The Crowns of Seven Kings
 

To what does Saruman refer with this? The Crowns of Seven Kings?

"Later! Yes, when you also have the Keys of Barad-dûr itself, I suppose; and the crowns of seven kings, and the rods of the Five Wizards, and have purchased yourself a pair of boots many sizes larger than those that you wear now."

Second Book, The Voice of Saruman

Thx!

Aragorn, Brand (Well, not later), Grimbeorn, Dain under the Mountain, the Haradrim, the Easterlings and the Variags? I don't know, just a suggestion. Who knows?

he seems to be talking about unlikely things so perhaps the seven Dwarf Kings crowns? I couldn't imagine them giving them up easily.

Well he says Crowns of Seven Kings not Crowns of the Seven Kings so I beleive he is not reffering to any seven Kings in particular just any old Seven Kings

And "the rods of the five wizards" is referring to the wizards on middle earth at that time? Gandalf, Saruman, Radagast, and who else?

The two Blue Wizards who went off to the East with Saruman, never to be heard from again.

Now there's a theory that I've never heard. Maybe Saruman did away with the Blue Wizards.

Saruman was given the keys to Orthanc by Beren, Steward of Gondor, after Fréaláf had been crowned King of the Mark, beginning the Second Line of Kings in Rohan.

Afterwards followed seven kings: Brytta, Walda, Folca, Folcwine, Fengel, and Theoden. The friendship of seven kings Saruman had betrayed, though they trusted him as "a lieutenant of the Steward and warden of the tower."

Likewise, he was also betraying the friendship of seven Stewards of Gondor, as Gondor still considered Isengard its own and not as a part of Rohan: Beren, Beregrond, Belecthor II, Turin II, Turgon, Ecthelion II, and Denethor II.

The theory of Saruman doing away with the Blue Wizards has been discussed here before.

[ January 11, 2003: Message edited by: Legalos ]

Thank you for that information.

Interesting coincidences, Legalos. Thengel was accidentally left out of your list. Of course, if you had counted Frealáf for Rohan as you counted Beren for Gondor (for consistency's sake) this would have been eight kings of the Rohirrim. Also, it would have only been one crown between all fifteen of these men.

I think zacattack may have hit on the answer, that Saruman was not referring to any particular seven kings. Of course this is odd in the context, because there are exactly five rods and five wizards.

Did Dwarf Kings wear crowns? Surely they must have, but I can't recall any mention of them.

Thengel was supposed to be there, yes.

I counted Beren because he gave Saruman the keys. Frealaf was already King when Beren gave the keys to Saruman.

Okay, then it means nothing in particular.

I just thought about having meant the seven Kings of the Valar: Manwe, Ulmo, Aule, Orome, Mandos, Lórien und Tulkas.

This would fit, at first the seven Valar and then the five Istari. The mightiest beings on Arda and since Gandalf can never get the crowns of the Valar, Saruman was possibly a bit sarcastic about this, meaning that he will never help them. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

Good call, maybe. Manwë definitely had a crown, right? Ulmo had a huge helmet, I think. I dunno, though, Oromë and Tulkas don't really seem like the crown sort. You could definitely call them all kings, though, with each one their different kingdoms. Manwë was often called The Elder King.

Well that would make sense. Saruman, two blue wizards, Gandalf, and Radagast. 5 rods.

Ah, I should have known.

I love the idea of a cyptic reference to the Valar being the Kings. This is the sort of thing JRRT would do, give an impresion of a history that a few of the characters know about, but you dont (yet).

Yes, as I said, this could be so.

But one thing that does not really work is the missing "the". If Saruman really meant something in particular he would have said "Crowns of The Seven Kings", analogue to "The Rods of The Five Wizards". [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

I remember bringing it up an age or so ago. I think everyone decided that Saruman was not corrupted at that time seeing as Saruman was not at Orthanc yet, and Sauron was not even at Dul Guldor in physical form yet. As for the two blue wizards:

For some reason I find it oddly reassuring that Barad-Dur had a set of keys. (Though big black spikey ones I expect).

Witchking - Oi boss, me and the lads are popping out to fight some Numenoreans

Sauron - OK, well don't stay out too early and for badness sake remember to switch the volcano off and lock the back door! [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

I think we can rule out the possibility of the seven kings being valar. I mean that likely even Saurons ambition did not go that far. I mean the istari and maiar are a weight class or two below them. Sauron attacked Valinor once only to do away with the men of Numenor, never even suspecting that they who had been more powerful then him could possibly win valar.

So if he is talking about ME, then matter is simpler. The five wizards are not then only magicians in ME. I seem to remember it was written that the nine nazguls were once powerful men, sorcerers or kings. Something along those lines was also said of mouth of sauron. So why does Saruman speak of the rods of five wizards? The five have some special meaning.

Maybe like there are five TRUE wizards, there are seven true kingdoms of men. And I mean kingdoms that are or have been during the third age.

There were three kingdoms of men in the north: Cardolan, Rhudaur and Arthedain.

There is one in the south, Gondor. And Umbar I believe is kingdom.

That makes five kingdoms of the men of westernesse.

Belfalas was granted to Galador to rule as a prince of the Dol Amroth. And Rohan to Eorl to rule as a king. Makes two kingdoms more. One of which is of men of Numenor and only Rohan of the northmen.

Easterlings are propably ruled by khans. Historically the mongol title of khan or even "kublai khan / tsingis khan", the great khans was different from that of a king. There was no formal or hereditary rank involved in it. It was simply title given to one who was able to gather power enough to rule. (Not to be forgotten that in this contest the child of the former ruler had an adwantage.) Harad might be ruled by sultans, which is in many ways the same as khan, exept that plotting and obscurities of ancient religiously important birthrights come to play. Men of rhovanion might live in tribal villages, It would seem fitting. Esgaroth is ruled by a mayor. Bard on the other hand is the first "lord" of the dale. The title may be rather like one of an "elected king." It may not be true hereditary kingship.

I think Saruman did not mean: "rods of THE five wizards and crowns of THE seven kings." I think he meant: "(the 5) rods of five wizards and (the 7) crowns of seven kings."


JH

I think that is the point. Saruman never wanted to help Gandalf and therefore said this about the Valar, possibly.

Btw, I think in the Silmarillion is written, that some Maiar were almost as strong as the Valar.

So, summing up so far the possible kingdoms are:

Erebor
Dale?
†Arnor(†Arthedain, †Cardolan, †Rhudaur)
Angmar
Gondor
Rohan
Mirkwood/The Woodland Realm


I have marked with a † the kingdoms which no longer existed at the time of Saruman's conversation, but haven't included Angmar since Witchy clung pitifully to the fact that he used to be a king.

Is there any proof that Umbar was a kingdom? The references to The Corsairs of Umbar seem to me to point to a loose arrangment such as that of Esgaroth. Dol Amroth was a part of the kingdom of Gondor.

If Dale was a lordship and not a kingdom (similar to what Lórien became), and if the three perished kingdoms of Arnor were counted separately, this would make seven. This of course doesn't prove that these are the famed Seven Kingdoms with Seven Crowns, but it does point to it being a possibility.

the 2 blue wizards were commonly known as Alatar and Pallando

Mind you, Tolkien wrote 'five' at the time just because 'five wizards' sounded good. He didn't invent the Blue Wizards until years later.

Indeed, early in the writing of Book V, four years later, he thought the Witch-King might be a renegade wizard.

That is correct. Almost the whole book had been written before Tolkien has changed his mind about the Wizard-King, "the mightiest of all the wizards of Men".
At the time all the wizards were Men, not Maiar.

I think the Wizard King's color was supposed to be Black as the following sentence likely used to refer to him:

Aaah....interesting. If Tolkien had decided that Men could gain Wizard-like powers and be called Wizards, then my theory of there being more Wizards than the Five(the 'How Many Wizards?' thread) sounds a lot more plausible than before.

I also found it strange that Seven Kings(presumably of Men) were mentioned when so far we've only seen 3 kingdoms(Gondor, Rohan and Dale). Then I thought of the Haradrim and Easterlings. Tokien wrote somewhere that they were a diverse and divided people, ruled by various petty kings. The additional Crowns could be obtained from there.

Don't see the point of speculating too much about 'the crowns of the seven kings'.

Apparently there are (or were) seven proper kingdoms according to Sauruman's knowledge. It is however unlikely that we readers are aware of all these kingdoms. In fact, it is probable that they didn't even exist as more than vague notions in Tolkiens head, and that seven is an arbitrary number.

You must also remember that Middle Earth is a big place and that the stories Tolkien wrote mainly concerns the north-western parts of it. In the east (where Sauruman travelled in the past) and in the south there would've been many lands inhabited by darkelves, men, dwarves and god known what else, even if there are no stories written about them.