Gaemon Palehair

Gaemon Palehair was a pretender king during the Dance of the Dragons. His mother Essie, a whore in the House of Kisses, claimed he was a bastard son of Aegon II Targaryen.^[2]

History

During the Moon of the Three Kings, after Rhaenyra Targaryen's escape from King's Landing, Gaemon gathered thousands of followers and issued a series of edicts.^[2]

His mother would later be hanged, having confessed Gaemon's father was actually a silver-haired Lysene oarsman. Gaemon was spared and taken into the royal household, befriending Aegon III Targaryen and becoming his constant companion, his whipping boy after Lord Unwin Peake came to power, and later, for some years, food taster. He died of poison that had been intended for the king or his queen Daenaera Velaryon.^[3]

Gaemon's edicts

Some of Gaemon's edicts, certainly the work of Essie's paramour Sylvenna Sand, were:^[4]

• Girls should henceforth be equal with boys in matters of inheritance
• The poor be given bread and beer in times of famine
• Men who lost limbs in war must be fed and housed afterward by whichever lord they had been fighting for when the loss took place.
• Husband who beat their wives should themselves be beaten, regardless of the motive for the chastisement.

References