The year is 1816. Napoleon has at last been defeated, but victory brings no peace to the English. The cost of war strikes deep into the country - there is a raging inflation, discharged soldiers join the ranks of the unemployed, wages tumble and the bread price soars - and hungry men are easily stirred to protest. Amid this turbulence, Heloise and James stand guard over Morland Place - for its spirit as much as its fortunes - when a tragic accident strikes at the very heart of the family.

The year is 1807. The Napoleonic Wars continue and their violence reverberates in the lives of the Morland family. Lucy, trying to rebuild her life after the death of her lover, is thrown into doubt and confusion by an unexpected proposal of marriage. At Morland Place, the hard-won happiness of James and Heloise is threatened by his rebellious daughter, Fanny, who is determined to claim more than her inheritance. These troubled times hold many surprises. In their darkest hour, the Morlands make an astonishing discovery.

As the century draws to a close, Jemima Morland wearily acknowledges that her life is also nearing its end, but she has scant peace as her unpredictable children behave ever more incomprehensibly: James's marriage to Mary Ann is closer to falling apart; Lucy's marriage of convenience is in the balance - her affair with Lieutenant Watson an open scandal; Mary bears a daughter on board her husband's ship during the battle of the Nile; and William supports a mistress whose marriage cannot be dissolved.

The bloody revolution in France causes upheaval in the Morland family. Henri-Marie Fitzjames Stuart, bastard offshoot of the Morland family, strives to protect his daughter, Heloise; his mistress, Marie-France; and their son, Morland. To this end, he binds Heloise to a loveless marriage with a Revolutionary, and allies himself with the great Danton.

But in the bloodbath of the guillotine and the fall of Danton, Henri-Marie loses his head and Heloise flees to England.

1772: Although George III reigns over a peaceful England, his colonies in the Americas are claiming independence and a tide of revolutionary fervor is gripping France. Allen Morland and his beloved wife, Jemima, work unstintingly to bring Morland Place back to its former glory. Their seven children often bring them heartache, but they are sustained by their love of each other.

1670: King Charles II's reign has brought peace and prosperity to the Morland family, but James II's ascent to the throne will shatter their restored fortunes. In Yorkshire, Morland Place has flourished during the Restoration, and in London the beautiful and sprited Annunciata, is now Countess of Chelmsford, a wealthy and well-connected woman, intimate with the Royal Family. But storm clouds gather over them all when the reign of James II brings rebellion and discord.

This wonderful series opens with the back drop of the Wars of the Roses with the marriage between Eleanor Morland and a scion of the influential house of Beaufort. It is a union which establishes the powerful Morland dynasty and in the succeeding volumes of this rich tapestry of English life, we follow their fortunes through war and peace, political upheaval and social revolution, times of pestilence and periods of plenty, and through the vicissitudes which afflict every family - love and passion, envy and betrayal, birth and death, great fortune and miserable penury.

A scorching August day, and a handsome young man is found dead in his bath. Suicide is not a detective inspector’s business, but Bill Slider’s colleague takes one look at the body and calls in his boss: 'It don’t look right to me, guv.' Slider has to agree. There’s the method of death, a single slash to the jugular; men don’t usually cut. And his wallet and keys are missing. Either this was suicide with concealment in mind - or murder.

The late Mr Lionel Bygood, who looks, to all intents and purposes, like an old-fashioned sort of gentleman, has been bashed in the head with a bronze statue, in what Doc Cameron describes as 'our old friend the Frenzied Attack'. It soon emerges that Mr Bygood was a philanthropist, well-known locally for giving help and advice to all who needed it, from all walks of life.

In 1914, Britain faces a new kind of war. For Edward and Beatrice Hunter, their children, servants and neighbours, life will never be the same again. For David, the eldest, war means a chance to do something noble; but enlisting will break his mother's heart. His sister Diana, nineteen and beautiful, longs for marriage. She has her heart set on Charles Wroughton, son of Earl Wroughton, but Charles will never be allowed to marry a banker's daughter.