The Iron King
Maurice Druon opens his Accursed Kings cycle in 1314, as Philip IV of France burns the last Grand Master of the Templars at the stake. From the pyre the dying Jacques de Molay calls down a curse on the king, the pope, and the royal line, and Druon then tracks the slow ruin of the Capetian dynasty across royal bedchambers, council halls, and counting houses. Bankers, mistresses, bishops, and princes circle the throne while Philip's three sons stumble toward extinction. The prose is brisk and the politics are pitiless, and the cast is large enough that betrayal can come from almost any direction. Druon writes history the way a chess player thinks several moves ahead.
What you might want to know about The Iron King
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
The opening volume of The Accursed Kings, in which Philip the Fair of France crushes the Knights Templar and unleashes a curse that will consume his dynasty.
Martin has repeatedly named The Accursed Kings as the original historical fiction inspiration for A Song of Ice and Fire, calling Druon's series the original Game of Thrones in his introduction to the 2013 HarperCollins reissue.
The Iron King stands on its own as a complete story about the fall of Philip the Fair, but Druon continues the dynastic curse across six more volumes that build on its setup.
The Iron King was written by Maurice Druon, published in 1955 by Harper.
The Iron King is 352 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Iron King takes most readers 5 to 8 hours to finish.
The Iron King is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
