Mike Barker's costume drama is set 1645 when England is coming out of a civil war. The New Model Army have defeated the Royalist forces & King Charles I (Rupert Everett) is now imprisoned. General Thomas Fairfax (Dougray Scott) celebrates with his deputy Oliver Cromwell (Tim Roth) but they don't agree on what to do with the King. However, it is the more powerful of the two, Cromwell who manages to take charge & in order to indroduce his new parliamentary ideas he must put the King on trials & eventually execute him.