First of his name, the second Targaryen king to sit the Iron Throne. Born on Dragonstone in 7 AC of King Aegon I and his younger sister-wife Queen Rhaenys, the boy came into the world small and spindly with watery eyes, refused his wet nurses, and clung to his mother's breast for the better part of his first year. So unlike his fierce sire was he that the realm whispered the babe was no Targaryen at all but the get of one of the singers or mummers his mother delighted in, and the whisper was hushed only when the hatchling Quicksilver was set in the boy's cradle and he and the pale young dragon began to thrive together. He grew to be tall and slender and silver-haired with lilac eyes and a singer's voice, a charming and soft-spoken man trained to arms by his father's Kingsguard, but he could not be made into a warrior; he preferred maesters and septons to swords, dabbled in astrology and alchemy, and was happiest in the company of mummers and players. In 22 AC he was wed to Lady Alyssa Velaryon at Aegon's wish, a love-match as well as a marriage of state, and by her in time he had six children: Rhaena, Aegon, Viserys, Jaehaerys, Alysanne, and Vaella.
Aenys was at Highgarden on the royal progress with his wife when his father died at Dragonstone in 37 AC, and he flew Quicksilver back to claim his crown. He was twice anointed in the years that followed, by the Grand Maester at the Red Keep with his father's Valyrian-steel circlet and again at the Starry Sept of Oldtown with a crown of yellow gold inlaid with the faces of the Seven, and at the start of his reign the Faith blessed him and the smallfolk cheered his name. But Dowager Queen Visenya whispered that he was not strong enough to rule, and within his first year four risings tested his courage and proved her right: the bandit Red Harren claimed Harrenhal for the Hoares, the priest-king Lodos II raised himself again in the Iron Islands, the Vulture King raised a Dornish host in the marches, and the captive Lord Ronnel Arryn was overthrown in the Vale by his own brother Jonos. Aenys could not bring himself to decide upon any of them; in the end his lords moved for him. Prince Maegor on Balerion broke the Eyrie, Lord Goren Greyjoy massacred Lodos's followers on Old Wyk and sent the priest-king's head back to court in a jar, the marcher lords ran down the Vulture King at the Vulture Hunt, and Lord Alyn Stokeworth's squire Bernarr Brune cut down Red Harren at the head of a hundred men. Aenys rewarded all of them with gold and land, and named his brother Maegor as his new Hand of the King.
Two years of brittle peace followed; then in 39 AC, on the heels of Vaella's birth and her death in the cradle, Maegor cast aside his barren wife Ceryse Hightower and took Lady Alys Harroway to wife beside her, and the realm boiled over with the question of polygamy. The High Septon denounced the marriage; pious lords condemned it; a furious Aenys at last commanded his brother either to put Alys aside or go into five-year exile. Maegor took the exile and flew Balerion to Pentos with Alys, and Aenys named the gentle Septon Murmison as his new Hand. In 41 AC he announced that his heir Prince Aegon would wed his eldest daughter Princess Rhaena after the manner of his own father and mother, and on the day of the wedding the Warrior's Sons made note of every guest who passed into the Sept of Remembrance. When Septon Murmison was excommunicated for performing the ceremony, Aenys's appeal to restore him was met with a denunciation from the High Septon addressed to "King Abomination". Two Poor Fellows scaled the walls of Visenya's Hill to put a knife in the king, and a knight of the Kingsguard cut them down on the threshold; Aenys fled to Dragonstone with his wife and children and never returned. He died there in 42 AC, only thirty-five but looking sixty by Grand Maester Gawen's measure, with Alyssa singing a dirge over him; some said he had collapsed under the strain of the realm's hatred, and some said his aunt Visenya, who had taken his sickbed care into her own hands, had poisoned him to seat her son on the Iron Throne.