Raised in a family at the center of the struggle for Irish home rule, young Irish noblewoman Elizabeth Fitzgerald, known as "Gera", flees to England as most of her relatives are imprisoned or executed. Entering court politics first as a lady-in-waiting to Henry's doomed fifth queen and later wife to highly placed courtier Sir Anthony Browne, her desire for revenge and the reinstatement of her family is balanced by respect for the disinherited princesses Mary and Elizabeth, care for her husband's position, and her secret attraction to seagoing nobleman Edward Clinton.