- Most of the knights I think probably started as Manderly household knights and got a promotion as thanks for their continued loyalty during the long trek to the North, as well as folks like Ser Bartimus. The lords I think are mostly Northern houses who washed out as lords of the Wolf’s Den (the Lockes, the Flints, the Slates, the Longs, the Holts, the Ashwoods, etc.) and non-Wolf’s Den locals like the Woolfields (between Ramsgate and the Sheepshead Hills, they seem rather substantial), with a salting of Reach vassals who kept the faith.
- There was definitely some grumbling, but with the direct patronage of the Starks – the Boltons are definitely going to complain but no one wants a Bolton for a neighbor, the Lockes and Woolfields and Flints might bristle (depending on when they were vassalized) but the Lockes and the Flints don’t have much pull at Winterfell after their failures in the Worthless War, the Karstarks and Umbers might complain on general principle but they’re too far from the action, the Dustins would worry about the economic threat, but at the end of the day no one is willing or able to pony up enough cash to replace the Manderlys, which is what the Starks would probably say to anyone who complained directly.
- Well, there’s definitely a quid-pro-quo of “build me a castle and a fortified city that no Valeman will ever capture again” and there’s definitely a good chunk of silver flowing upriver, b/c the Manderlys know the Starks’ benevolence was the only thing that kept them alive. As I talked about in my essay, I think Stark-Manderly relations were a mixture of the Manderlys being the mostest loyalest vassals ever while at the same time grabbing for power with both hands as if it might vanish if they looked away, and the Starks keeping the Manderly ambitions in check while still rewarding good service.
Concerning House Manderly: (1)Among the “dozen petty lords and a hundred landed knights” they count as vassals, what percentage of them do you imagine fled alongside the Manderlys and how were the rest acquired (Carrot vs Stick)? (2)How did the northern lords react to the meteoric rise of these foreigners, especially after the discovery of silver in their demesne? (3)Given how they got their lands, would the Starks have a disproportionate finger in the Manderly’s silver pie? Thank You, RSAfan.
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