Rebel Sword

by Derek Birks Book 1 in the The Anarchy Series series.

First published 2024

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4.2(106)

When Henry I dies in 1135, his nephew Stephen takes the English throne despite the oath many barons had sworn to recognise Empress Matilda. Robert, Earl of Gloucester, initially accepts Stephen’s rule, but the political settlement begins to fracture. Robert’s illegitimate son Thomas, raised in a Norman household but conscious of his Saxon mother’s heritage, is more interested in tavern fights and personal grievances than dynastic politics until a violent brawl leads to exile on the family estates in Normandy.

Thomas’s journey south with his Saxon uncle brings him into the orbit of a young heiress whose future is being decided by more powerful men. As Robert moves towards rebellion in support of Matilda, private loyalties and family conflicts become entangled with the approaching civil war. The novel opens Birks’s Anarchy series at the moment England’s disputed succession turns into a struggle of barons, castles and competing claims to the crown.