New Worlds

- Season 1

(2014)

1680: Young Ned Hawkins comes to Hadley, Massachusetts, to collect rents from the settlers on behalf of his father, the landlord. When native Americans attack Ned fights them off along with Pastor Russell and his daughter Hope in a party led by William Goffe, a fugitive regicide wanted by Charles II for his part in his father's execution. Goffe makes it clear to Ned that he sees his father as a greedy land grabber. In England republican Angelica Fanshawe falls foul of tyrannical clay pit owner Hardwick and his kinsman Judge Jeffreys, who forces Will Blood to spy on ...

John Hawkins sends Ned back to England to avoid his being accused of helping a regicide whilst pastor Russell dies in prison and John insists that Hope marry widower Henry Cresswell so she will not be alone. In Oxfordshire Beth and Abe blow up the clay-pits where Hardwick has been using slaves as his work force and go on the run as highway robbers. They meet Ned, who is on his way to warn Angelica that her letters to Goffe have been intercepted. As a result Jeffreys, who is trying to provoke John Francis into denying the Popish Plot to kill the king, has his evidence ...

King Charles gives Hardwick Angelica's land for new clay-pits but denies him the house until he has captured Abe. Aware that Angelica's faithful servants will be condemned to work in the clay-pits Abe goes to London to seek out his father's old friend Colonel Sidney and they plot to assassinate the king but they are caught and imprisoned. Beth's ship is wrecked on the shore at Massachusetts and she is adopted by the Wawanaki tribe, led by Masca, with whom she mutually falls in love and goes native. In Boston Hope marries Cresswell to the dismay of Ned, who has ...

With Cresswell dead Hope and Ned are free to marry. They are, however, suspicious of John Hawkins' part in distributing the infected blankets and argue with him. As a result he has a heart attack and dies, asking Ned to take over his business though Ned is more concerned with helping Beth to hide Hope. Abe is visited in Oxford jail but Angelica's maid Agnes, who gives him a potion which simulates death and his 'corpse' is thrown into the plague pit, from where Agnes and her grandfather Adam rescue him. However Colonel Sidney is executed but Ned manages to obtain the ...