Time: England in the early 1760s, with the end of the Seven Years' War and the accession of King George III.
Structure: the central character, Charles Huntingdon, is telling the story in the first person a few years later, recalling his adventures. Charles is a somewhat neutral character; Candide-like; he observes and reports, but does not often take any decisive actions: it is necessary for the story that everyone likes him and reveals their thoughts and secrets to him. All the other characters are imaginary, apart from small "walk-on" parts for Wilkes, Churchill, Fox and a few others
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Charles, an orphan in his early twenties, destined for the Church, is in London to see lawyers, who have informed him that he has unexpectedly inherited considerable wealth from a remote cousin. By chance he meets Lord Staines, eldest son of the Earl of Teesdale, whom he knew slightly at Cambridge University. Staines had been serving in the army in Germany, but has resigned his commission and returned home; in disgust, he says,at the cashiering of his friend,the English commander Lord George Sackville. (The real reasons behind this are left unexplained, as a mystery to be developed later).
Staines is pleased to learn of Charles's good fortune, and guides him to buy fashionable clothes, rent a house in a good part of the town, and mix with a set of raffish young aristocrats.
A General Election is due in 1761. Charles's newly-inherited property is near Brackenridge (somewhere in the area of north Staffordshire - north Shropshire - Cheshire), where Teesdale also has land; and Staines suggests that Charles ought to stand for election to Parliament for the constituency, where he has heard there will be a vacancy. (Brackenridge being a typically tiny 18th century "rotten borough",with very few voters, but returning two M.P.s)
Charles decides to go there to visit his new home and to meet the sitting M.P., Sir James Willington, who lives nearby. He accordingly takes a stage-coach to the nearest market town (Newcastle-under-Lyme? Shrewsbury? Whitchurch?) He is met by his local family attorney, Martin Clifford, to take him to his new home.. On the way, Clifford tells him about Willington: he is a widower who seldom attends Parliament, but lives alone with his only child, a young teenage daughter, Louisa, and a few aged servants. Earlier, he had been a notorious Jacobite, but as Bonnie Prince Charlie's highlanders approached in December 1745 he contrived to be away in London, having left his wife behind at home when the rebels passed through his land. Next year, his wife died in childbirth. Sir James was greatly mocked and derided by both sides as a hypocrite and coward for his behaviour in this crisis.
At his new property Charles meets the family housekeeper, Mrs Timmis, a great gossip, and her brother, a prosperous tenant farmer. Clifford, agrees to act as his agent at the coming election, and describes what he will need to do as a successful candidate. Charles then meets Sir James Willington, in the hope of winning his support. He finds him extremely old-fashioned, but Louisa is charming and attractive despite her youth (14 years)
In 1761 the election comes. Description of campaign.Charles and Sir James are duly returned unopposed for Brackenridge. Staines indicates that his father would wish him to marry Louisa, in order to inherit the property. Willington has yet to make up his mind, and Staines hardly seems enthusiastic. Charles feels jealous, especially when Willington makes it clear that he does not consider him to be in any way a fit match for Louisa. He starts to modernise his house and estate, but finds it very costly. Mrs Timmis supplies him with local scandal about Willington: how it is rumoured that he is not really the father of Louisa; her true father being one of the Highland rebels who occupied the house in 1745,while he was away.
1761-2: The war comes to an end, amidst political confusion and acrimony
Lord Staines has been insulted in the troublemaking monthly journal "The North Briton", and challenges the author, John Wilkes, to a duel (Wilkes has accused Staines of a homosexual relationship with Lord George Sackville, the disgraced army commander) Staines asks Charles to act as his second: Wilkes's second is Charles Churchill, the popular poet. The duel is bloodless. Wilkes and Churchill take a liking to Charles.
1762: the great Parliamentary debate on the peace treaty. Charles is offered a government sinecure by Henry Fox, the new political fixer, in return for his support, and being now short of money reluctantly decides to accept it. Willington is bitterly critical.
Crisis: Louisa has disappeared! Willington suspects Charles of having abducted her, and savagely confronts him; but Timmis learns from local people that she has taken the coach to London. Willington, in deep despair, hints to Charles his suspicions about her parentage. Charles promises to find Louisa.
Charles enlists the help of Wilkes and Churchill. They discover that Louisa had been met off the coach by Mrs Rawlings, who pretends to be a relative, but is actually a notorious procurer of young country girls for her brothels. They raid the brothel and manage to free her.
Lord Staines and his father decide that,under these circumstances, he cannot possible marry Louisa, but Charles has no such qualms. Not long afterwards, the two are married, with Willingham's reluctant blessing. Not long afterwards, Willingham dies; and Charles concludes his narrative of events at this point
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(Questions left unanswered:-
Was Staines actually gay? Is this why he befriends Charles, his social inferior, and why he was not interested in Louisa? Is it why he was forced out of the army?
Was Louisa really the daughter of Bonnie Prince Charlie? or did Willington suspect that she was? Does this explain his strange attitude towards her?)
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