The Master of Lake-town

The elected Master

Lake-town, or Esgaroth, was not ruled by a lord but by a Master chosen by the old and wise among its merchants, and the Master of 2941 was very much a man of that kind. He was clever, cautious and fond of comfort, cared chiefly for trade and tolls, and had no belief in the old prophecies about the return of the King under the Mountain. When Thorin Oakenshield walked out of the river with his company and proclaimed himself heir of Thrór, the Master doubted him, but the crowd's enthusiasm and the presence of Thranduil's raft-elves persuaded him that it was cheaper to feast the Dwarves than to oppose them. He kept them for a fortnight in idleness and expense, glad enough when they set off up the lake and out of his account books.

The dragon and the aftermath

When Smaug came down on the town, the Master was among the first to make for his great gilded boat and get away, while Bard held the last tower and killed the dragon. The survivors on the shore were ready to throw him out and make Bard their king, and the Master saved himself by an artful speech: it was the Dwarves, he said, who had roused the dragon, and it was they whom the town should hold to account. The crowd's anger was turned to the Mountain, and the Master kept his office, though Bard took command of everything that mattered and the Master sat in the huts by the lake complaining of the cold.

Death in the Waste

After the Battle of Five Armies Bard received a fourteenth share of the treasure and sent much of it to the Master for the rebuilding of Esgaroth. It was too much for him. The dragon-sickness that had ruined Thorin took hold of the Master too; he seized the greater part of the gold and fled with it into the Waste with a few companions, who deserted him, and there he died of starvation. Gandalf and Balin brought the news to Bilbo at Bag End some years later, along with word that his successor was a wiser man and that the new Lake-town, rebuilt larger and richer, prospered under him.

Fled into the Waste with the town's gold, was deserted by his companions and died of hunger.