Maybe you’ll like https://peterraleigh.substack.com/p/the-tell-of-us-all

We might think here, as perhaps Miller and his cowriters did, of a Viking army, threatening an established kingdom with devastation, transformed into that kingdom’s nominal protectors by the grant of a duchy. Rulership means negotiation, the management of a coalition, the constant reinforcement of a power base. It is never simple, and the work is never done.