After Angelica Fanshawe's aristocratic mother prefers the Catholic faith to the Anglican law of England, her daughter becomes a royal ward of King Charles I, who allows her love match with her childhood friend and cousin Harry Fanshawe.
Cromwell's regime is firmly established and maintained by bloody military terror. The illegitimacy of the regime is obvious to many, including Honest John Lilburn, who ends up siding with the opposition but is acquitted in his jury trial despite the hostile, treacherous judges he brilliantly exposes. Sexby takes up a post as colonel to defend England's back door in the Irish campaign, and he remains loyal despite Cromwell making a liar of him by not keeping his mediation promises to the mutineers whose leaders he executes.