Hammer for Princes

This book has been read, no wear to covers, very minor pencil marking first inner page. Spine intact, no creases. "Hammer for Princes is set in England in the middle of the twelfth century, a country laid waste by a long and inconclusive civil war: on the one hand King Stephen, and against him the strongest of the nobility and the young Prince Henry Plantagenet, their candidate for the throne. Fulk, Earl of Stafford, is Prince Henry's man, and for him the public and political decision is easier to face than the complexities within his own family. Here he must come to terms with his own son, Rannulf, and combat the murderous jealousy of a cousin, ambitious for the earldom. In the body politic compromise is ultimately attainable. In private life, seldom. Through the quicksands of twelfth-century power politics, through forced march and siege, tournament and ambush, through hunt and parley, Cecelia Holland brings the heraldic postures of mediaeval England fiercely and vibrantly to life." Good Reads """Pen name used by Elizabeth Eliot Carter. Cecelia Holland is one of the world's most highly acclaimed and respected historical novelists, ranked by many alongside other giants in that field such as Mary Renault and Larry McMurtry. Over the span of her thirty year career, she's written almost thirty historical novels, including The Firedrake, Rakessy, Two Ravens, Ghost on the Steppe, Death of Attila, Hammer For Princes, The King's Road, Pillar of the Sky, The Lords of Vaumartin, Pacific Street, Sea Beggars, The Earl, The King in Winter, The Belt of Gold, The Serpent Dreamer, The High City, Kings of the North, and a series of fantasy novels, including The Soul Thief, The Witches Kitchen, The Serpent Dreamer, and Varanger. She also wrote the well-known science fiction novel Floating Worlds, which was nominated for a Locus Award in 1975. Her most recent book is a new fantasy novel, Dragon Heart."" Good Reads