HOUSE BOLTON

House Bolton of the Dreadfort is an extinct Great House of Westeros. Following the Red Wedding massacre, they became the Great House of the North, having previously been a vassal house that usurped their position from their former liege lords, House Stark. They had a long history of dissent and rebellion, to the point where they became known as the "Bane of the North". House Bolton’s original lands were in the northeast of the Stark territories and their stronghold was a castle called the Dreadfort, located on the banks of the Weeping Water east of Winterfell.

House Bolton was infamous for its centuries-old practice of flaying their enemies alive, to the point that they used a flayed man as their house sigil. The Boltons supposedly gave up this practice after bending the knee to House Stark, and centuries later Lord Eddard Stark outlawed flaying in the North altogether, but the Boltons continued the practice. This resulted in them being despised and feared by many of the Northern houses, especially after their betrayal of House Stark by aligning their house outside of the North with House Lannister of the Westerlands and House Frey of the Riverlands.

The head of the house was the Lord of the Dreadfort, a title held by Lord Roose Bolton until his bastard son Ramsay Snow murdered him in order to secure his position as Lord, a title which was in jeopardy when Roose’s wife, Walda Bolton, gave birth to a legitimate male heir. Some time following his succession, however, Ramsay was killed during the Battle of the Bastards, which was led by Jon Snow, the cousin of Ramsay’s tortured wife Sansa Stark. During the battle, Ramsay sacrifices at least half his forces in order to trap the Stark infantry, and the rest was annihilated by House Arryn’s cavalry late in the battle. Ramsay's death and the annihilation of his army mark the end of the Boltons' reign over the North and the extinction of House Bolton as a whole. It is unknown who currently occupies the Dreadfort. If there was a Bolton garrison holding the castle, it was presumably destroyed by the White Walkers and their army of the dead during their advance towards Winterfell during the Great War.

House Bolton's heraldry consisted of a red flayed man upside-down, his flayed skin forming a white, X-shaped cross behind him, over a field of black. Their house words were "Our Blades Are Sharp," though a common saying of members of the house was "A naked man has few secrets; a flayed man, none."

BACKGROUND

The origins of House Bolton date back to at least the Age of Heroes, a savage age in which the houses of the First Men waged war one upon the other. For centuries, the Red Kings of House Bolton resisted the efforts of the Stark Kings of Winter to unify the North under their rule, killing several Starks in the process, and, according to rumors, keeping their skins as trophies and even wearing them as cloaks. Whereas most noble houses would pass down greatswords through the generations, the Boltons inherited knifes that were honed and thinned enough to fit between the topmost layer of skin and the tissue below. They all had learned as children the common saying at the Dreadfort, “a naked man has few secrets; a flayed man, none.”

During these centuries when the North was divided into a dozen or so smaller petty kingdoms, the Boltons and Starks were chief rivals for domination over all the others. House Bolton's kingdom covered a large portion of the lands east of Winterfell, centered around the Dreadfort itself. The armies of House Stark besieged the Dreadfort for two years before finally forcing the Boltons to surrender. After the Boltons bent the knee to the Starks, they were commanded to give up their practice of flaying their prisoners as sign of their submission. However, the practice of flaying was not officially outlawed until the lordship of Eddard Stark. Nevertheless, they remained the second most powerful house of the North. The Boltons were considered a sinister and ill-omened house, but Lord Roose Bolton was noted as a capable battle commander. Roose Bolton fought alongside Eddard Stark during Robert's Rebellion. After the Battle of the Trident, Roose suggested executing the defeated Ser Barristan Selmy, but Eddard and the eventual-king, Robert Baratheon, refused.

 MEMBERS and allies

*REPRESENTED IN THE SERIES*