Wayrest , Jewel of the Bay Content . Wayrest is one of the most glorious cities of western Tamriel : sparkling in her contemporary beauty , lustrous by her past . She is prized above all cities in High Rock - - no other city has contributed , and continues to contribute so much to the culture of the Breton s . The spirits of her genius children continue to haunt the streets ; you can see them in the gabled roofs , grand boulevards , aromatic marketplaces . The people of Wayrest have an instictive appreciation of their past , but are not obsessed by it , as the people of Daggerfall seem to be . One feels that one is in a modern city when one visits Wayrest , but there is a magic in the air that could only come from thirty - two centuries of civilization . It is difficult for historians to declare a certain date for the foundation of Wayrest . A settlement of some variety had been existence where the Bjoulsae River feeds the Iliac Bay possibly since the 800th year of the First Era . The traders and fishermen of Wayrest were surrounded by hostile parties : the orc capitol Orsinium had grown like a poison weed to the north , and the Akaviri pirates and raiders crowded the islands to the west . There is no mystery to Wayrest ' s name . After the fighting most travellers had to endure passing through the eastern end of the Iliac Bay , the little fishing village on the Bjoulsae was a welcome rest . Nowhere in the much vaunted censuses of the Skyrim Occupation is Wayrest mentioned . In the Annals of Daggerfall , King Joile ' s letter to Gaiden Shinji of the Order of Diagna contains the following reference : " The orcs have been much plaguing the Wayresters and impeding traffic to the heart of the land . " The date given for the letter was 1E 948 . Wayrest only truly bloomed after the razing of Orsinium in 1E 980 . The hard - working traders and merchants were instrumental in forming the Masconian Trade Way and thus reducing the pirate activity on the Bay . At this time , Wayrest occupied both banks of the Bjoulsae . A successful mercantile family , the Gardners , built a walled palace on the High Rock side of the river and , over time , allowed banks and other businesses within its walls . It was a Gardner , Farangel , who was proclaimed king when Wayrest accepted ambassadors from the Camorian Empire , and was granted the right to call itself a kingdom in the 1100th year of the 1st Era . Although Wayrest became a kingdom under the command of one family , the merchants continued to wield incredible power . Many economists have alleged that Wayrest ' s eternal wealth , despite all her hardships , comes from this rare relationship between the merchants and the crown . The Gardner Dynasty fell , followed by the Cumberland Dynasty , which was followed by the Horley Dynasty , and finally , in the Third Era , the Septim Dynasty . No citizen of another kingdom of comparable age can , with one hand , name all the families who have ever ruled . Never has a king of Wayrest been deposed by revolution or assassination . Except for those of the Septim family , every king of Wayrest can trace his line back to a merchant prince of Wayrest . The merchants and king respect one another , and this relationship strengthens both . One need only walk down the great boulevard of Wayrest to see physical proof of this unique alliance . Going north to south , Wayrest Boulevard suddenly divides , one half going west and the other going east . Both halfs end in identical squares : one at Castle Wayrest , the original palace of Aphren Gardner , and the other at Cumberland Square , where the oldest and wealthiest marketplace in Wayrest . The message here is clear : the king and the merchants are joined and equal . Wayrest has survived blights , droughts , plagues , piracy , invasions , and war with good humor and practicality . In 1E 2702 , the entire population of the city was forced to move into the walled estate of the Gardners as protection against the pirates , Akaviri raiders , and Thrassian plague . A less resourceful community would have withered , but the Wayresters have survived to enrich Tamriel generation after generation .