The Death of the Kings who Sat the Iron Throne

With the sad news of Queen Elizabeth's passing (after 70 years of rule at 96 years old), I thought it would be at least interesting to turn that lense to Westeros and look at the characters who have sat the Iron Throne.

If interested: Non-Kings/Hands to Sit the Iron Throne & Future Characters on the Iron Throne

Aegon I (The Conqueror)

• Rule: 1-37AC
• Age at Death: 64
• Cause of Death: Stroke

He died where he had been born, on his beloved Dragonstone. The accounts agree that he was in the Chamber of the Painted Table, recounting to his grandsons Aegon and Viserys the tales of his conquests, when he stumbled in his speech and collapsed**. It was a stroke, the maesters said, and the Dragon passed quickly and in peace**. His body was burned in the yard of Dragonstone's citadel, as was the custom of the Targaryens and the Valyrians before them.

If interested: The Doom, The Dreamer, The Conqueror, The Prophecy, The Prince(ss) and the Dawn

Aenys I

• Rule: 37-42AC
• Age at Death: 35
• Cause of Death: Unconfirmed (Visenya was rumored to be involved)

Though Aenys was only five-and thirty, it was said that he looked more like a man of sixty, and Grand Maester Gawen despaired of improving his condition.

The dowager Queen Visenya took over his care, and for a time he improved. And then, quite suddenly, he suffered a collapse when he learned that his son and daughter were besieged in Crakehall Castle, where they had taken refuge when their yearly progress was interrupted by the uprising against the throne. He died three days later, and like his father before him, was burned on Dragonstone, after the fashion of the Valyrians of old.

Maegor I (The Cruel)

• Rule: 42-48AC (6 years and 66 days)
• Age at Death: ~35
• Cause of Death: Unconfirmed (Theories include the below as well as him being "undead" since his Trial of the Seven)

It was late at night, during the hour of the wolf, when the remaining lords departed the council chamber, leaving Maegor to brood alone. Early the next morning, he was found dead on the throne, his robes sodden with blood, his arms slashed open by the barbs of the Iron Throne.

Thus ended Maegor the Cruel. How he came to die is a matter of much speculation. Though the singers would have us believe that the Iron Throne itself killed him, some suspect his Kingsguard, and others some mason whom the king had failed to kill and who knew the secrets of the Red Keep. But perhaps even likelier is the suggestion that the king killed himself rather than suffer defeat. Whatever the truth, it was a reign that ended in the only way it could after the six years of terror that Maegor had visited upon the realm.

Jaehaerys I (The Old King/The Conciliator)

• Rule: 48-103AC
• Age at Death: 69
• Cause of Death: Old Age (likely)

King Jaehaerys, the First of His Name—known as the Conciliator, and the Old King (being the only Targaryen ruler who lived to such an advanced age)—died peacefully in his bed in 103 AC, while Lady Alicent read to him from his friend Barth's Unnatural History. He was nine-and-sixty at his death, and had ruled wisely and well for five-and-fifty years. Westeros mourned, and it was claimed that even in Dorne men wept and women tore their garments in lament for a king who had been so just and good. His ashes were interred with that of his beloved, the Good Queen Alysanne, beneath the Red Keep. And the realm never saw their like again.

If interested: The ~14 Claims of the Great Council of 101 AC

Viserys I (The Young King)

• Rule: 103-129AC
• Age at Death: 52
• Cause of Death: Illness (Gout/Chest Pains/Shortness of Breath/Iron Throne injuries)

On the third day of the third moon of 129 AC, while entertaining Jaehaerys and Jaehaera from his bed with a tale of their great-great-grandsire and his queen battling giants, mammoths, and wildlings beyond the Wall, the king grew tired. He sent his grandchildren away when the tale was done and fell into a sleep from which he never awoke.

Aegon II (The Elder)

• Rule: 129-131AC
• Age at Death: 24
• Cause of Death: Poison

Ser Gyles and the litter bearers had no notion aught was amiss until they reached the sept, and the curtains did not open. “We are here, Your Grace,” the knight said. No answer came, but only silence. When a second query and a third produced the same, Ser Gyles Belgrave threw back the curtains, and found the king dead upon his cushions. “There was blood upon his lips,” the knight said. “Elsewise he might have been sleeping.”

Maesters and common men alike still debate which poison was used, and who might have put it in the king’s wine. (Some argue that only Ser Gyles himself could have done so, but it would be unthinkable for a knight of the Kingsguard to take the life of the king he had sworn to protect. Ummet, the king’s food taster whose murder Mushroom claims to have seen, seems a more likely candidate.) Yet whilst the hand that poisoned the Arbor red will never be known, we can have no doubt that it was done at the behest of Larys Strong.

Aegon III (The Dragonbane/The Younger/The Unlucky/The Broken King/The Unhappy)

• Rule: 131-157AC
• Age at Death: 36
• Cause of Death: Consumption

The reign of the Broken King—also known as Aegon the Unlucky—ended with the king's death at thirty-six years of age, from consumption. Many of his subjects thought him far older, for his boyhood was cut too short. The melancholy king is not remembered fondly, and his legacy would pale before that of his sons.

If interested: The Blood of Old Valyria III: The Last of the Dragons

Daeron I (The Young Dragon)

• Rule: 157-161AC
• Age at Death: ~18
• Cause of Death: Assassination

In 160 AC the Young Dragon himself was forced to return to Dorne to put down the rebels. He won several small victories as he fought through the Boneway while Lord Alyn Oakenfist descended once again upon the Planky Town and the Greenblood. Apparently broken, in 161 AC the Dornishmen agreed to meet to renew their fealty and discuss terms...but it was treachery and murder they plotted, not peace. In a bloody betrayal, the Dornish attacked the Young Dragon and his retinue beneath the peace banner. Three knights of the Kingsguard were slain attempting to protect the king (a fourth, to his eternal shame, threw down his sword and yielded). Prince Aemon the Dragonknight was wounded and captured, but not before cutting down two of the betrayers. The Young Dragon himself died with Blackfyre in his hand, surrounded by a dozen enemies.

If interested: Comparing Young Griff and the Young Dragon

Baelor I (The Blessed)

• Rule: 161-171AC
• Age at Death: ~26/27
• Cause of Death: Starvation

The eventual birth of Daemon Waters, the natural child of Daena Targaryen by a father she refused to name (but whom the realm later learned was none other than her cousin, Aegon, while he was still a prince), led to another fit of fasting by the king. He had already nearly killed himself some years before, when he fasted for a moon's turn following the deaths of his cousin Princess Naerys's twins shortly after their delivery. This time Baelor took it yet further, refusing anything but water and taking only enough bread to still the cries of his stomach. For forty days he kept his regimen. On the forty-first day, he was found collapsed before the altar of the Mother.

Grand Maester Munkun did what he could to heal the king. So, too, did the boy High Septon, but his miracles were at an end. The king joined the Seven in the tenth year of his reign, in 171 AC.

Viserys II

• Rule: 171-172AC
• Age at Death: ~50
• Cause of Death: Sudden Illness (possibly poison)

Viserys II had within him the capacity to be a new Conciliator, for no king had ever been shrewder or more capable. Tragically, a sudden illness carried him away in 172 AC.

It need not be said that some found the illness and its swiftness suspicious, but none dared speak their suspicion at the time. It would be more than a decade before the first accusation was put to paper that Viserys had been poisoned by none other than his successor, his son Aegon.

Aegon IV (The Unworthy)

• Rule: 172-184AC
• Age at Death: 49
• Cause of Death: Unworthiness

The reign of this unworthy monarch came to an end in 184 AC, when King Aegon was nine and-forty years of age. He was grossly fat, barely able to walk, and some wondered how his last mistress—Serenei of Lys, the mother of Shiera Seastar—could ever have withstood his embraces. The king himself died a horrible death, his body so swollen and obese that he could no longer lift himself from his couch, his limbs rotting and crawling with fleshworms. The maesters claimed they had never seen its like, whilst septons declared it a judgment of the gods. Aegon was given milk of the poppy to dull his pain, but elsewise little could be done for him.

If interested: Aegon IV: A Timeline of Unworthiness

Daeron II (The Good/The Falseborn)

• Rule: 184-209AC
• Age at Death: ~55
• Cause of Death: Died in the Spring

Egg might be a hedge knight's squire, but Aegon of House Targaryen was the fourth and youngest son of Maekar, Prince of Summerhall, himself the fourth son of the late King Daeron the Good, the Second of His Name, who'd sat the Iron Throne for five-and-twenty years until the Great Spring Sickness took him off.

Aerys I

• Rule: 209-221AC
• Age at Death: between 42 and 49
• Cause of Death: Natural Causes (Bloodraven is possible but the motive is questionable unless he thought the throne would somehow pass to him, Maekar is another possibility)

King Aerys sat the Iron Throne for the better part of two more years, before dying in 221 AC of natural causes.

Maekar I

• Rule: 221-233AC
• Age at Death: between 53 and 59
• Cause of Death: Battle

King Maekar died in battle in 233 AC, whilst leading his army against a rebellious lord on the Dornish Marches

If interested: Blackfyre Rebellion 3.5: The Peake Uprising

Aegon V (The Unlikely/Egg)

• Rule: 233-259AC
• Age at Death: ~59
• Cause of Death: Summerhall

When His Grace perished in the tragedy at Summerhall in 259 AC

If interested: The Leadup to the Tragedy of Summerhall

Jaehaerys II

• Rule: 259-262AC
• Age at Death: 37
• Cause of Death: Illness

Though never strong, Jaehaerys II proved to be a capable king, restoring order to the Seven Kingdoms and reconciling many of the great houses who had grown unhappy with the Iron Throne because of King Aegon V's attempted reforms. But his reign proved to be a short one. In 262 AC, King Jaehaerys II sickened and died abed after a short illness, complaining of a sudden shortness of breath. He was but thirtyseven years of age at his passing, and had sat the Iron Throne for scarce three years.

Aerys II (King Scab/The Mad King)

• Rule: 262-283AC
• Age at Death: ~39
• Cause of Death: Assassination

Those purple eyes grew huge then, and the royal mouth drooped open in shock. He lost control of his bowels, turned, and ran for the Iron Throne. Beneath the empty eyes of the skulls on the walls, Jaime hauled the last dragonking bodily off the steps, squealing like a pig and smelling like a privy. A single slash across his throat was all it took to end it. So easy, he remembered thinking. A king should die harder than this. Rossart at least had tried to make a fight of it, though if truth be told he fought like an alchemist. Queer that they never ask who killed Rossart . . . but of course, he was no one, lowborn, Hand for a fortnight, just another mad fancy of the Mad King.

Robert I

• Rule: 283-298AC
• Age at Death: ~35
• Cause of Death: Alcohol+Hunting+Ned's "mercy"

"Even the truest knight cannot protect a king against himself," Ned said. "Robert loved to hunt boar. I have seen him take a thousand of them." He would stand his ground without flinching, his legs braced, the great spear in his hands, and as often as not he would curse the boar as it charged, and wait until the last possible second, until it was almost on him, before he killed it with a single sure and savage thrust. "No one could know this one would be his death."

Joffrey I

• Rule: 298-300AC
• Age at Death: 13
• Cause of Death: Poison

Ser Meryn pried the king's mouth open to jam a spoon down his throat. As he did, the boy's eyes met Tyrion's. He has Jaime's eyes. Only he had never seen Jaime look so scared. The boy's only thirteen. Joffrey was making a dry clacking noise, trying to speak. His eyes bulged white with terror, and he lifted a hand . . . reaching for his uncle, or pointing . . . Is he begging my forgiveness, or does he think I can save him? "Noooo," Cersei wailed, "Father help him, someone help him, my son, my son . . ."

Tommen I

• Rule: 300AC-Present
• Age at Death: Currently 8 years old
• Cause of Death: Unknown

The old woman was not done with her, however. "Gold shall be their crowns and gold their shrouds," she said. "And when your tears have drowned you, the valonqar shall wrap his hands about your pale white throat and choke the life from you."

If interested: Doubt, Division & Mistrust: The Short, Sad Reign of Tommen I

TLDR: A list of the different characters who have ruled from the Iron Throne and how they died. While many of the deaths happen in normal ways (battle, old age, sickness, etc.), numerous of the deaths are shrouded in mystery (poison, sorcery, sacrifice, etc.)