Anna Massey tells the story of some of the ambitious families who helped shape the history of the British Isles and have wielded power behind the scenes for the past 1000 years. The Dynasties relates how the loyalties of this privileged elite, many of whom are older than the monarchy itself, were tested and rewarded: it also uncovers a multitude of murderous plots, bloody battles, adulteries, intrigues and shocking executions. In this second volume, Christopher Lee looks at the Mortimers, one of whose number became Edward IV. He relates the story of the Berkeleys, who lent their name to a fashionable London square and in whose castle Edward II was murdered, and finally he chronicles the fortunes of a triumvirate of warring Irish dynasties: the Macmurroughs, the Fitzgeralds and the O'Neills.