When King Aenys I died in 42 AC, his crown was seized not by his eldest son but by his brother, Maegor, who returned from exile across the narrow sea to claim the Iron Throne. The trueborn heir, Prince Aegon, called by many the Uncrowned, was the rightful king by every law of succession, and in time he gathered his father's loyal lords about him to press his claim. In 43 AC he brought a great host down toward the God's Eye, that broad lake at the heart of the riverlands, and there Maegor came to meet him. It was to be a battle not merely of armies but of dragons, for the young prince rode Quicksilver, the pale dragon that had once borne his father, while Maegor rode the Black Dread himself, Balerion, oldest and mightiest of all the dragons of Westeros.
The two hosts joined battle beneath the waters' shining eye, and above them the dragons fought. But Quicksilver was young and slight, no match for the vast bulk of Balerion, whose fires had melted the stones of Harrenhal in the days of the Conquest. The Black Dread fell upon the smaller dragon and tore it from the sky, and both Quicksilver and Prince Aegon came crashing down in ruin. So died the Uncrowned King who never wore his crown, and with him died the best hope of the loyalist cause. Maegor's men carried the day upon the ground as their king had carried it in the air.
Yet victory in battle did not bring Maegor peace. The Faith Militant, the fanatic orders of the Warrior's Sons and the Poor Fellows who had risen against the incestuous marriages of House Targaryen, fought on with even greater fury after Aegon's fall, and Maegor's own reign of terror against them stained the years that followed with blood. The Battle Beneath the God's Eye secured the throne for Maegor the Cruel, but it did not secure his sleep, and the wounds it opened within the royal house would not close until the reign of his nephew Jaehaerys.