When Henry I’s only legitimate son dies, the king, seeing no other way, bequeaths the crown to his daughter Matilda. But in a world where strength and power are the lot of men, it is difficult for a woman to defend her right—especially when her rival is the embodiment of knighthood: a magnanimous, courageous, and generous man. And so England is divided in two and soaked in the blood of a brutal civil war. In the fire of this conflict, a new dynasty must be born— the dynasty of men with a lion’s heart, the Plantagenets.