1792. A tyrannical government is determined to make England a mighty commercial empire. In France, Napoleon Bonaparte begins his rise to power, and with dissent rife, France?s neighbours are on high alert. Kingsbridge is on the edge Unprecedented industrial change sweeps the land, making the lives of the workers in Kingbridge?s prosperous cloth mills a misery. Rampant modernization and dangerous new machinery are rendering jobs obsolete and tearing families apart.