Westeros Notorious Rulers and Families

Aerys II Targaryen

King Aerys II was also known as Prince of Dragonstone, Ser Aerys, Prince Aerys, The Mad King, King Scab, and Mad Aerys. He was born to Jaehaerys II Targaryen and Shaera Targaryen in 244 AC. He married his sister Rhaella Targaryen, and together they had three children. Rhaegar Targaryen, Viserys Targaryen, and Daenerys Targaryen. King Aerys was killed by his own Kingsgurad Jamie Lannister in 283 AC.

Early Life: Aerys was born to Prince Jaehaerys, the second son of King Aegon V, and his sister-wife, Princess Shaera. While still a teenager, Aerys was married to his sister Rhaella, by the family tradition of dynastic incest. While Aerys's grandfather, King Aegon V Targaryen was against this incestuous marriage (as he had been against incestuous marriages for his children), Jaehaerys was allowed to arrange it. Jaehaerys's motivation for the marriage was a prophecy made by a woods witch, which had been interpreted to mean that the prince that was promised would be born of the line of Aerys and Rhaella. According to Ser Barristan Selmy, who was present at the wedding, there was no fondness between the two siblings.

During his youth, Aerys befriended the young heir to Casterly Rock, Tywin Lannister, who served as a page at the royal court. Aerys also befriended the heir to Storm's End, his cousin Steffon Baratheon. The three became inseparable.

In 259 AC, Rhaella gave birth to their firstborn son and heir, Prince Rhaegar, during the disaster known as the tragedy of Summerhall, which killed King Aegon V, his eldest son Prince Duncan, and many others. Aerys's father, Jaehaerys, ascended the Iron Throne after this tragedy. It would later be rumored that, on the night of Jaehaerys's coronation, Aerys took the maidenhead of Lady Joanna Lannister, who had come to court for the celebrations.

Aerys was a squire during the War of the Ninepenny Kings and fought on the Stepstones. There, at the age of sixteen, he received his knighthood. Aerys chose to be dubbed a knight by his friend, Tywin. When King Jaehaerys II passed away from illness in 262 AC, Aerys was crowned as King Aerys II Targaryen.

Early Reign: Aerys's reign began in 262 AC with great promise, when the new king replaced many of the prominent officials at court, most of them old men brought in during the reign of his father and grandfather. Aerys replaced many of them with younger men, including his friend Ser Tywin Lannister, impressed by the ruthlessness the man had shown in dealing with a rebellion against House Lannister. Aerys named Tywin his Hand of the King. Aerys declared upon his coronation that it was his wish to be the greatest king in the history of the Seven Kingdoms. Some of his friends encouraged this by suggesting that one day he would be known as Aerys the Wise or Aerys the Great. During the early years of his reign, Aerys took an active part in his rule. He was ambitious during these years, and boasted about many grand plans, although he lost interest in them quickly as well. His plans, none of which would ever be carried out, included invading the Stepstones and adding them to his kingdom, building new Wall hundreds of miles north of the current one to extend his kingdom to the north after a visit from Lord Rickard Stark in 264 AC, building a city of white marble on the south bank of the Blackwater Rush after complaining of the smell of King's Landing in 265 AC, building a war fleet to "bring the Titan to its knees'' after a dispute with the Iron Bank of Braavos in 267 AC, and building an underwater canal to make the deserts of Dorne bloom after visiting the southern kingdom in 270 AC.

Regardless, the Seven Kingdoms prospered during these years, thanks to Aerys's Hand, Tywin Lannister. Shrewd enough not to make an enemy of the Iron Bank, Tywin settled the dispute with Braavos by paying back the loans owed to them by the Iron Throne with the gold of Casterly Rock. He appeased the high lords by repealing all the laws, rights, and protections that were granted to the smallfolk by King Aegon V Targaryen. He also won the support of the wealthy merchants by reducing tariffs on shipping to Oldtown, Lannisport, and King's Landing, which in turn increased trade. He sternly punished criminals, improved the infrastructure, and organized tournaments. Although Tywin remained little loved, he proved to be a brilliant administrator, and as Hand his reputation for brutal effectiveness became so well-known and so widely respected that popular rumor held it was Tywin, not Aerys, who truly ruled the realm, eventually causing Aerys to regret his choice of Hand. The relationship between Aerys and Tywin was further complicated due to Tywin's wife, Joanna Lannister. It was rumored that she briefly "reigned as his paramour" when Aerys first came to the throne. Whether or not this was true, the following year she married Tywin, with Aerys being present at the wedding. At the feast, a drunken Aerys joked that it was a great pity that the lord's right to the first night had been abolished and took certain liberties during the bedding ceremony. It is said that Tywin did not forget Aerys's behavior during that night. Aerys's marriage to his younger sister, Rhaella, was less happy than Tywin's. Aerys was known to keep many mistresses, and whilst Rhaella turned a blind eye to her husband's infidelities, she objected heavily against "turning my ladies into whores". In 263 AC, Lady Joanna Lannister was dismissed by Rhaella, shortly after having married Tywin. Whilst no official reason was given for Joanna's abrupt dismissal, she was not the first of Rhaella's ladies to be dismissed in this fashion, nor was she the last. Aerys's many relationships were not the only strain on his marriage. Rhaella's difficulties with childbirth played their part as well. In 263 AC and 264 AC, Rhaella had miscarriages. In 267 AC, whilst Aerys was away in the westerlands, Rhaella gave birth to the stillborn Princess Shaena. Prince Daeron, born in 279 AC, survived for only half a year. After Daeron, a second stillbirth followed in 270 AC and a miscarriage in 271 AC. In 272 AC, Prince Aegon was born two months premature. He died the following year. While Aerys was compassionate at first, comforting Rhaella in her grief, he turned suspicious in time. By 270 AC, he had decided that Rhaella had been unfaithful to him and that none of the stillbirths, miscarriages, and dead princes had been his, as the gods would not want a bastard to sit on the Iron Throne. He soon confined Rhaella to Maegor's Holdfast and ordered that two septas would sleep in her bed from that moment forth, to ensure she would remain faithful.