"Thrice have mine own kin sought to replace me," Lady Jeyne told Prince Jacaerys. "My cousin Ser Arnold is wont to say that women are too soft to rule. I have him in one of my sky cells, if you would like to ask him." (Fire & Blood)
Far closer by blood was Lady Jeyne's first cousin, Ser Arnold Arryn, who had twice attempted to depose her. (Fire & Blood)
Jeyne Arryn & Arnold Arryn
"The first time you tried to incite a rebellion against me, I stripped you from your position as the Knight of the Bloody Gate, deprived you of the income I had previously granted your family to aid and honor my closest kin, and took your eldest son and your only daughter as my wards. I had assumed that you understood what 'wards' truly meant in that particular instance, but perhaps you did not."
Arnold scoffed. "I know what it means well enough. Hostages. My children are your hostages, taken to ensure my good conduct and my humble compliance."
"They were taken to ensure your loyalty to the rightful Lady of the Eyrie, to whom you and your fellow conspirators had sworn an oath of allegiance. If you are aware that your eldest son and your only daughter are my hostages, why do you not keep to your promise never again to incite a rebellion against me, never again to try to depose me to put yourself in my place? Do you not care a whit about your children's fate? What sort of father are you, Cousin? Do you care more about usurping my place and becoming the Lord of the Eyrie than about the well-being of your own children?"
Arnold shrugged. "I have other sons. And my daughter, well … a daughter is only a daughter after all."
"How thoughtful of you. How glad your children would be to learn of their father's great love and tender care for them."
"Sharp tongues and biting words are the weapons of the weak. They are the weapons of women, and women are too soft to rule."
"Too soft to rule? Are you certain of that? Would you be willing to stake your life on it?"
"When our uncle Ronard tried to gain the lordship of the Eyrie for himself after your father's death, Yorbert Royce your regent and lord protector at the time swiftly had his head on a spike. You are too soft, Jeyne, too soft to rule, as all women are. The fact that I have a head still to make a second attempt to depose you is proof enough of that. I know that you would not have the will or the audacity to kill my children, even if they are your hostages. You have grown fond of them, but even if you have not, even if you despise them with all your heart because of what their father has done, the murder of children is not something you are capable of."
"You are a prisoner in my hall. Remember your place! You will address me as 'my lady' and nothing else. I will remind you that our uncle plotted to have me assassinated in my bed by my own nursemaid, and I was gravely wounded and almost died as a result. His punishment fitted his crime. Your first attempt to depose me did not injure my person. Had I taken your head then, men would holler from Gulltown to the mountains that the Lady of the Eyrie is a blood-thirsty, bloody-handed tyrant who is unfit to rule and must be replaced with a better ruler."
Allow me to give you this last piece of advice, my lady, the late Lord Royce had said to Jeyne on her sixteenth name day, the day he relinquished his position as regent and lord protector. A woman must appear twice as strong as any man, and twice as resolved as any man, lest she be called weak and unfit to rule. It is an unfair and unjust burden to place on a female ruler, you are not wrong about that, but harping on the unfairness and injustice of it would not aid you in facing this difficult task ahead of you, my lady.
Jeyne had not forgotten Yorbert Royce's advice, but nor would she ignore her own conclusion based on years of close observations – that a woman's strength and resolve were more likely to be perceived as dangerous, threatening, cruel, depraved, malicious or tyrannical than a man's strength and resolve.
Ruling, for a woman, bore a very close resemblance to walking along a twisty, treacherous and very narrow path. Stray too close to one side, and you would be accused of being too soft and too weak to rule. Stray too close to the other side, and you would be accused of being too hard, of being a shrew, a harridan and a tyrannical ruler. The extremely difficult – nay, the near impossible – balancing act was one she could not and must not fail to achieve, if she hoped to remain as the Lady of the Eyrie. (And if she wished to ensure that being the Lady of the Eyrie would not alter and transform her so radically and so fundamentally that she would no longer be able to recognize the woman she saw in the mirror each morning as herself, as Jeyne Arryn.)
After careful deliberation, Jeyne Arryn, the Lady of the Eyrie, pronounced, "I will not take your head, Arnold, nor will I take your children's heads. Heads on spikes would rot and be forgotten in a matter of weeks. The sky cell will be your new home. I wish you all the best in it."
