A fearsome father. A scheming mother. Three sons battling for attention. In the waning years of his life, but no less brutal for it, King Henry II is holding Christmas court at Chinon, during which he'll announce the blood successor to his throne.
Assembled for this event are his equally calculating wife, Eleanor of Acquitaine, imprisoned for ten years by her husband for a political coup of her own; his shamelessly flaunted mistress, Alais, and her venomous brother, King Philip of France; and Henry's three sons, Prince Richard the Lionhearted, who can't fathom the depth of leadership, the shallow Prince Geoffrey , and the luckless and bumbling Prince John . What the three siblings share is a gift for treachery. After all, they were taught by masters.
