William Holden Hutton was a British historian and Dean of Winchester Cathedral. In this slim volume, Hutton writes of the long period of feudal anarchy following the death of King Henry I in 1135, during which Henry's implacable daughter, Mathilda, battled the ineffectual King Stephen. Hutton then describes the turbulent reign of the great King Henry II, the reigns of Kings Richard, John, Henry III, and of the first two Edwards, rulers who whether weak or strong, rigid or resourceful, were grimly opposed by their powerful barons.