Set against the backdrop of the Wars of the Roses, the series is the story of the women caught up in the protracted conflict for the throne of England.
In Japan in the year 1600, at the dawn of a century-defining civil war, Lord Yoshii Toranaga is fighting for his life as his enemies on the Council of Regents unite against him, when a mysterious European ship is found marooned in a nearby fishing village.
Dorrigo Evans, an Australian surgeon on the Burma Railway during WWII, is haunted by his time as a POW, as well as a forbidden affair he had with his uncle's wife prior to the war.