Inside Game Of Thrones

Episode 11

Another man also sat on the council. Lord Stannis Baratheon, Lord of Dragonstone, the former Targayen stronghold, was immediate younger brother to Robert, but he had vacated his seat on the council and returned to Dragonstone when the King rode North, and had so far refused to return.

Ned had to sit as head on the council more often than not, as Robert found those duties too tiresome and preferred not to honor them as he should have. And the King organized a tourney in honor of Ned’s appointment, even though the realm was already neck-deep in debt both to Tywin Lannister and the Iron Bank of Braavos. “The Hand’s tourney” it was called, rubbing in the insult of an event Ned tried over and over to put a stop to.

After sitting on the council for some time, it didn’t take long for Ned to discover that he had been dropped into a hornet’s nest in the capital city, what with all the plotting and conspiracies taking place around him.
And Ned also found out that Jon Arryn and the King’s brother, Stannis Baratheon, had been making some enquiries just shortly before his death, enquiries into the many bastards of the King. Ned doesn’t know what that is about, but, after finding out the shocking truth that Jon Arryn had truly been poisoned, he becomes absolutely sure that the former Hand found out something that ultimately led to his death.

And a surprise visit from his wife leads to some even more shocking revelations.
Ned Stark doesn’t like Cersei, and the queen likes him even less, and he soon hits upon the truth that Jon Arryn had found, a dangerous secret about the queen and her children. Ned Stark, who is used to honesty and straightforwardness in everything, tells Cersei in private that he knows her secret. And he will reveal it to her husband.
Cersei lets him know, as he already does, that others have beaten him to it. And that it has been their undoing.
Will it end up being his, too? I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

The role of Eddard Stark was played in the television series by Sean Bean.