Execution of Eddard Stark
ejecución de Eddard Stark
The execution of Eddard Stark is the public beheading of Lord Eddard Stark, Hand of the King, before the Sept of Baelor in King's Landing, ordered by the newly crowned Joffrey Baratheon.
Stark had charged that Queen Cersei Lannister's children held no legitimate claim to the throne, and that accusation of treason led to his arrest and death. The sentence shatters any truce between the Crown and the North and pushes several lords of the realm into open rebellion.
Chapter 1
The charge of treason
298 ACBooks and show
Before dying of wounds from a hunting accident, King Robert Baratheon leaves Eddard Stark as Hand of the King, and with that office the power to decide the succession. Stark charges that Queen Cersei's children are not the king's own, and therefore have no right to the crown.
The accusation is not enough to unseat the Lannisters from power. Eddard is arrested before he can act on his own charge, and his household falls with him in the streets of King's Landing.
Chapter 2
The beheading before the Sept of Baelor
298 ACBooks and show
Joffrey Baratheon, already crowned king, orders Eddard Stark's death for treason. The sentence is carried out in public, before the Sept of Baelor, by the blade of Ilyn Payne, with Sansa and Arya Stark among those present.
The execution does not settle the crisis: several lords of the realm take it as a declaration of war against the Crown and rise in open rebellion, the opening move of the War of the Five Kings.