On his return after six years’ fighting with the Duke of Wellington in the Napoleonic Wars, Colonel Romney Wood, who has just become Lord Heywood, is horrified at the state of the country he left behind, where agricultural labourers are now starving, food shops are bare and Luddites lay waste new agricultural machinery.
Worse still his own estate is almost bankrupt and he has to find something to sell to save it and his loyal staff from penury.