ronnel, Lord of the Parchments, only have one son, yet Quentyn Ball slew all of “Lady Penrose’s” sons? How is Aelinor related to the Penroses and the Targaryens? What woman of Targaryen blood would marry into this random ass house in the middle of Stormlands? Why was it so important to retcon Aelinor from a sister into a cousin? Well - let’s have a think about what other houses have recent Valyrian blood…we have some female lines after all…perhaps even Targaryen women that married into politically active houses, who would love to marry back into the main branch again…I wonder who that could be…..Oh what’s that? Is that-

DRAGON TWINS TIME.

Allow me to spin two family trees for you, one where Rhaena’s daughter marries into the Penroses, and one where Baela’s daughter marries into the Penroses:

(pls applaud me for the amount of math i did for this very unserious post!) green is a romantic/marriage line, black is a parental relationship.

I am noting that this would mean Alyssa (I made her name up btw, mostly because I thought it would piss Daemon off to have a Hightower named after his beloved mother) gives birth at around 34, which is a perfectly reasonable age to have a child at, and Laena gives birth at like 40, which is definitely a lil risky! BUT there’s plenty of time for Laena to have other children, and for a second born son to have had a child at that same age, so if you think it’s a stretch for Laena to have a kid at 40 (perfectly fair) just pretend there’s a son there named “Roland” or something as Aelinor’s dad and Laena’s second born.

Now, FIRST OF ALL, this makes the cousin thing make sense, but also it makes it deeply funny - Aelinor is Aerys’ great aunt’s granddaughter. That’s a close enough relationship that you would consider them a cousin but it’s also the exact relationship Robert has to Rhaegar (because Rhaegar is Robert’s great uncle’s grandson). Both Aerys and Robert avoiding incest/kinslaying on a technicality lol.

But SECOND OF ALL. Do you know what makes me absolutely fucjing feral about this. Alyn Velaryon is messing around with a woman so much younger than him. That she marries his GRANDSON. because SHE IS THE SAME AGE AS HIS GRANDSON. i feel like george is weird enough to do the Baela scenario too.

And LASTLY OF ALL. Notice there’s plenty of time for Alyssa/Laena aka Lady Penrose after she’s married, to have several sons for Quentyn Ball to slay on the Redgrass Field, including Elaena’s husband, Ronnel himself, and for Elaena’s son, Robin Penrose, to inherit the seat afterwards. It also means, since it’s mentioned that Elaena married Michael Manwoody soon after her second husband died, that the two of them got a long time together. Why is this important? Because Michael Manwoody was her marriage for love and I want Elaena to have been with him for a long time.

This scenario gives her like 9 years with Ronnel (kinda sad, their kids don’t get to know their dad very long) and a minimum of 15 years with Michael Manwoody, who is apparently not the step dad but the dad that stepped up.

[nanshe-of-nina]

Posthumous Characters GIF Sets → Elaena Targaryen

Elaena outlived her siblings and led a tumultuous life once freed from the Maidenvault. Following in Daena’s footsteps, she bore the bastard twins Jon and Jeyne Waters to Alyn Velaryon, Lord Oakenfist. She hoped to wed him, it is written, but a year after his disappearance at sea, she gave up hope and agreed to marry elsewhere. She was thrice wed. Her first marriage was in 176 AC, to the wealthy but aged Ossifer Plumm, who is said to have died while consummating the marriage. She conceived, however, for Lord Plumm did his duty before he died. Later, scurrilous rumors came to suggest that Lord Plumm, in fact, died at the sight of his new bride in her nakedness (this rumor was put in the lewdest terms—terms which might have amused Mushroom but which we need not repeat), and that the child she conceived that night was by her cousin Aegon—he who later became King Aegon the Unworthy. Her second marriage was at the behest of Aegon the Unworthy’s successor, King Daeron the Good. Daeron wed her to his master of coin, and this union led to four more children … and to Elaena becoming known to be the true master of coin, for her husband was said to be a good and noble lord but one without a great facility for numbers. She swiftly grew influential, and was trusted by King Daeron in all things as she labored on his behalf and on that of the realm. The third marriage was one of her own choice, after she fell in love with Ser Michael Manwoody, a Dornishman who had attended Princess Mariah at her court. … Elaena wed Ser Michael, apparently with Daeron’s blessing, not long after her second husband died. Elaena said, in her later years, that it wasn’t his intelligence that made her love Ser Michael, but his love of music. He was known to play the harp for her, and when he died, Elaena commanded that his effigy be carved holding a harp, and not the sword and spurs of knighthood as is common.

[taviamoth]

Lady Aelinor Penrose before she became queen

[kat-is-confused]

[jaenaravelaryon]

The Kingsguard of Queen Daenerys I and King Jon I of Westeros

Lord Commander Davos of House Baratheon

Ser Ermund of House Hightower

Ser Arten of House Penrose

Ser Edric of House Dayne

Ser Willem of House Redwyne

Ser Allard of House Blackwood

Ser Ronnel of House Lannister

[coldraindropsss]

Dyanna Dayne, Aelinor Penrose, Alys Arryn

[targsource]

TARGARYEN PORTRAITS: PART 5

by riotarttherite on twitter

featuring: King Viserys II (1), Lady Larra Rogare (2), Prince Aemon (3), Queen Naerys (4), King Daeron II (5), Queen Myriah Martell (6), Princess Daenerys (7), Prince Maron Martell (8), King Aerys I (9), Queen Aelinor Penrose (10)

[thetorturedlover]

House Penrose of Parchments

[highgardenart]

Robin, Laena, Jocelyn & Joy Penrose