Beautiful and impressionable, young Katherine Howard is plucked from her home to become a lady-in-waiting at the court of Henry VIII, where she re-encounters her handsome cousin, Thomas Culpepper, whom she has loved since childhood. But when Katherine catches the eye of the aging and unhappily married king, she is forced to abandon her plans and marry King Henry. Katherine is dazzled by the royal life, but her bliss is short-lived, as rumours of her wayward past come back to haunt her, and her destiny takes a final, deadly turn.