On the eve of the French Revolution, two town officials confront the Buckriders - a criminal gang who appear to ride on flying goats with the Devil - but along the way they will face deceit, corruption, betrayal and finally each other.

After aspiring poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe fails his law exams, he's sent to a sleepy provincial court to reform. Instead, he falls for Lotte, a young woman who is promised to another man.

A German princess is chosen to marry the heir to the Russian Throne, but faces plots and intrigues against her.

Captain David Porter of the fledgling American Navy receives orders to masquerade as a privateer in order to corral some Caribbean pirates.

The film and developing TV series portrays life in 1800's Michigan, focusing on a Civil War vet trying to make peace with his losses and start a new life despite the world resisting change around him.

Facing the decline of everything he has worked to obtain, conqueror Napoleon Bonaparte and his army confront the British at the Battle of Waterloo.

It's all live-action, in full-color, shot and created digitally, detailing the creation and drill of the Revolutionary War American soldier from the defeats as a militia rabble in 1776 to success after Valley Forge in 1779-1781. It details all of the movements in Baron Von Steuben's "Blue Book" drill manual, as well as detailing the various uniforms, equipment, weapons, camps, marching, soldier life in camp, food and battles of the Continental Soldier. This is a first-of-its kind documentary, using actors and reenactors in authentic uniforms and settings to tell the story of the men of this army. This is the first in a planned 35 DVD "American Soldier Series" detailing the lives times and world of the American fighting men (and women) through history.

The British Empire flowers; exotic India colors English imaginations. Becky Sharp (Reese Witherspoon), the orphaned daughter of a painter and a singer, leaves a home for girls to be a governess, armed with a keen wit, good looks, fluent French, and an eye for social advancement. Society tries its best to keep her from climbing. An episodic narrative follows her for twenty years, through marriage, Napoleonic wars, a child, loyalty to a school friend, the vicissitudes of the family whose daughters she instructed, and attention from a bored marquess who collected her father's paintings. Honesty tempers her schemes.

Set in Baroque France, a scheming widow and her lover make a bet regarding the corruption of a recently married woman. The lover, Valmont, bets that he can seduce her, even though she is an honorable woman. If he wins, he can have his lover to do as he will. However, in the process of seducing the married woman, Valmont falls in love. Based on the same novel as "Dangerous Liaisons."

Decades before the Civil War, the actions of a brutal overseer spark the fire of revolution on a Southern tobacco farm.

An epic, sweeping and riveting tale of an impossible love set across two time periods and continents.

A newspaper reporter investigates the lives of juvenile delinquents.

The early years of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Jenny Marx, between Paris, Brussels and London.

Joshua Steed returns to Missouri a wealthy man with a beautiful wife; however, the past has a way of catching up. Soon Joshua is tangled in a web of rumors, deception and betrayal that threatens to tear his family apart. Back in Kirtland, financial trouble riddles the foundations of the fledgling Church causing a division, and questioning of the Prophet Joseph Smith's...Read all

In November of 1833, the state of Missouri turned a blind eye as hundreds of its peaceful inhabitants were hunted down and driven from their homes in the dead of night. Against this impending strife, a young man with a divine vision leads a people against the aggression of an anti-hero with a vulnerable past. With more than two million copies sold, the second volume o...Read all

Recently moved to upstate New York from the comfort of their Vermont homestead, the Benjamin Steed family makes their way into the established social structure of Palmyra. In their attempt to settle peacefully into the new community, they discover that the help they have hired to clear their land is at the center of a religious controversy - a controversy that threatens to tear the family apart. As two of the Steed brothers contend for the favor of a wealthy merchant's daughter, they find themselves on opposite sides of the religious question. Although the family struggles to smooth the contention, they soon face deeper issues of family loyalty and the pursuit of truth.

In a French forest in 1798, a child is found who cannot walk, speak, read or write. A doctor becomes interested in the child and patiently attempts to civilize him.

Set in 18th century Korea, long-ruling King Yeongjo's struggle with his son, Sado, sees the king take extreme measures in order to deal with his heir.

Young Fiona lives with her grandparents in a small fishing village where she takes an active role to unravel the mysterious secrets.

In nineteenth century Yorkshire wealthy orphan Anne Lister lives with an aunt and uncle, anxious for her to marry well and blissfully - unaware that she is a lesbian. Anne is recording her thoughts and exploits in a coded diary. When her lover Mariana Belcombe makes a marriage of convenience to rich old Charles Lawton she feels betrayed and, although Mariana visits her,the relationship is going nowhere. Helped by old flame Tib she makes a play for innocent Miss Browne but sees she is barking up the wrong tree and diverts herself by renovating the family hall. A drunken Tib almost exposes her secret and scornful mine-owner Christopher Rawson, whose marriage proposal she rejects, tells her that her sexuality is a subject of local gossip....

The spectacular scenery of Wessex and the Dorset coast provides the backdrop for this adaptation of a Thomas Hardy short story. Set in nineteenth century rural England, this is the story of forbidden romance between a German hussar serving with King George III's personal cavalry, Matthaus Singer, and the only daughter of a West country solicitor, Frances Groves. The German legion is encamped on the downs as the threat of war with Napoleon looms. Matthaus longs for his homeland and Frances is trapped in an interminable engagement to one of her father's business associates, Humphrey Gould. Illicit meetings between Frances and Matthaus flare into a passionate affair as each searches for escape and happiness. Were they to be discovered, she would be branded a soldier's whore and he a disgrace to his regiment...

During the French Revolution, a mysterious English nobleman known only as The Scarlet Pimpernel (a humble wayside flower), snatches French aristos from the jaws of the guillotine, while posing as the foppish Sir Percy Blakeney in society. Percy falls for and marries the beautiful actress Marguerite St. Just, but she is involved with Chauvelin and Robespierre, and Percy's marriage to her may endanger the Pimpernel's plans to save the little Dauphin.

A noblewoman discovers her husband is The Scarlet Pimpernel, a vigilante who rescues aristocrats from the blade of the guillotine.

An eighteenth century drama details the scandalous life of Lady Seymour Worsley.

In 1745, a German Princess, renamed Catherine (Elisabeth Bergner), arrives to marry Grand Duke Peter of Russia (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.), whom she initially likes. But his suspicious, unstable nature gradually estranges them, and Peter finds solace with pretty courtiers. Catherine invents her own (fictitious) lovers, temporarily improving matters. Alas, accession to the throne brings out the worst in Peter, and loyal Catherine is urged to assume power.

Sir Percy Blakeney(in the guise of the masked Scarlet Pimpernel), an Englishman who with the aid of a band of his friends, is engaged in spiriting FRench aristocrats across the English Channel to escape the guillotine. Robespierre, the ruthless revolutionary, informs the chief of the police he must capture the Scarlet Pimpernel or lose his own head to the blade. Blakeley's wife is abducted and taken to France forcing him to follow in a rescue attempt.

A perfect red-colored violin inspires passion, making its way through three centuries over several owners and countries, eventually ending up at an auction where it may find a new owner.

Philip Kent takes part in the American Revolution and the newly formed Congress.

Lucy Worsley untangles Louis XIV's complex world of court etiquette, fashion and feasting, while court politics expert Helen Castor delves into the archives and unpicks the Machiavellian world that Louis created.

In Wales, around 1800, Catherine Morgan is widowed young, her husband a war casualty whose unpaid gambling debts threaten both the loss of home and farm and destitution for her and her daughters Elen and Emily. Catherine hopes to save them by selling their cattle at a distant market. She must overcome the hardships of the cattle drive across the craggy Welsh countrysi...Read all

The story of Ludvig Kahlen who pursued his lifelong dream: To make the heath bring him wealth and honor.

Princess Songhwa refuses her fate of marrying someone who matches her marital harmony. There are 4 men on her future husband list with different fate signs. Refusing her fate, she decides to leave the palace and find her husband by herself. Seo Do Yoon is a person who interprets marital harmony signs. He is very skilled at his craft and, consequently, selected as the one to read the marital harmony signs between Princess Songhwa and the 4 men on her husband list.

Peaceful farmer Benjamin Martin is driven to lead the Colonial Militia during the American Revolution when a sadistic British officer murders his son.

A world-weary detective is hired to investigate the murder of a West Point cadet. Stymied by the cadets' code of silence, he enlists one of their own to help unravel the case - a young man the world would come to know as Edgar Allan Poe.

Nell Trent lives with her grandfather, the proprietor of the Old Curiosity Shop. Grandfather has a disquieting secret, a gambling addiction fed by high-interest loans from the bully Daniel Quilp. The villainous Quilp wants to get possession of the shop, and Nell. In league with his lawyer Samson Brass and Samson's sister Sally, Quilp seizes Grandfather's assets. But Nell organizes an escape from the shop in the dead of night, and she and Grandfather begin a harrowing odyssey through the English countryside with their nemesis in hot pursuit. Convinced that there is a family fortune to be gained, Nell's brother Fred and his friend Dick Swiveller join in the chase. Meanwhile, Nell and Grandfather encounter a slew of eccentric characters, including Mrs. Jarley, who runs a lurid traveling waxworks where Nell and Grandfather earn a meager wage for a brief time. Nell and her grandfather are eventually forced to beg for survival. Will Nell's young friend Kit Nubbles and a mysterious stranger arrive in time to rescue the despairing duo?

When young Nell Trent's (Sally Walsh's) grandfather (Sir Peter Ustinov) loses the investment money of wharf owner Daniel Quilp (Sir Tom Courtenay) with cards, Quilp develops an everlasting urge to get him put in the madhouse. Nell and her grandfather flee the city.

In eighteenth-century France a girl (Suzanne Simonin) is forced against her will to take vows as a nun. Three mothers superior (Madame de Moni, Sister Sainte-Christine, and Madame de Chelles) treat her in radically different ways, ranging from maternal concern, to sadistic persecution, to lesbian desire. Suzanne's virtue brings disaster to everyone in this faithful adaptation of a bitter attack on religious abuses by the Enlightenment philosopher Denis Diderot.

Jeremy Irons plays a Spanish Jesuit who goes into the South American wilderness to build a mission in the hope of converting the Indians of the region. Robert De Niro plays a slave hunter who is converted and joins the Jesuit in his mission. When Spain sells the colony to Portugal, they are forced to defend all they have built against the Portuguese aggressors.

During the Napoleonic era, in Spain, a young postulant called Teresa falls in love with handsome British captain Michael Stuart, who is recovering with others of his regiment after being wounded. Before leaving, Michael asks Teresa to leave the convent and marry him. Devoted to the statue of the Virgin Mary, Teresa asks for a heavenly sign, but leaves when nothing happens. Then the statue of the Virgin descends from its pedestal and takes Teresa's place, as the young woman joins a gypsy caravan believing Michael has been killed.

Mr. Tulliver owns a mill on the Floss River in Lincolnshire. He has two children, hot-headed and arrogant Tom and kind-hearted Maggie. Maggie has a friendly relationship with the lame Philip Wakem, a good lad who is deeply fond of Maggie. But Tom cares little for Philip, the result of a long-running feud between Tom's father and Philip's, a wealthy man to whom Mr. Tulliver is in debt. As the children grow to adulthood, the bad blood between Tulliver and Wakem comes to a boil, with tragic results. Tom, now a responsible but still hot-tempered young man, tries to restore the family's lost fortunes, but also tries to stop what he perceives to be a growing romance between Maggie and Philip. But when Stephen Guest, the fiancè of Tom's and Maggie's cousin Lucy, enters the picture, a chaotic clash of romance, family pride, and deception leads to disaster.

Lawyer Wakem takes away the mill on the river Floss from Edward Tulliver, whose ancestors owned it for 300 years, and becomes the worst enemy of Tulliver's family. When Edward's daughter, Maggie, grows up, she falls in love with Wakem's son Philip, but her brother Tom, true to the memory of their father, forbids her to meet him again. When she visits her cousin, Lucy Deane, Lucy's fiance Stephen Guest falls in love with Maggie at first sight, further complicating matters.

A young thief (Antonio Banderas), seeking revenge for the death of his brother, is trained by the once great, but aged Zorro (Sir Anthony Hopkins), who also pursues vengeance of his own.

The Swedish King Gustav III is bold and courageous regarding government. He is to marry a Danish princess. But when it comes to love and courtship, the king feels lost. Therefore he asks the loyal and experienced Captain Munck for assistance.

In the 1840s, the foppish Don Diego de la Vega returns from Spain to his family in California to find that his father has been replaced as ruler of the region by the cruel Don Luis Quintero. Despite being a skilled swordsman, Diego downplays his skills in front of the evil Captain Esteban and shows himself to be rather a clown in front of his family. However, Diego secretly picks up the sword of justice as the masked hero Zorro and fights to return justice to the region and his people.

At an estate auction in WWII England, two strangers meet and muse about their families' history and possible connections. Flashbacks reveal the story of the sweet, rich, and beautiful Clarissa Richmond and her friendship with bitter, impoverished Hesther Snow. Their fates are intertwined even as their paths diverge. Clarissa marries the handsome but cruel Marquis of Rohan while Hesther becomes an actress. Eventually, the two women meet again and Clarissa brings the scheming Hesther into her household. As Clarissa searches for true love, Hesther plots to take away everything that belongs to her.

Aging King George III of England (Sir Nigel Hawthorne) is exhibiting signs of madness, a problem little understood in 1788. As the monarch alternates between bouts of confusion and near-violent outbursts of temper, his hapless doctors attempt the ineffectual cures of the day. Meanwhile, Queen Charlotte (Dame Helen Mirren) and Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger (Julian Wadham) attempt to prevent the King's political enemies, led by the Prince of Wales (Rupert Everett), from usurping the throne.

Simon Bolivar fought over 100 battles against the Spanish Empire in South America. He rode over 70,000 miles on horseback. His military campaigns covered twice the territory of Alexander the Great. His army never conquered -- it liberated.

Despite trying to keep his swashbuckling to a minimum, a threat to California's pending statehood causes the adventure-loving Don Alejandro de la Vega (Antonio Banderas) and his wife, Elena (Catherine Zeta-Jones), to take action.

Three trappers protect the daughters of a British Colonel in the midst of the French and Indian War.

At 30, boyish penniless aristocrat Ryno de Marigny has separated from Villini, a passionate Spaniard and his mistress of 10 years. He's now in love with Hermangarde, a young, wealthy, and titled virgin. Days before the wedding, the bride's grandmother sits Ryno down and insists on knowing if his affair is over. He relates a story of passion, which we see in flashbacks, swearing he loves only Hermangarde. After the wedding, the couple moves to a castle by the sea. And Villini? Can passion survive disgust and self-loathing?

During the French Revolution, a Scottish aristocrat and her former lover, the Duke of Orleans, find themselves on opposite sides of the conflict.

Famed highway robber Dick Turpin finds himself on the run in the English countryside having accidentally kidnapped the Earl of Pembroke's feisty daughter, Elizabeth. As her fiance Winthroppe attempts to track them down, Elizabeth begins to fall for the dashing highwayman, leaving Turpin with no choice but to face off against Winthroppe in a fight for Elizabeth's heart...Read all

The Great Garrick (Brian Aherne) is the most celebrated London theater actor of his day (eighteenth century) and is invited to Paris to star at the Comedie Francaise, the most important theatre in France. Before his departure for Paris he is mistakenly quoted as saying that he is 'going to France to teach the French how to act'. The Comedie Francaise actors and director hear about this and take this as a serious insult and thus plot to embarrass The Great Garrick when he gets to France with a great big prank. The Comedie Francaise troupe takes over an inn on Garrick's road to Paris where he spends the night. What the Comedie Francaise actors don't know is that The Great Garrick is in on the joke and just plays along. A wrench is thrown into the plot when a lone, lovely traveler (Olivia de Havilland who was later Aherne's sister-in-law), who is not part of the prank, shows up looking for a room at the inn that the Comedie Francaise troupe has taken over. Garrick treats her as though she is one of the troupe but she falls in love with him. An always delightful Edward Everett Horton plays The Great Garrick's valet.

Tomboyish outcast "Cinder" Ella and the duke's charming son Charles fall in love in this comedic rendition of the classic fairy tale.

When a moody royal Prince's party of court brats pulls a few pranks too many in the woods, a mean fairy lays a cruel spell. She turns one into a frog, who can only become human again by a loving kiss. This alters several lives through relationships, some of dynastic relevance.

A history of the French Revolution from the decision of King Louis XVI to convene the Etats-Generaux in 1789 in order to deal with France's debt problem. The first part of the movie tells the story from 1789 until August 10, 1792 (when King Louis XVI lost all of his authority and was put in prison). The second part carries the story through the end of the terror in 1794, including the deaths by guillotine of King Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette, Danton, and Desmoulins.

In 1636, King Injo hides in the mountains to avoid being part of the Qing dynasty.

A young man named Kaspar Hauser suddenly appears in Nuremberg in 1828, barely able to talk or walk, and bearing a strange note.

Napoleon, exiled, devises a plan to retake the throne. He'll swap places with commoner Sergeant Eugene Lenormand, sneak into Paris, then Lenormand will reveal himself and Napoleon will regain his throne. Things don't go at all well. First, the journey proves to be more difficult than expected, but more disastrously, Lenormand enjoys himself too much to reveal the deception. Napoleon adjusts somewhat uneasily to the life of a commoner while waiting, while Lenormand gorges on rich food.

A fop is forced to confess to spying to save his wife from the guillotine.

A small feud between two Napoleonic officers evolves into a decades-long series of duels.

A chronicle of the life of 18th-century aristocrat Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, who was reviled for her extravagant political and personal life.

Austria in the 18th century. Forests surround villages. Killing a baby gets a woman sentenced to death. Agnes readies for married life with her beloved. But her mind and heart grow heavy. A gloomy path alone, evil thoughts arising.

Fact-based account of a secret society of murderers, and of the man who exposed them in British India 1825.

A dramatization of George Washington's perilous gamble of crossing the Delaware River and attacking the Hessian forces at Trenton.

In 19th century New Orleans creole Henriette must choose between love and devotion to the church. Neither choice is going to be easy, as there is great opposition to her ideas of breaking traditions.

A young officer of Peter I's First Guard, Ivan Demarin, on the instructions of the tsar, is sent to the depths of Siberia - to border Tobolsk. Here Ivan meets his first love and, together with his regiment, finds himself drawn into a conspiracy by local princes, who are hunting for Yarkand's gold. His fortress is surrounded by hordes of wild jungars and there's no place to wait for help .

A period film, set around an English country house whose owners want to arrange a marriage of convenience between their elder daughter and an aristocratic heir of a hard-up noble family. The planned marriage suffers a last-minute upset when the would-be husband switches affections to the bride's sister.

Will and Jake Grimm are traveling con-artists who encounter a genuine fairy-tale curse which requires true courage instead of their usual bogus exorcisms.

In 1714 Peru, a friar is tried by the Inquisition for questioning God's intentions when five die in the collapse of an Andean rope bridge.

Fed up with their Captain's harsh discipline, a sailing ship's crew decides to take action.

In the 1830's in northern England, Riah Millican, a widow with three children, takes a job as housekeeper to a reclusive former teacher, Percival Miller. Miller makes Riah the gift of a black velvet gown, and even educates her children. But when Riah discovers the reason behind Miller's gifts, she vows to leave his house, but Miller has a hold on her, even after his death, when he leaves his house to her on the condition that she never marry. Riah's daughter, Biddy, grows up and becomes a laundress in a large house where her education keeps her from fitting in and makes her a target. But it also catches the eye of a son of the house, and with Miller's legacies, Biddy may yet find her way to happiness.

The story of Abraham Lincoln's childhood in the harsh wilderness of Indiana and the hardships that shaped him, the tragedy that marked him for ever and the two women who guided him to immortality.

Phillipe Charboneau is the illegitimate son of an English duke. When he travels from France to England to claim his inheritance, he incurs the wrath of his father's family, and is forced to flee to America, where he becomes involved in the events leading to the American Revolution.

In pre-Revolutionary France, a young aristocratic woman left penniless by the political unrest in the country, must avenge her family's fall from grace by scheming to steal a priceless necklace.

An account of Baron Munchausen's supposed travels and fantastical experiences across late 18th-century Europe with his band of misfits.

A group of Irish noblemen kidnap girls in order to marry into their fortune and avoid becoming priests or soldiers.

In June of 1791, a group of passengers in a stagecoach find themselves caught up in the events of the French Revolution, when they find themselves in the city of Varennes when revolutionists arrest the fleeing King Louis.

The story of courtesan and dance-hall girl Emma Hamilton, including her relationships with Sir William Hamilton and Admiral Horatio Nelson and her rise and fall, set during the Napoleonic Wars.

In the beginning of the 19th Century, many white Americans are settling in the Mexican province of Texas. As the years go by, political conflicts between the settlers and the Mexican government are escalating which would lead to war and Texan independence.

A Swiss family must survive being shipwrecked on a deserted island.

An account of the adventures of two sets of identical twins, badly scrambled at birth, on the eve of the French Revolution. One set is haughty and aristocratic, the other poor and somewhat dim. They find themselves involved in palace intrigues as history happens around them. Based, very loosely, on Dickens's _A Tale of Two Cities_, Dumas's _The Corsican Brothers_, etc.

Jane Budden, a country girl goes to the big city, determined to find and marry a wealthy man. Instead, she meets and marries Hiram Maxim, a struggling inventor. After their marriage, his inventions become successful. Their happiness is complete when they have two children, and Maxim's portrait is given a place in the National Hall of Science.

A story set in nineteenth-century China and focusing on the life-long friendship between two girls who develop their own secret code as a way to contend with the rigid social norms imposed on women.

This documentary tells the story of the creation and cultural impact of the world's most famous Christmas carol, composed in 1818 in Salzburg, Austria, and since then translated into about 140 languages. In fact, the song Silent Night caused a Christmas ceasefire in World War I. Over the last 100 years the song has been translated into 140 languages including Bing Crosby's version which is the third best-selling single of all time.

In 19th-century England, a misanthropic weaver named Silas Marner hoards his gold. But his life changes when his gold is stolen, and then a baby girl wanders into his life. He raises little Eppie, but her real father is not far away.

An overview of Richard Sharpe's career, from being raised in the ranks, to the battle at Waterloo, as depicted by fellow rifleman, Cooper.

Based on the novel by Bernard Cornwell, "Sharpe's Waterloo" brings maverick British officer Lt. Col. Richard Sharpe to his last fight against the French, in June of 1815. Sharpe is assigned to the Prince of Orange's staff, and is rejoined with Sgt. Harper (retired) and riflemen Hagman and Harris at the famous battles of Quatre Bras and Waterloo. Not only must Sharpe deal with incompetent orders from the Prince of Orange, that lead to slaughter, he confronts his wife's lover, Lord Rossendale, in the midst of battle. The film climaxes as Wellington's small army 'holds the line' against Napolean's veteran Imperial Guard.

Sharpe, with his new commanding officer, is sent to capture a castle when news comes of locals who will rise against Bonaparte. However, he is somewhat distracted by thoughts of his wife whom he was forced to leave while stricken with fever.

In the Peninsular War, a British sergeant is field promoted to a lieutenant in charge of a disrespectful rifle company.

Sharpe is framed as the thief who stole Napoleon's gold, and he must clear his name to avoid execution. Meanwhile, Jane - urged on by a friend - makes some questionable choices.

Told his battalion is to be split up due to lack of recruits at home, Sharpe and Harper return to England to investigate. What should have been a simple query turns politically explosive as they come nearer to exposing profiteering on the home front that could jeopardize the Wellington's war.

Our story begins at the end of Sharpe's Challenge. Sharpe and Harper are en route to Madras when they encounter a baggage train from the East India Company traveling through hostile territory. Chitu, a legendary bandit leader in control of the area, strikes fear in the members of the party. When an attack occurs Sharpe takes control of the situation, leading the group 300 miles through enemy territory and training the disorganized, rag-tag group to be proper soldiers. Despite all these responsibilities, Sharpe still manages to find time for a little romance...

Sharpe is teamed with a Colonel he helped promote and they are tasked to destroy a powder magazine, but an alliance with the French may threaten their success. Meanwhile, Jane is wearying of the army life and Harper and Ramona are at odds.

Returning to Yorkshire, Sharpe finds himself on the wrong side between corrupt employers and exploited workers.

1813. Major Sharpe's old enemy, Major Ducos manipulates a beautiful young marquesa into falsely accusing Sharpe of rape. Her husband calls Sharpe out in a duel. But when the husband is found dead the next morning, Sharpe is arrested and brought before a court martial, and it seems not even Patrick Harper and the Chosen Men can save Sharpe from a hanging, or rescue his honour.

Sharpe is sent on a mission to exchange rifles for deserters with a strange band of Spanish guerillas. He also has to chaperone two women looking for their missing husband.

Portugal 1813. A band of deserters, including Sharpe's old enemy, Obadiah Hakeswill, have captured two women, one the wife of a high-ranking English officer, and are holding them hostage for ransom. Sharpe is given the 60th Rifles and a Rocket troop, as well as his majority to rescue the women. But while Sharpe may be able to deal with his old enemy, he has yet to face a newer threat, the French Major Duclos.