Eldest son of Ser Kevan Lannister and Dorna of House Swyft, born in 283 AC and raised at Casterly Rock in the long shadow of his uncle Tywin. Sent south as squire to King Robert Baratheon at his cousin Cersei's contriving, he served the king at the Hand's tourney and rode at his stirrup through the kingswood, a fair, slope-shouldered boy who poured wine more readily than he wielded a sword. When the king hunted his boar, it was Lancel who pressed the strongwine into Robert's hand at the queen's bidding, fortified beyond reckoning, so that His Grace took the tusk in his belly half-drunk and bled out his life on a featherbed in the Red Keep; thereafter the queen took the boy into her own bed, the better to keep his tongue, and made of him a poor substitute for the brother who had ridden away to war.
Knighted in haste and ill-used at the Blackwater, he took a sword wound that festered and would not close, and lay near death in the Tower of the Hand until his father carried him from court. Wed in 300 AC to Amerei Frey, the wanton widow they called Gatehouse Ami, he was granted the seat at Castle Darry and the lordship of those lands by his uncle's accord, though he scarce knew his bride and could not bear her touch. The Mother's mercy worked on him through his sickness and his shame; he forsook wife and lordship alike, confessed his sins to his cousin Jaime in the sept at Darry, and rode for King's Landing to lay his sword at the feet of the High Sparrow and take the white star of the Warrior's Sons, a holy brother sworn to poverty and the gods.