Eddard Stark and six companions against three knights of the Kingsguard holding the tower
Outcome
The three Kingsguard defending the tower were killed, along with all but one of Eddard Stark's companions; Ned found his sister Lyanna dying within, and made her a promise he kept silent for the rest of his life.
The rebellion's last fight was fought after the rebellion was already won, at a tower in Dorne that three of the finest knights in the realm chose to die defending rather than explain.
Commanders
Eddard Stark
Ser Arthur Dayne, Sword of the Morning
Ser Gerold Hightower, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard
Ser Oswell Whent
What happened
After the rebellion's great battles were fought and won, one small, private reckoning remained. Eddard Stark rode into Dorne with a handful of companions to find his missing sister Lyanna, and came upon a tower guarded by three of the Kingsguard's finest — men who by every reasonable account should have been elsewhere, defending a prince or a king who by then had need of every sword. Why they stood there instead, the chronicle does not say.
The fight that followed cost nearly every life on the field save Eddard Stark's own. What he found inside the tower, and what promise he carried out of it and kept unbroken until his own death at King's Landing years later, belongs to matters this record holds back for readers who have not yet reached that page — a private grief Lord Stark himself chose never to share, and the Citadel sees no cause to share it first.
The Skirmish at the Tower of Joy in the novels
This carries how the battle plays out in the published novels. Read on only if you do not fear to know.
The war was already decided — Robert crowned, Aerys dead, King's Landing sacked — when Eddard Stark rode south into Dorne with six companions, seeking his sister Lyanna, whose disappearance with Rhaegar Targaryen had helped light the rebellion in the first place. He found three knights of the Kingsguard waiting for him at a lonely tower that folk would afterward call, not quite gently, the Tower of Joy: Ser Arthur Dayne, Ser Oswell Whent, and Lord Commander Gerold Hightower.
That three of the finest knights in Westeros stood guard at that tower rather than at Rhaegar's side on the Trident, or at Aerys's beside the Iron Throne, is a fact the histories have never satisfactorily explained, and Eddard Stark himself never explained it either. What followed was brief and merciless; all three Kingsguard died, Ser Arthur Dayne last and hardest, by Ned's own account the finest sword he ever crossed. Of Ned's own six companions, every man but Howland Reed of Greywater Watch died in the same exchange.
Ned went into the tower alone — or as alone as a man newly widowed of most of his friends can be — and found his sister Lyanna in a bed drenched in blood, dying, with a request the chronicle has never been permitted to record in full. He kept the promise he made her for the rest of his life, at a cost that outlived him. What she asked, and why three of the best knights in Westeros were willing to die rather than let anyone reach her first, is a matter this record leaves where Eddard Stark left it: unspoken.
These partings name deaths, endings, and roads not yet ridden in the books. Unveil them only if both roads are known to you — or if you do not fear to know.
In the timeline
SourcesAGOT · EddardTWOIAF · Robert's Rebellion
Explore further
Commanders
Houses in the field
Elsewhere in this war
What was The Skirmish at the Tower of Joy?
The rebellion's last fight was fought after the rebellion was already won, at a tower in Dorne that three of the finest knights in the realm chose to die defending rather than explain.
Is The Skirmish at the Tower of Joy from the books or the show?
Book canon. This entry follows George R. R. Martin's novels and histories, and notes where the television series diverges rather than following it.