# Arvedui's claim to kingship



## Ithrynluin (Dec 11, 2004)

In the LOTR Appendix we read:



> 'On the death of Ondoher and his sons, Arvedui of the North-kingdom claimed the crown of Gondor, as the direct descendant of Isildur, and as the husband of Fíriel, only surviving child of Ondoher. The claim was rejected. In this Pelendur, the Steward of King Ondoher, played the chief part.
> 'The Council of Gondor answered: "The crown and royalty of Gondor belongs solely to the heirs of Meneldil, son of Anárion, to whom Isildur relinquished this realm. In Gondor this heritage is reckoned through the sons only; and we have not heard that the law is otherwise in Arnor."
> 'To this Arvedui replied: "Elendil had two sons, of whom Isildur was the elder and the heir of his father. We have heard that the name of Elendil stands to this day at the head of the line of the Kings of Gondor, since he was accounted the high king of all the lands of the Dúnedain. While Elendil still lived, the conjoint rule in the South was committed to his sons; but when Elendil fell, Isildur departed to take up the high kingship of his father, and committed the rule in the South in like manner to the son of his brother. He did not relinquish his royalty in Gondor, nor intend that the realm of Elendil should be divided for ever.
> '"Moreover, in Númenor of old the sceptre descended to the eldest child of the king, whether man or woman. It is true that the law has not been observed in the lands of exile ever troubled by war; but such was the law of our people, to which we now refer, seeing that the sons of Ondoher died childless."
> To this Gondor made no answer. The crown was claimed by Eärnil, the victorious captain; and it was granted to him with the approval of all the Dúnedain in Gondor, since he was of the royal house. He was the son of Siriondil, son of Calimmacil, son of Arciryas brother of Narmacil II. Arvedui did not press his claim; for he had neither the power nor the will to oppose the choice of the Dúnedain of Gondor; yet the claim was never forgotten by his descendants even when their kingship had passed away. For the time was now drawing near when the North-kingdom would come to an end.



Was Gondor right in rejecting Arvedui's claim?

Was Arvedui correct to even propose such a thing or was he being arrogant?

How would things have gone if he *had* been given the crown? For the better or for the worse?

Many years later, Aragorn of the Northern Dunedain accepted the crown of Gondor. Why wasn't _his_ claim rejected, especially seeing how the Northern and Southern lines grew even more apart as the years went by? What was the difference between Arvedui's and Aragorn's claim and situation?


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## Arvedui (Dec 11, 2004)

Gondor was of course wrong in rejecting the claim. Considering that Arvedui (The Man!!!) was a descendant in straight line from Elendil, he was at least through bloodline a more correct heir than the usurper Eärnil.

The difference between Arvedui and Aragorn are rather manifest, I think. At the time when Arvedui claimed the throne, he was the ruler of rather small and weakened Kingdom. While Gondor was very strong, and had a good (by their own judgement) candidate in Eärnil. After the Battle of Pelennor Fields, Gondor was leaderless, and with Faramir as the only possible person to take over the rule as Steward. But Faramir supported Aragorn's claim, and Aragorn had proven his worth both in the struggle against the Enemy, and also as a healer. And I guess that to be able to prove (or something to that effect) that you were of the line of Elendil, didn't exactly hurt matters much.

Lastly, I am not one to speculate on which destiny a United Kingdom would have had under Arvedui from TA 1944, but my intuition tells me that things would have been very different...


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## Gothmog (Dec 11, 2004)

> Lastly, I am not one to speculate on which destiny a United Kingdom would have had under Arvedui from TA 1944, but my intuition tells me that things would have been very different...


Well one thing is certain, had Arvedui become King of Gondor when Sauron regained his strength, then he would have had no trouble finding "The Heir of Elendil"


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## Inderjit S (Dec 11, 2004)

No-there had clearly been a schism between the two family trees. Plus they had a ready made descendant of Elendil in Earnil, who was a war hero to boot. Picking a foreigner (who was albeit the son-in-law of the king and a descendant of Elendil) would have caused a lot of problems-something which the realm at the time, could not take. Earnil was the safe bet, as Malbeth pointed out.

With regards to Firiel-the salic law was no longer applicable in Middle-Earth, or, rather, the whole matter was ambigious-Tar-Aldarion's decree would have held little support in Middle-Earth, which was a land of war, whereras Numenor was a land of peace and any wars were fought outside of Numenor anyway. Women, of course, did not make good war-time leaders.


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## MichaelMartinez (Dec 12, 2004)

Gondor's people had a right to self-determination which was inherently acknowledged in Arvedui's claims. That is, he did not refute the authority of the Council of Gondor to reject his claim.

Numenorean Law didn't really apply, as Arvedui should have been aware. Arnor and Gondor were founded after the destruction of Numenor, outside of Numenorean Law. While the Numenoreans brought their culture and laws to Middle-earth, they clearly did not observe the royal law of succession which had been in force for more than two thousand years -- a fact that Gondor's Council referred to in their rebuttal.

Isildur complicated matters by taking up the title of High King and travelling north to rule from Arnor. If he had remained in Gondor and merely sent for his family, the dual kingship would have continued. Tolkien would have had to drive the history forward in some different way.


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## Valandil (Dec 13, 2004)

Perhaps we need a 'merge'?

Inderjit started this similar thread just a few months ago:

http://www.thetolkienforum.com/showthread.php?t=16345


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## Greenwood (Dec 13, 2004)

Ithrynluin said:


> What was the difference between Arvedui's and Aragorn's claim and situation?



Well, as Arvedui (our Arvedui that is  ) has rightly pointed out Aragorn's and Arvedui's *situations* were quite different, even if, arguably, Aragorn's *claim* was weaker because of the greater distance in time of Aragorn from Isildur. Arvedui faced a strong leadership of a strong kingdom who did not wish to relinguish power to an "outsider", while Aragorn faced a leaderless, weak kingdom that he had been instrumental is saving from total destruction. Of course, that Faramir, the only obvious rival deferred to Aragorn, didn't hurt either.


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## Halasían (Dec 13, 2004)

... not to mention that Isildur and his three elder sons were killed on their way north after Isildur left....


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## aragil (Dec 13, 2004)

Just wanted to point out the obvious- that Faramir was a much different rival to Earnil. Earnil could make a very good claim to the throne. Faramir and the stewards of Gondor could/did not make any claim to the throne- their role in government was completely contingent on the lack of any true heir being available.
Shirley it made things easier that Faramir supported Aragorn's claim, but what legal pretense would he (or Denethor, for that matter) have had for denying the claim?

ps Welcome back GW.


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## Inderjit S (Dec 13, 2004)

> not to mention that Isildur and his three elder sons were killed on their way north after Isildur left....



Which is kind of ironic, given that Isildur's eldest son was said to resemble Aragorn in mood and looks. But I wonder what would have happened if Isildur had not been killed-would he have given the ring to the three and would they have accepted it? Given that the subsequent few centuries following the downthrow of Sauron were a time of peace then I wonder what the relationship would have been between Arnor and Gondor-would Arnor had been the hegemon and would this have stifled Gondor's rapid development? Isildur would have held a higher position as high-king than a young boy-would this have led to a different relationship between the two? 



> Shirley it made things easier that Faramir supported Aragorn's claim, but what legal pretence would he (or Denethor, for that matter) have had for denying the claim?



None, except for Denethor's glib arguments. i.e. the house of Isildur never had any claim to the kingship of the house of Anarion. Denethor was, of course, crazy, though there may well have been some nobles who feared a loss of power if Aragorn became king. Legal pedantry is not my thing though, nor was it, I can imagine, the Gondorians thing.  

The Gondorians were also a lot more desperate for a king when Aragorn became king-it had been hundreds of years since they had one, as Faramir recalls to Frodo and Sam about the conversation between Boromir and Denethor-the Gondorians will never be content until they have a king.


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## Arvedui (Dec 14, 2004)

Inderjit S said:


> Which is kind of ironic, given that Isildur's eldest son was said to resemble Aragorn in mood and looks. But I wonder what would have happened if Isildur had not been killed-would he have given the ring to the three and would they have accepted it? Given that the subsequent few centuries following the downthrow of Sauron were a time of peace then I wonder what the relationship would have been between Arnor and Gondor-would Arnor had been the hegemon and would this have stifled Gondor's rapid development? Isildur would have held a higher position as high-king than a young boy-would this have led to a different relationship between the two?


Seems like the subject for a whole new thread, if you ask me.


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## Halasían (Dec 18, 2021)

Getting back on-topic seventeen years later... one would _think_ that Arvedui having a consistent bloodline to Elendil _and_ having married the daughter of King Ondoher would have accounted for something as opposed to being a related victorious commander as Earnil II was. It did seem that bloodline was much more important to Arnorians that it was for Gondorians, and these shifts in the royal lines was an indirect cause of Castamir moving to usurp the throne from Eldacar.

Clearly, the decision of Steward to name Earnil King was based in geo-politics, and it is possible that Arvedui was known in Gondor as being not a very nice guy?

(I bet the first coimment after this will be somethign about 'necroposting...)


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## Rōmānus (Mar 30, 2022)

Ithrynluin said:


> In the LOTR Appendix we read:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


As far as Gondor’s nobles were concerned they were right since he was not a descendant in the male line from Meneldil (LotR, Appendix A: Gondor and the Heirs of Ánarion) and they had better candidates from the royal house in the south. 

However, the line of Meneldil were actually usurpers since the elder line had never actually relinquished their rule in Gondor as was claimed. So Arvedui had a legitimate argument, but in the eyes of the southern Dunédain he was weak, and besides which a Captain of the royal house in the south had just saved Gondor from annihilation after his cousin and his heirs were killed.

A Dunádan seer actually said things would have been better off for the Dunédain if the kingdoms had been reunited under Arvedui. So the Dunédain did mess up big time in the end since the royal line in Gondor (not necessarily extinct) came to an end about 100 years later, and Arthedain fell apart.

What was different between Aragorn is Arvedui was that Aragorn had proven that he was not weak. He was a great captain. He was also in a position where he had no push back from the greatest noble in Gondor (Imrahil), and the Steward (Faramir) was also not hard hearted against the line in the north as the Stewards had long been (Appendix A: The Stewards). Aragorn also had several signs that were recognizable, his healing hands as the Dunádan woman Ioreth spoke of, and sigils of his house, etc.


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## Olorgando (Mar 30, 2022)

JRRT certainly had a hand for historical ironies. In that he had Arvedui proclaim his claim to the throne of Gondor - basically as High King - and then become the last-king of Arthedain (not even all of Arnor), but that the line of chieftains (as they then styled themselves) kept that oh-so-important "blood line" intact.
While the (then) crown prince of Gondor, Eärnur, while managing (with help from Cirdan's forces from Lindon and Elrond's from Imladris) to kick the Witch-king of Angmar out of Eriador, if too late to save Arvedui, then caused the extinction of the royal line of Gondor about 75 years later by his egocentric behavior (in more ways than one).


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