In 12th-century England, church bells toll for the death of King Henry I, as his barons face the unwelcome prospect of being ruled by a woman—Henry's beautiful daughter Maude, Countess of Anjou. But before Maude can claim her throne, her cousin Stephen seizes it, and in the long and bitter struggle that ensues, both claimants prove willing to let all of England bleed and burn. This first book in Sharon Kay Penman's magnificent five-volume Plantagenet saga was praised by the Orlando Sentinel as "a marvelous medieval pageant of a novel ... another jewel in [Penman's] already glittering crown."