The Lord of Ireland

England and Ireland, 1185. Henry II sends his youngest son John across the Irish Sea with soldiers, administrators and the title Lord of Ireland, expecting him to strengthen Angevin authority against both Irish rulers and ambitious Anglo-Norman magnates. John sees the expedition as compensation for being denied a crown, but his contempt for local custom and hunger for visible power alienate potential allies almost immediately.

Henry secretly assigns Sir Benedict Palmer to identify treachery within the expedition, while Theodosia adopts a religious disguise to gather information near John’s household. Palmer discovers that the prince’s decisions threaten to unite his opponents and destroy the political settlement his father wants preserved. The trilogy concludes by placing its fictional agents inside John’s documented and disastrous first campaign in Ireland, where royal authority becomes indistinguishable from personal violence.