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Although this page is based on canonical information, the actual name of this subject is pure conjecture.
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- "He mounted the black dragon, Balerion, and burned down the sept in King's Landing while the Faith Militant were inside at morning prayers. The screams of the burning and dying men were said to echo throughout the city. "
- ―High Sparrow
The burning of the Sept of Remembrance was a massacre during the Faith Militant uprising.
History[]
Background[]
When the Faith Militant rose in revolt against House Targaryen, they overwhelmed the capital city King's Landing, causing King Aenys I Targaryen to flee to Dragonstone - where he soon died from cramps, brought on by the stress. His half-brother Maegor Targaryen, who would later be known as 'The Cruel', then usurped the crown and returned to King's Landing, where he challenged the champions of the Faith Militant to a trial of seven to prove his right to rule.
The burning[]
After emerging victorious, as well as being the sole survivor, Maegor rode the great black dragon Balerion across the city to the Sept of Remembrance, headquarters of the Faith Militant's local chapter, where all of its members were gathered for morning prayers. Balerion's flames burned down the entire sept and immolated everyone inside - in a single stroke, wiping out the Faith Militant's presence in the capital city and restoring control to House Targaryen.[1]
Aftermath[]
Having destroyed the Sept of Remembrance, Maegor seized power over King's Landing and ordered the construction of a giant stable to house the Targaryen dragons: the Dragonpit. Despite having lost their local chapter, the Faith Militant stubbornly refused to surrender. While forming their own armies across Westeros, they began to turn some of Maegor's own lords against him.
In the books[]
In the Fire & Blood novel, Maegor didn't head over to burn the Sept of Remembrance immediately, as he had fallen into a coma from the wounds he had received in his trial of seven against the Faith Militant's champions - though of the fourteen men who had participated during the trial, Maegor was the only one left alive.
He remained unconscious for about a month in the Red Keep, until he was cured by his polygamous third wife, Tyanna of the Tower, who was rumored to be a sorceress and alchemist. After being cured, Maegor woke with the sun the next day.
Maegor, riding Balerion the Black Dread, descends upon the sept with dragon-fire.
When he publicly appeared again for the first time on the walls of the Red Keep, the crowds cheered and celebrated - but their cheers soon die down when he mounted the dragon Balerion, and promptly flew from Aegon's Hill to Rhaenys's Hill on the other side of the city. The Sept of Remembrance was located atop the hill, which was being used as the local headquarters of the Faith Militant's capital chapter. Specifically it was the headquarters of the Warrior's Sons, the upper order of the Faith Militant, composed of well-armed and trained former knights and younger noble sons (the TV series condensed this so no mention is made of the Faith Militant actually being composed to two internal orders, the lower one being the Poor Fellows).
Gathered for morning prayers, the Faith Militant were all burned inside the sept.
Maegor burned down the sept while the Faith Militant were all gathered inside for morning prayers, at a stroke destroying the entire chapter of the Warrior's Sons and totally retaking control of the city, which they had seized from his weak brother Aenys. Maegor also deployed archers at the sept's entrance, to pick off any men who tried to escape, ensuring there would be no survivors or prisoners taken. According to semi-canon sources, 700 Warrior's Sons burned to death in the conflagration. During the massacre, it was said that the screams of burning men can be heard throughout King's Landing.
A pall of smoke hung over King's Landing for days afterward, but it was only the first act of a war which would last throughout Maegor's six-year reign. His first act upon sitting the Iron Throne again was to command the Faith Militant, who are swarming the capital, to lay down their weapons under threat of death, but when it proved to be ineffective, Maegor commanded the lords, who are loyal to him, to disperse them with force - in response, the High Septon called out to the Faith Militant from Oldtown, commanding them to take up arms against the Targaryens and bring an end to their rule.
Within weeks, major field battles involving thousands of men were fought at Bitterbridge and at the Great Fork of the Blackwater River, in the opening campaign of the rebellions.
The "Sept of Remembrance" was so-named in honor of Aenys's mother Rhaenys Targaryen, who had died thirty years before in the First Dornish War - as opposed to Maegor's still-living mother Visenya, who always resented that Rhaenys's son Aenys was put ahead of her son in line of succession. Maegor's destruction of the sept was thus also something of a slight against the rival branch of House Targaryen (though Aenys was dead, Maegor usurped the throne ahead of Aenys's five children; three sons and two daughters). A few years later, as if to hammer home his dominance over the Faith Militant, instead of having the sept rebuilt, Maegor ordered that a massive "stable for dragons" should be built over its ruins: the Dragonpit.
References[]
External links[]
| Events |
Faith Militant raid on the Red Keep · Trial by seven of Maegor Targaryen · Burning of the Sept of Remembrance |
| Concurrent conflicts |
Battle Beneath the Gods Eye · Jaehaerys Targaryen's uprising |