Kinghood

The Kinghood books are two independent medieval novels linked by their examination of contested rule rather than by recurring characters. Hammer for Princes follows an experienced Anglo-Norman earl through the final phase of the Anarchy, when King Stephen and the future Henry II struggle over England. The King’s Road turns to the childhood of Frederick II in Sicily, placing a twelve-year-old king inside a court where guardians, papal agents and military adventurers compete to possess him.

Both novels approach monarchy from close range and from positions of danger. Holland is less interested in ceremony than in the bargains, journeys, family loyalties and physical risks through which political authority is created. The series therefore moves from baronial warfare in twelfth-century England to the disputed Sicilian regency around 1200 while retaining a common concern with how rulers learn to recognise loyalty, manipulation and power.