King for whom the common people had a secret love? (5)
I believe the answer is:
herod
'king' is the definition.
(I know that Herod is a king)
'the common people had a secret love?' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'had' could be 'd' (in contractions e.g. 'I'd', 'you'd' etc) and 'd' is located in the answer.
'love?' could be 'o' (love means zero in tennis) and 'o' is present in the answer.
The remaining letters 'her' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
'for whom' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for herod that I've seen before include "King of Judaea, temple builder" , "Former king" , "Ruler of Palestine when Jesus was born" , "King of Judea in the time of Jesus" , "Infanticidal king" .)