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- Updated 23 September 2019
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The title given to the spouse of the ruling King of Gondor (no Queen ruled Gondor in her own name at any time during its recorded history). The most famous Queens were Berúthiel (Queen to King Tarannon Falastur) and Arwen Evenstar, the consort of Aragorn Elessar.
| Berúthiel |
Queen to King Tarannon Falastur (who ruled III 830 - III 913) The first Queen of Gondor named in records was consort to the Ship-king Tarannon Falastur, twelfth of the Kings of Gondor. She possessed ten magical cats that she used to spy on the people of Gondor, but her subterfuge led eventually to her being forced to sail away into exile. The gift of her cats to see in the dark became proverbial, but her exile left King Tarannon childless, and he was succeeded by his nephew Eårnil. |
| Vidumavi |
Queen to King Valacar (who ruled III 1366 - III 1432) Vidumavi belonged to the Northmen, allies of the Gondorians who occupied the plains of Rhovanion. She met Valacar when he was sent to the Northmen as an ambassador by his father Rómendacil, and the two soon wed. Valacar's choice to marrry outside the Dúnedain was controversial, and rebellion erupted during the later years of his reign. Vidumavi and Valacar had a son, Eldacar, whose accession to the throne set Gondor on the path to civil war. |
| Arwen |
Queen to King Aragorn Elessar (who ruled III 3019 - IV 120) Arwen was the daughter of Elrond, and thus had the long life of the Half-elven. She had been born in the year III 241 and had lived through most of the Third Age, including the times of both the other known Queens. In III 2951 - when she was nearly three thousand years old - she met the young Aragorn in her father's House at Rivendell. She chose to abandon her immortality to become Aragorn's Queen, wedding him in the year of the great victory in the War of the Ring. Even as a mortal, she outlived her husband, and eventually gave up her life on the mound of Cerin Amroth in Lórien where the two had plighted their troth long beforehand. |
Notes
1 |
This dating is approximate, based on the reigns of Gondor's Kings. During the rule of the House of Anárion, we only know of two specific Queens, and we have no exact dates for either of them: Berúthiel was extant during the ninth century of the Third Age and Vidumavi lived some six hundred years later. The third known Queen, Arwen, was Half-elven. Born in the year III 241, she was almost as old as the realm of Gondor itself when she chose to give up her immortality and wed King Aragorn Elessar in III 3019.
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2 |
The Kingship was restored in Gondor when Aragorn was crowned as King Elessar on 1 May III 3019. However, he did not marry Arwen until Midsummer of that year, so for a period of two months there was a King in Gondor, but no Queen.
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3 |
Because our knowledge of the Queens of Gondor is minimal, it is impossible to say whether they were all descended from the Dúnedain. Indeed, there is one - Vidumavi of the Northmen - who was definitely not one of the Dúnedain. However, given that Vidumavi's marriage to Valacar would eventually give rise to civil war, it seems reasonable to assume that the other Queens came predominantly (or even exclusively) from the Dúnedain.
Aragorn's Queen, Arwen, is a curious exception: she would not be counted among the Dúnedain directly, but as granddaughter to Eärendil she could claim descent from the same ancestral line.
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4 |
We know of thirty-five Kings of Gondor across history, and of those all but four were known to have produced an heir. Working on that basis alone, there must have been at least thirty-one Queens, but there are exceptions that adjust that figure upwards. Tarannon Falastur was one of those childless Kings, but we know that he had a Queen, Berúthiel. Aragorn's heir Eldarion also had no known heir of his own, but that is presumably because he was the last named King, and therefore his heirs were by definition unrecorded. The absolute minimum number of Queens of Gondor would therefore be thirty-three, though in reality there were doubtless rather more than this, as the line of Kings continued through the years of the Fourth Age.
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See also...
Aragorn Elessar, Arwen Evenstar, Berúthiel, Cats, Cats of Queen Berúthiel, Eärendil, House of Fingolfin, King of Gondor, Peredhil, Ruby Gamgee, Ship-king, Tarannon Falastur, Tarciryan, Vinyarion
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About this entry:
- Updated 23 September 2019
- Updates planned: 1
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