Orphaned in the England of the later Stuarts, Henry Esmonde is raised by his aristocratic, Jacobite relatives the Castlewoods. As a young man he falls in love with both Lady Castlewood and Beatrix, her beautiful, headstrong daughter, and is inspired to join the ultimately unsuccessful campaign to reinstate James Stuart to the throne. Thackeray valued more than any of his other novels and it displays many of his own memories and emotions.