First Dornish War

First Dornish War Part of Wars of Conquest/Dornish Wars
Dragon's Wroth, as depicted by Michael Komarck in The World of Ice & Fire
Date	4–13 AC
Location	Dorne
Result	Targaryen withdrawal from Dorne
Belligerents Iron Throne/House Targaryen: House Rosby Stormlands, led by House Baratheon House Cafferen House Caron House Connington House Fell House Mertyns Reach, led by House Tyrell House Hightower House Oakheart Principality of Dorne/House Martell House Dalt House Dayne House Fowler House Jordayne House Qorgyle House Santagar House Toland House Vaith House Uller House Wyl House Yronwood Notable commanders King Aegon I Targaryen Queen Visenya Targaryen Queen Rhaenys Targaryen† Lord Orys Baratheon Lord Harlan Tyrell† Ser Addam Hightower Princess Meria Martell Prince Nymor Martell Princess Deria Martell Lord Wyl of Wyl Lord Fowler† Ser Joffrey Dayne Lord Uthor Uller† Strength Forces of the Iron Throne: 1,000 knights led by Lord Orys Baratheon 2,000 knights, 300 lords and 27,700 men-at-arms led by King Aegon I Targaryen Reach host led by Lord Harlan Tyrell Balerion Vhagar Meraxes† Dornish Houses Losses Queen Rhaenys Targaryen† Meraxes† Lord Harlan Tyrell† Lord Jon Rosby† Garmon Hightower† Lord Oakheart† Lord Connington† Lord Mertyns† Lord Fell† Massive losses in manpower Every castle save Sunspear burnt Every holdfast, village and town burnt Lord Uthor Uller† 3 others Lords Uller† Lord Fowler† Lord Vaith† Lady Toland†

The First Dornish War was a nine-year conflict began by King Aegon I Targaryen in an attempt to conquer Dorne, the only one of the Seven Kingdoms that had successfully resisted House Targaryen during Aegon's Conquest. It was the first of the Dornish Wars between Dorne and the Iron Throne.

Prelude

During Aegon's Conquest, Queen Rhaenys Targaryen was sent to conquer Dorne in the name of her brother and husband, King Aegon I Targaryen. Instead of confronting the Dornish spearmen guarding the Prince's Pass in the Red Mountains, Rhaenys flew over the pass to Vaith and Godsgrace on her dragon, Meraxes. Finding the castles abandoned, she continued her journey to the Planky Town, where only women and children remained.

At Sunspear, the seat of House Martell, Rhaenys found Meria Martell, the aged Princess of Dorne, waiting in her otherwise abandoned castle. Meria defied Rhaenys, stating that they would neither fight nor kneel. When Rhaenys said that the Targaryens would return "with fire and blood", Meria warned her to "return at your peril." Rhaenys departed, but the Targaryens subsequent made no direct attempt to conquer the harsh deserts of Dorne, instead focusing on their main conquests in the heart of Westeros. As such, Dorne was the only kingdom not to be conquered by Aegon in his initial conquest.

After resolving the Sistermen's Rebellion and his invasion of the Iron Islands, King Aegon's attention returned to Dorne. A delegation of high lords, maesters, and septons was sent to Sunspear to meet with Princess Meria, but the negotiations proved fruitless.

History

Initial invasion

In 4 AC, King Aegon I Targaryen launched an invasion of Dorne, intent on completing his conquest of the Seven Kingdoms. Aegon led an army of thirty thousand, including near two thousand knights and three hundred lords and bannermen, through the Prince's Pass; Lord Harlan Tyrell, Warden of the South, was part of the royal host. Meanwhile, Lord Orys Baratheon led one thousand knights up the Boneway.

Queen Rhaenys Targaryen drew first blood by burning the Planky Town with her dragon, Meraxes. She then took Lemonwood, Spottswood, and Stinkwater, all of which were occupied by old women and children but no fighting men. The shadow city was half deserted when Rhaenys reached Sunspear, with Meria Martell, Princess of Dorne, also gone from the capital.

Rather than fighting Aegon's host in the Prince's Pass, the Dornishmen instead withdrew, choosing to burn their crops and poison their wells. They abandoned their watchtowers in the Red Mountains and blocked a mountain pass with a wall of shorn and rotting sheep carcasses. Once Aegon reached the other end of the Prince's Pass, he divided his host, sending Harlan south toward the Hellholt and leading the other contingent east to Skyreach.

Lord Tyrell lost a quarter of his men and near all of his horses during their march to the Hellholt, as the Dornish had poisoned every waterhole and oasis in the central sands. Those who finally managed to reach the Hellholt found the castle deserted.

According to Gyldayn, King Aegon stormed Skyreach and took Yronwood after a brief siege; Yandel writes that Skyreach had been abandoned and Yronwood was defended by a few handful of old men, boys, and women. The steward of the Tor surrendered the castle to Aegon since Lord Jordayne had recently died. At Ghost Hill, Aegon  was challenged to single combat by Lord Toland's champion. After Aegon had killed the man with his Valyrian steel sword, Blackfyre, the king discovered that the champion had in truth been Lord Toland's mad fool. Worse, Ghost Hill turned out to be deserted as well.

Lord Baratheon fared worse in his assault up the Boneway. His stormlander army was pelted with rocks, arrows, and spears from above, while his men were murdered in the night. Where the Boneway crosses the Wyl, the Dornishmen blocked the path both in front of Orys's army and behind, and the Wyl of Wyl managed to capture Lord Orys and and a dozen other lords, slaughtering the rest.

After Aegon joined Rhaenys at Sunspear, he gathered dignitaries to the great hall of Sunspear and declared that Dorne was now part of the realm ruled from the Iron Throne. Aegon appointed Lord Jon Rosby as castellan of Sunspear and Warden of the Sands to rule in his name, and the king appointed stewards and castellans for the other conquered seats.

Aegon returned to King's Landing the same way he came, traveling through the hills and the Prince's Pass. Lord Tyrell remained at the Hellholt, but his men were sickened by fish from the sulfurous Brimstone and his foraging parties and patrols were attacked by House Qorgyle of Sandstone to the south and House Vaith of Vaith to the east.

Dornish retaliation

Aegon I Targaryen and Rhaenys had only just returned to King's Landing when the Dornish rebelled against House Targaryen. Skyreach, Yronwood, the Tor, and Ghost Hill, were quickly recaptured, with their royal garrisons put to the sword and the castellans and stewards who led them tortured and disremembered. Dornishmen came forth from the shadow city of Sunspear to  retake the Sunspear. Lord Rosby was thrown from a window atop the Spear Tower by Princess Meria Martell.

In response to the Defenestration of Sunspear, Lord Harlan Tyrell marched his army from the Hellholt, intent on taking Vaith and Sunspear. In 5 AC, however, Harlan and his remaining army disappeared in the deserts of Dorne.

Continuation

Meraxes and Rhaenys Targaryen are killed at the Hellholt, as depicted by Chase Stone in The World of Ice & Fire.

According to Gyldayn, the war between the Iron Throne and the Dornishmen became a "series of atrocities, raids, and realizations, broken up by long periods of inactivity, a dozen short truces, and numerous murders and assassinations."

In 7 AC, the Wyl of Wyl eventually agreed to ransom Lord Orys Baratheon and the other captured lords back to Aegon for each man's weight in gold. Lord Wyl took off their sword hands, however, to prevent them from ever taking up arms against Dorne again. Orys, bitter and obsessed with revenge, resigned his office as Hand of the King.

Intent on revenge for Orys's mutilation, Aegon attacked the mountain fastnesses of House Wyl with his own dragon, Balerion. The Wyls survived by taking refuge in caves and tunnels, however.

With the aid of a pirate king from the Stepstones, Dornish raiders crossed the Sea of Dorne in 8 AC to sack half a dozen towns and villages along Cape Wrath and set fires which spread through much of the rainwood. Queen Visenya Targaryen responded by burning Lemonwood, Ghost Hill, and the Tor with her own dragon, Vhagar. In 9 AC, Visenya and Aegon attacked Sandstone, Vaith, and the Hellholt.

In 10 AC Lord Fowler attacked Nightsong, taking its defenders hostage. Ser Addam Hightower was sent by his father, Lord Manfred Hightower, to retake Nightsong, though House Hightower was unaware that Ser Joffrey Dayne was marching an army to Oldtown. Though the city was too strong for the Dornish to take, Joffrey razed nearby fields and villages and slew Garmon Hightower before retreating. Meanwhile, Addam found Nightsong had been burned and that Lord Caron and his family had been taken as captives to Dorne. Aegon took counsel with Lord Theo Tyrell, Warden of the South, at Highgarden, but Theo was reluctant to invade Dorne after the disappearance of his father, Lord Harlan.

Aegon and Balerion attacked Skyreach, with the king vowing to make it "a second Harrenhal", Visenya and Vhagar struck against Starfall, and Rhaenys and Meraxes flew to to the Hellholt. At the castle of House Uller, however, Meraxes was shot down from the sky, with Rhaenys upon her back, when a bolt from a scorpion pierced the dragon's eye. Meraxes destroyed the Hellholt's highest tower and part of its curtain wall in her fall. Most believe that Rhaenys either fell from her seat to her death or was crushed beneath her dragon, though some accounts claim she survived only to be tortured to death by the Ullers in their dungeon. Regardless, the loss of both dragon and queen in 10 AC was the greatest success the Dornish had against the Targaryens.

The Dragon's Wroth

The Dragon's Wroth, by Jota Saraiva ©

The grief King Aegon and Queen Visenya felt at the death of Queen Rhaenys was great; the next two years would later be called the years of the Dragon's Wroth. The Targaryens burned every Dornish stronghold thrice over, with the exception of Sunspear and its shadow city. The Dornish believed that the Targaryens refused to attack Sunspear because they were afraid that Princess Meria might have purchased a device from Lys to slay dragons with. Archmaester Timotty offers a different explanation, suggesting in his Conjectures that Aegon hoped this would instead turn the Dornish against the Martells. Indeed, letters have been discovered in which marcher lords urge Dornish lords to surrender, while claiming that House Martell had purchased their safety from the dragons. Regardless of the truth, the Dornish lords and smallfolk remained loyal.

Aegon and Visenya placed bounties on the heads of Dornish lords, who, in turn, placed bounties on the Targaryens and their allies. Lord Fowler, Lord Vaith, Lady Toland, and four successive Lords Uller were assassinated despite their attempts to go into hiding, though only two of their killers ever lived to collect their bounties.

In return, the Dornish killed Lord Connington while he was hunting, Lord Mertyns and his household with a cask of poisoned wine, and Lord Fell in a King's Landing brothel. In 12 AC, the Wyl of Wyl infiltrated the wedding of Ser Jon Cafferen and Alys Oakheart. After gelding Jon and killing Alys's father, Lord Oakheart, and most of the wedding guests, the Wyls raped the bride and her handmaids and sold the women to slavers from Myr.

King Aegon himself was attacked on three occasions, and Visenya was attacked on several occasions as well. One day, when Aegon and Visenya were assaulted on the streets of King's Landing, only Visenya's swift intervention with Dark Sister saved Aegon's life. This attack led to the creation of the Kingsguard in 10 AC.

Peace

Although Dorne was a blasted, burning ruin from the Red Mountains to the mouth of the Greenblood, the Dornish continued to fight. In 13 AC, however, Meria Martell, died abed. Her elderly son Nymor, now the ruling Prince of Dorne, sent his daughter Deria to King's Landing with an escort as an peace envoy. She brought with her the skull of Rhaenys Targaryen's dragon, Meraxes, and a letter from Prince Nymor. The sight of the dragon's skull angered many at the royal court, such as Queen Visenya Targaryen and Lord Orys Baratheon, but Aegon refused to act against the delegation. Instead, Deria was allowed to deliver her father's terms. Nymor wanted peace, but would not submit to the Iron Throne. Aegon was determined to refuse this offer, until Deria handed him her father's letter.

Atop the Iron Throne, Aegon read the message. Men said that, when he was done, his hand was dripping blood (presumably from clenching the bladed seat too hard). After burning the letter, the king left for Dragonstone upon Balerion's back. Aegon returned the next morning, agreed to the peace terms of Prince Nymor, and signed a treaty.

The contents of Nymor's letter are unknown, although many have speculated. Some claim it was a simple plea from one father to another, heartfelt words that touched Aegon's heart, and others insist it was a list of all those lords and noble knights who had lost their lives during the war. Some believe it said that Rhaenys survived her fall at Hellholt, but was being kept captive in extreme torment, and the Dornish promised to end her suffering Aegon agreed to end the war. Certain septons suggest that the missive was ensorceled, written by Meria before her death, using a vial of Rhaenys's blood for ink. Grand Maester Clegg later theorized that the letter stated Nymor was willing to spend all of Dorne's gold to hire the Faceless Men of Braavos to assassinate Aegon's young son and heir, Prince Aenys Targaryen, if Aegon did not sign the peace.

Aftermath

The tactics wielded by Dornishmen during the First Dornish War were seen as dishonorable by nobles ruled by the Iron Throne. Cowardice became known as "Dornish courage", and the kin of those who lost their lives during the war desired vengeance against the Dornish.

The peace treaty signed by King Aegon I Targaryen lasted throughout his own reign. He visited Sunspear together with his eldest son, Prince Aenys, on the tenth anniversary of the peace in 23 AC for a "feast of friendship" with Deria Martell, now Princess of Dorne. Father and son came to Sunspear upon their dragons, Balerion and Quicksilver.

Both of Aegon's sons, Kings Aenys I and Maegor I Targaryen, made sporadic attempts to add Dorne to the realm during their reigns. Additionally, the Dornishmen opposed the Targaryens on several occasions during the peace. After the death of Aegon th Conqueror, an outlaw known as the Vulture King rose in the Red Mountains, gathering an army thirty some thousand strong. Although Princess Deria claimed the Dornish did all they could to put an end to the Vulture King, in truth they mostly ignored it. In the end, it came down to the marcher lords to defeat the Vulture King during the Vulture Hunt. Lord Orys Baratheon avenged the loss of his hand by defeating and mutilating Lord Walter Wyl, son of the Wyl of Wyl, during this Second Dornish War.

In 48 AC, as King Maegor the Cruel's reign was falling apart, reports came in from the Dornish Marches in the last months of his reign suggesting that the Dornishmen were gathering their forces in the mountain passes, preparing to invade the realm. The Third and Fourth Dornish Wars occurred during the reign of King Jaehaerys I Targaryen.

During the reign of King Viserys I Targaryen, Prince Daemon Targaryen and Lord Corlys Velaryon became involved in a struggle with the Triarchy over the Stepstones. Prince Qoren Martell gave his support to the Triarchy in this struggle.

In 157 AC, King Daeron I Targaryen, desiring to "complete the Conquest", led his own conquest of Dorne. Although he initially succeeded, the Young Dragon's success did not last long and led to his own death. Dorne eventually peacefully joined the Seven Kingdoms through the efforts of King Daeron II Targaryen.

Quotes

Dornish spearmen appeared from nowhere, like desert flowers after a rain.

—writings of Gyldayn

Yet despite a reign covered in glory, the First Dornish War stood out as Aegon's one great defeat.

—writings of Yandel