“Recorded outside the printed novels as “Wisdom and Strength” — this chronicle has not located the phrase inside a novel, and flags it accordingly, though whether the house has lived up to either half in recent years is a separate question this maester leaves to the reader.”
The seat, the words, the line, and the tale of House Mooton — drawn from the novels and the Citadel's fuller histories, with the television series set aside wherever it parts from the books.
Unnamed. Centuries ago House Mooton raised a great stone bathhouse over Maidenpool's famous spring-fed waters — the pool where legend holds Florian the Fool first glimpsed Jonquil bathing in the Age of Heroes — and has kept it, by an order of holy sisters who admit no man past its doors, ever since.
A pretty town built around a prettier legend, held by a house that spent the War of the Five Kings being sacked by every army that passed through rather than choosing a side decisively enough to be spared it — first by lions, then by wolves, and finally, when both great houses had moved on to bloodier business elsewhere, by outlaws with no banner at all.
I
The Pool Where Jonquil Bathed
Maidenpool takes its name, and much of its modest fame beyond the riverlands, from the sweetwater spring at its heart — the pool where, the Age of Heroes song still sung across the Seven Kingdoms holds, Florian the Fool first saw Jonquil and her sisters bathing and lost what little sense a fool is credited with keeping. House Mooton built a bathhouse of fine stone around the waters generations before this chronicle's own century, and turned its care over to an order of holy sisters who bar every man, lord and smallfolk alike, from the pool itself; whatever else has changed at Maidenpool across the centuries, that single prohibition, so far as the record shows, has not.
The present tale
This chapter carries the house's fortunes into the novels' events — veiled until you choose to read on.
§
Sacked by Lions, Then by Wolves
Maidenpool paid for the War of the Five Kings three times over — once when Lannister forces put it to the torch, once when Robb Stark's northern host came through in turn, and once more, after both great armies had moved on, when ordinary outlaws finished what the wars had started. Lord William Mooton held his own castle through each sacking without riding out to defend the town beneath its walls, a choice the smallfolk who lost homes and kin to each successive burning have, this chronicle suspects, not entirely forgiven him for, whatever the strategic sense of a small lord declining to meet three separate armies in open field.
In the chronicle
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.
The present tale
This chapter carries the house's fortunes into the novels' events — veiled until you choose to read on.
§
A Tower Cell, a Marriage, a Pardon
Lord Randyll Tarly, fresh from his victory at Duskendale and acting for the crown, took Maidenpool's castle from Lord William with the support of a Rykker levy from Duskendale, and kept William himself locked in a tower cell for his trouble — a fall from lordship to prisoner in his own hall that the sacked town's smallfolk are recorded as receiving with something closer to satisfaction than sympathy. The arrangement that followed proved more durable than the humiliation that produced it: Randyll's son Dickon was wed to William's daughter Eleanor, binding Reach steel to riverland coin, and King Tommen Baratheon's later pardon returned Lord William to the king's peace, if not quite to the standing he had held before three armies took turns burning his town.
In the chronicle
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.
The people of House Mooton
The lords, ladies, and branches of Mooton the books name — the notable, the infamous, and the merely unlucky.
William Mooton
Lord of Maidenpool, held his castle through three sackings of his own town
fl. 298–300 AC
Eleanor Mooton
William's daughter, wed to Dickon Tarly
fl. 300 AC
Explore further
Seat
What is House Mooton known for?
A pretty town built around a prettier legend, held by a house that spent the War of the Five Kings being sacked by every army that passed through rather than choosing a side decisively enough to be spared it — first by lions, then by wolves, and finally, when both great houses had moved on to bloodier business elsewhere, by outlaws with no banner at all.
Where is the seat of House Mooton?
House Mooton holds Maidenpool, in The Riverlands. The chronicle traces the house from its founding down to its part in the present tale, marking legend as legend wherever the songs run ahead of the record.
Is House Mooton in the books or only the show?
Book canon. This history follows George R. R. Martin's novels first, then the histories — Fire & Blood and The World of Ice & Fire — and does not follow the television series where it diverges.