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The text doesn’t state what contributions Rickard did make, and we do not know how old Rickard Stark was at the time of the Ninepenny Kings, but given that there is no explicit mention of accolades or dishonor, it can be assumed that Rickard did reasonably well assuming he was of the age of majority, neither dishonoring himself nor winning glory equal to that of Steffon Baratheon, Tywin Lannister, or Brynden Tully. The regional Warden titles were activated, and as Warden of the North, Rickard Stark was expected to contribute and fight. There were many wars in Westerosi history, but almost all of them were a kingdom or region against another, an intra-Westeros war, rather than a war between Westeros and another power. The War of the Ninepenny Kings, a succession war instigated against the recently-crowned monarch Jaehaerys II, was one of the few times in Westerosi history where the entire nation of Westeros faced an external threat together as a single kingdom. But all of that would change when it was Rickard Stark’s time to sit as ruling lord of Winterfell. Perhaps they smoldered over the New Gift being ceded from the North to the Night’s Watch, or perhaps the courts and pageantry of the south were simply too foreign and too distant for the much more personal and direct politics of the North for the Northmen to feel any especial kinship.
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Cregan Stark best emphasizes what appears to be the common pattern of Northern involvement: fulfill your oaths and bring stability, perhaps with a marriage to help keep the peace.
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Torrhen Manderly was involved in the regency and administration of the early reign of Aegon III, but the Manderlys have many southron traditions and leanings, which coupled with their extensive political support of Rhaenrya Targaryen in the Dance, does not detract overmuch from Northmen largely involving themselves with the North and not the larger picture of Westeros. Indeed, the North only ever seemed to involve themselves in eras of instability, good examples being Rickon Stark fighting in Daeron’s conquest of Dorne or Beron Stark allying with Tybolt Lannister to fight off rebelling Greyjoys, but little is said about the North involving themselves in the greater Westerosi political picture over the three-hundred tenure of the Targaryen kings. After all, only one King-Beyond-the-Wall ever strove against Westeros to mandate the Warden of the North having his position activated, and the Starks and Umbers defeated him before the rest of Westeros would have even been able to make the march north. The North, a remote and distant kingdom, did not interact much with the southern kingdoms. A long-faced, stern man, Rickard was the only child of Edwyle Stark and Marna Locke that survived to adulthood, and married his second cousin once removed Lyarra Stark, bringing together two distant branches of the family. From marriage alliances to civil war, all of it can be traced back to the political machinations of one Lord Paramount.
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Rickard Stark was responsible for much of Westeros’s recent history.