Randyll Tarly

Randyll Tarly, Lord of Horn Hill, fought for the Targaryen loyalists in Robert's Rebellion and commanded Lord Mace Tyrell's vanguard at the Battle of Ashford, personally cutting down Lord Cafferen and sending his head to King Aerys II — one of the loyalists' few victories in that war, though history has been generous enough to remember it as Mace's rather than Randyll's.

He went on to serve as one of Tywin Lannister's most capable bannermen during the War of the Five Kings, building a reputation as the closest thing the Seven Kingdoms has to an undefeated field commander — a record no other named general in the story currently matches.

Randyll's harshest campaign was fought at home: convinced his elder son Samwell was too soft, bookish, and cowardly to inherit Horn Hill, he gave the boy an ultimatum — take the black at the Wall, or be hunted and killed on a false pretext so the succession could pass cleanly to Samwell's younger, more soldierly brother Dickon. Samwell chose the Wall.

In the uneasy months after Tywin Lannister's murder, Cersei pointedly declined to hand any Tyrell-aligned lord real power at court, and Randyll's army was left in the field instead — stationed chiefly at Maidenpool, rebuilding the town and hunting down outlaws and the war's leftover chaos with a thoroughness that leaves little room for trial. Only once Cersei's own regency collapsed, and Kevan Lannister took up the regency in earnest, was Randyll finally summoned to King's Landing and given the small council seat of Master of Laws she had always denied him.