When Caroline of Ansbach arrives in England, King George is old and sour, his mistress ugly and his wife imprisoned at his own hand for over twenty years. She has grown up watching her mother Eleanor's loveless and dangerous marriage, and is determined to avoid a similar situation. So she marries the Prince of Wales, George Augustus, and they are popular among the people, leading the King to resent them.

In what will become typical Hanoverian style, father and son loathe each other and exist in a state of constant competition for power. She quickly realizes that her husband is unintelligent and sees that she will be able to control him to some extent. Despite plenty of obstacles, including her father-in-law's control of her children, she refuses to lose sight of her aims.