With England distracted by the Dutch War, and turmoil at Westminster, a group of soldiers and administrators are left to determine Scotland's future on their own.
Oliver Cromwell struggles to hold the disparate elements of the Commonwealth coalition together, but the mounting pressure seems to make a break all but inevitable.
The republics of England and the Netherlands test each other in battle, and in doing so act out a debate in naval tactics that had been brewing for a century.
Desperate to match the modernizing credit economy of the Dutch, the Commonwealth turns to a been enthusiast, an impoverished inventor, and England's spinsters.