Set in the reign of Queen Anne, this novel follows the troubled progress of Henry Esmond Esq, a gentleman and an officer in Marlborough's army. Enamoured of the Jacobite Lady Castlewood and her wayward daughter Beatrix, he distinguishes himself in Marlborough's campaigns against Louis XIV. Esmond comes to grief in an attempt to depose George I in favour of the Old Pretender. He wrestles with an allegiance to the old Tory-Catholic England until, disillusioned, he comes to terms with the whiggish-Protestant future.