A History of the Reach and it's Houses Great and Small - Foreword

The following is a literary endeavour that is not new in its concept, as many a treatise on the History of the lands we call The Reach have been completed; however this is the first in it's chosen audience. Maesters have written with the intention of being read by fellow maesters, or by a wider audience, but to my knowledge this is the first book which has been written specifically for the readership of one specific individual.

I, Lady Jeyne Tyrell, write this using the aforementioned wider texts, but with the intention of this book being read, primarily, by the Sovereign Jaehaerys of House Targaryen. I seek to rovide a history of the land I call home, and to provide an overview of a people he is now ruler of. This task shall take me many years and will be an effort of mine to develop and change and certainly to lear from myself, but a process I hope will be appreciated and noted.

To start with there is a question of definition. What is The Reach and by extension whom are the Reachmen and women who live there? Territory has been swapped and changed hands many time over the years but the core lands remain the same.

the Mander is the Heart of the Reach and its Northern borders are defined by the upper reaches of the Mander's tributaries before one enters the Westerlands or the Riverlands.

To the Crownlands it is the area three leagues to the Southwest of Blackwater Bay which forms the border; and the hills of the Dornish Marches mark where one moves from Horn Hill to Nightsong.

To the South the borders are simple: The Dornish Mountains mark the most clear and historically significant border one could ever hope to find, apart from the western border which is of course the Sunset Sea.

The Reach was the Kingdom of the Reach under the Gardeners, a name reflected in the title of Lord Tyrell of High Marshal of the Reach. It is also legally now the Lord Paramountcy of The Mander, noting the geographical importance of the River, and to a lesser extent but not unheard of it is called The Green Realm.

It's population, once First Men, is now almost entirely Andal, with even the ancient houses having intermarried, and is entirely fervent to the Faith of the Seven, a fact which makes sense when one considers the presence of Starry Sept and His High Holiness himelf. The Reach, Highgarden and the Hightowers of Oldtown are all responsible for the High Septon's protection, a role taken seriously here.