The seat, the words, the line, and the tale of House Reyne — drawn from the novels and the Citadel's fuller histories, with the television series set aside wherever it parts from the books.
Seat
Castamere
Region
The Westerlands
Founder
unrecorded; the Reynes rose on the silver of Castamere's mines rather than on any sung ancestry
House Reyne held Castamere as bannermen to House Lannister and grew rich enough on its silver mines, allied by marriage to House Tarbeck, to forget for one costly generation that bannermen they remained. Under Lord Tytos Lannister — too generous, too forgiving, too slow to notice contempt curdling under his own roof — the Reynes let their arrogance harden past the point his heir was willing to tolerate. Ser Tywin Lannister answered it without waiting for his father's leave, and answered it completely: Castamere's mines were flooded with its lords and people still inside them, and House Reyne left the realm nothing but a song that has outlived every family it names.
I
Silver and Contempt
Castamere's silver made House Reyne wealthy enough to rival lords who outranked it, and Lord Roger Reyne, last to hold the seat, seems to have concluded that wealth had earned his house the right to act as though it did. Bound to House Tarbeck by his sister Ellyn's marriage to Lord Walderan Tarbeck, Roger presided over a household grown openly contemptuous of Casterly Rock — and of the man who sat it. Lord Tytos Lannister, generous past the point of respect and slow to collect on debts owed by lords who no longer troubled to repay them, gave both houses every reason to believe their defiance would go unanswered.
It was Tytos's heir who disagreed. When Ser Tywin Lannister moved against the Reynes and Tarbecks in 261 AC, Roger read the edicts that came with the Lannister host, laughed, and told his bannermen there was nothing to fear from Tytos's son — advice he had cause to regret within the season.
II
The Reyne-Tarbeck Revolt
Tywin struck the Tarbecks first. Roger Reyne marched to relieve his sister's hall with only his household knights at his back, arriving in time to see Tarbeck Hall already burning. He launched a desperate attack regardless, was thrown back by the Lannister army's plain weight of numbers, and fled wounded to Castamere to make his own stand — arriving, in turn, to find his brother Reynard already leading their household down into the mines beneath the castle, judging correctly that Tywin could not fight his way into rock he could not reach.
Reynard's terms — his young Lannister cousins held hostage at Castamere for surety — went unanswered. Tywin dammed the stream that fed Castamere's pool and sent it into the nearest mineshaft instead, and no one who had gone down into the dark to escape him came back up. House Reyne, House Tarbeck, and every soul sheltering with them were gone within the same season Roger had spent laughing at the edicts that named them traitors.
III
A Song for Traitors
What outlived Castamere's silver, its mines, and every Reyne who once held them is a song — 'The Rains of Castamere,' composed by no lyricist any surviving source names, describing a lord who forgot himself and a lion who did not forget the debt. It spread through the Seven Kingdoms quickly enough that within a generation it needed no explanation at any hall it was sung in, a warning set to music rather than carved in stone.
House Lannister has never discouraged the song's performance, and by some report has requested it outright at more than one court over the years since — a small cruelty, if it is one, considerably smaller than the one the song describes. No Reyne remained to object either way.
The people of House Reyne
The lords, ladies, and branches of Reyne the books name — the notable, the infamous, and the merely unlucky.
Roger Reynethe Red Lion of Castamere
Lord of Castamere
d. 261 AC
The last Lord of Castamere, elder brother to Reynard and Ellyn, who dismissed Tywin Lannister's edicts as no real threat and rode to relieve his sister's besieged Tarbeck Hall with nothing more than his own household knights. He arrived to find the hall already burning, attacked anyway, was beaten back and wounded, and fled to Castamere — reaching it just as his brother Reynard led their people down into the mines that would become all of their graves.
Reynard Reyne
of Castamere
d. 261 AC
Led the Reynes and their household — some three hundred souls by report — down into the mines beneath Castamere when Tywin Lannister's army arrived, judging correctly that Tywin could not fight his way into rock he could not reach. He sent up terms of surrender demanding Tywin's own young brothers as hostages at Castamere for surety; Tywin never answered them, and instead dammed the stream that fed Castamere's pool into the nearest shaft. No one who went down into the mines came back up.
Ellyn Tarbeck
Lady of Tarbeck Hall, born Reyne
d. 261 AC
Sister to Roger and Reynard Reyne, married into House Tarbeck and caught first when Tywin Lannister's revenge began. She shut Tarbeck Hall's gates and sent ravens to Castamere for her brothers' aid, which arrived too late to matter — Tywin's siege engines brought the hall's roof down on her where she stood, and what still stood after, he had put to the torch.
What the record disputes
Where the sources disagree or a song outruns the maesters, the chronicle marks the doubt rather than settling it.
The precise number of Reynes, Tarbecks, and household folk who died in the flooded mines of Castamere is given as a round figure — some three hundred — in the sources consulted; the Chronicle preserves that approximation rather than sharpening it.
No Reyne house words are recorded in any source the Chronicle has consulted; the Chronicle records none rather than invent one for a house whose own voice the record did not preserve.
Whether Ellyn Tarbeck was born a Reyne or a Tarbeck is not stated with full explicitness everywhere the revolt is described; the Chronicle follows the sources that name her Reynard and Roger Reyne's sister.
What is House Reyne known for?
House Reyne held Castamere as bannermen to House Lannister and grew rich enough on its silver mines, allied by marriage to House Tarbeck, to forget for one costly generation that bannermen they remained. Under Lord Tytos Lannister — too generous, too forgiving, too slow to notice contempt curdling under his own roof — the Reynes let their arrogance harden past the point his heir was willing to tolerate. Ser Tywin Lannister answered it without waiting for his father's leave, and answered it completely: Castamere's mines were flooded with its lords and people still inside them, and House Reyne left the realm nothing but a song that has outlived every family it names.
Where is the seat of House Reyne?
House Reyne holds Castamere, in The Westerlands. 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 Reyne 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.