He was never a member of the Royal House.” (Author’s note to “Cirion and Eorl,” p. “It was also Rómendacil I who established the office of Steward (Arandur ‘king’s servant’ ), but he was chosen by the King as a man of high trust and wisdom, usually advanced in years since he was not permitted to go to war or to leave the realm. “The House of the Stewards was called the House of Húrin, for they were descendants of the Steward of King Minardil (1621-34), Húrin of Emyn Arnen, a man of high Númenorean race.” (Appendix A) So it was that no claimant could be found who was of pure blood, or whose claim all would allow….” (Appendix A) –The point being that if the Stewards had a claim to the throne, they would have made it at this time. Often those on whom suspicion fell had fled to Umbar … while others had renounced their lineage and taken wives not of Númenorean blood. Their numbers had been greatly diminshed in the Kin-strife whereas since that time the kings had become jealous and watchful of those near akin.
“Now the descendants of the kings had become few. For we reckon back our line to Mardil, the good steward….” (Faramir, “The Window on the West”)
“We of my house are not of the line of Elendil, though the blood of Númenor is in us. I’ll start with this since it mostly comes from The Lord of the Rings and therefore has a better claim to being canonical. Lest I be misunderstood, let me hasten to say one thing before I begin: I am making absolutely no claims about anyone’s greatness, and I am not trying to prove that the families are “equal.” I only want to examine the textual evidence concerning the possibility of a blood relationship. Can we/should we accept Tolkien’s note in Peoples of Middle-Earth about the Stewards being of “ultimately royal” origin? Does it contradict the statement in The Lord of the Rings that the Stewards were not of the line of Elendil? Is Michael Martinez’ suggestion for the connection between the two families (in ‘The Men Who Would Be Stewards) plausible? The Stewards are a very high-ranking family in the land of Gondor, yet they do not have a claim to the throne.
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