In thirteenth-century England, King Henry III's sister Nell breaks tradition and marries Simon de Montfort, an outspoken nobleman who risks death in battle to preserve honor. This is Simon de Montfort's story--and the story of King Henry III, as weak and changeable as Montfort was brash and unbending. It is a saga of two opposing wills that would later clash in a storm of violence and betrayal, a story straight from the pages of history that brings...

The English and Welsh cross swords in the thirteenth century.

He was nineteen when they married, she eleven years his senior, newly divorced from the King of France. She was beautiful, headstrong, intelligent, and rich. It was said he was Fortunersquo;s favorite, but he said a man makes his own luck. Within two years, Henry had made his, winning the throne of England and exercising extraordinary statecraft skills to control his unruly barons, expand his own powers, and restore peace to a land long torn by banditry...

"The Kingdom of Jerusalem, also known as Outremer, is the land far beyond the sea. Baptized in blood when the men of the First Crusade captured Jerusalem from the Saracens in the early twelfth century, the kingdom defined an utterly new world, a land of blazing heat and a medley of cultures, a place where enemies were neighbors and neighbors became enemies. At the helm of this growing kingdom sits young Baldwin IV, an intelligent and courageous boy...

A tale inspired by the life and reign of Richard I traces how a second surviving son of Henry Plantagenet and Eleanor of Aquitaine inherits the throne from his brother before embarking on the Third Crusade and a war against the Saracens, a conflict that is complicated by the schemes of his usurping borther, John.

When her son Richard is held for ransom in an Austrian dungeon and Prince John plots with the French king to prevent Richard's return, Queen Eleanor sends Justin de Quincy into Wales to recover a ransom payment that has gone missing.