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Are/Were there any cases where there were two people at the head of a noble house? Perhaps as Brothers?

I'm planning to play in an ASOIAF rpg, and me and a friend of mine are going to be a noble house in service to the Tyrells in The Reach. We are twins of the house, and will one day succeed our father. I realize Head of the house goes to the eldest, even by a few seconds, but would it be unheard of if we choose to rule as joint lords? Would it be accepted?

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    Hmm, an interesting one; I can't think of an example of the top of my head. I'm going to assume no though. There will always be one single person who is The Head.
    – Möoz
    Apr 21, 2015 at 2:59
  • In fact, there was a fair bit of commotion over Cersei and Jamie's rights, even though they were twins, Cersei thought that she should be the Head since she was minutes older; but Jamie was considered the Heir since he was the male; had they both been males, I'm assuming the older one would have been Head.
    – Möoz
    Apr 21, 2015 at 3:00
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    Yes, Frank and Claire Underwood from the House of Cards. Sorry, I couldn't resist.
    – Zikato
    Apr 21, 2015 at 5:47
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    @Zikato: House Underwood. Its sigil is an naked aide standing awkwardly between two politicians.
    – Paul D. Waite
    Apr 21, 2015 at 12:45
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    The biggest problem I see with this is inheritance. The reason there can only be one lord is because there can only be one heir. With 2 lords, who gets the land when they die if they both have children?
    – Lord Praxis
    Sep 28, 2017 at 14:13

2 Answers 2

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As Mooz already said in the comments, there are no mentions of houses with more than one ruler.

But often the Lord gives some of his responsibilities to other people. The most common example found in the books would be the Castellan. His responsibility is the defense of a castle, fort or city.

Also there are examples where there is a Lord but he is not the actual ruler. The most familiar example would be Robert Arryn who is the Lord of the Vale but, because he is under-aged, Littlefinger was granted the title Lord Protector and is currently the de facto ruler.

The Game of Thrones RPG from Telltale features House Forrester, a minor house from the north sworn to House Glover of Deepwood Motte. The game introduced the title of Lord Sentinel which is granted by the Lord. The Lord Sentinel has total power over the House and is only second the actual Lord. So the position of the Lord Sentinel is quite similar to the position of the Hand of the King.

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  • Excellent pick-up on the Castellan!
    – Möoz
    Apr 21, 2015 at 22:55
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I'm not aware of any examples in Westeros.

There is a precedent from British history: After the so-called Glorious Revolution in 1688, Parliament declared King William III and Queen Mary II to be joint monarchs. They shared the authority of the crown and if one of them died, the other was to continue ruling alone.

Westeros has no equivalent of the British Parliament, but it does have a legal system, as administered by the Master of Laws in the Small Council. There must be laws relating to the authority and responsibilities of Lords. If the King allowed it, then in principle those laws could be modified to allow joint headship of a House.

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