Mardil Voronwë

Lineage

Mardil was of the House of Húrin, the family of Númenórean descent from Emyn Arnen in Ithilien that had provided the Stewards of Gondor since Húrin of Emyn Arnen served King Minardil in the seventeenth century of the Third Age. By his time the office had become hereditary in practice. His father was Vorondil the Hunter, who hunted the wild white kine of Araw near the Sea of Rhûn and made from a horn of one of them the great horn that his descendants carried and that Boromir bore to his death. Mardil was born in 1960 and succeeded his father as Steward in the last years of Eärnil II.

Steward to Eärnil and Eärnur

The Steward's office was that of the king's chief counsellor and, in his absence, his deputy, and Mardil served Eärnil through the loss of Minas Ithil to the Nazgûl in 2002. When Eärnur came to the throne in 2043, the Witch-king at once challenged him to single combat, mocking him for his flight at the Battle of Fornost, and it was Mardil's counsel that held the king back. Seven years later the challenge was repeated and Eärnur would not be restrained. He rode to Minas Morgul and did not return.

The first Ruling Steward

Eärnur had no heir and had left no instruction. Rather than plunge Gondor into a new Kin-strife over claimants of doubtful descent, Mardil governed in the king's name, and the years were still counted as if Eärnur reigned. From this necessity came the office of Ruling Steward. Mardil swore to hold rod and rule until the king should return, took the white rod and the plain black chair below the empty throne, and used neither crown nor royal name. His rule was so wise and steady that the people called him Voronwë, the Steadfast, and after him the stewardship descended from father to son in his line, each swearing the same oath. It became an unwritten law of Gondor that no Steward would ever take the crown, and the formula about the king's return came to be spoken as a memory of something that would never happen.

Mardil was also a reformer of the calendar. In 2060 he introduced the Stewards' Reckoning, a revision of the King's Reckoning that corrected the accumulated errors of the Númenórean calendar, and this remained the calendar of Gondor and of the Westron-speaking peoples until the end of the age. He ruled for thirty years after Eärnur's disappearance, holding Gondor together through a time when its confidence had been shaken, and died in 2080. His son Eradan succeeded him as the second Ruling Steward.

Legacy

Twenty-five Ruling Stewards followed Mardil, down to Denethor II and Faramir. His name was a byword for loyalty in Gondor, and when Aragorn returned in 3019 it was the oath first sworn by Mardil that Faramir fulfilled in surrendering the white rod.

Died in 2080 after thirty years of rule; succeeded by his son Eradan.