In 1603, as England is engaged in war against Spain, tensions are high in domestic society due to the brutal persecution of Catholics. Robert Catesby, a young Catholic nobleman played by Kit Harrington, has recently lost both his wife and his father and, angry at his perception of punishment from society, conjures a literally explosive plot to kill King James I when he sits in the houses of Parliament. He joins with a group of equally aggrieved men, including the infamous Guy Fawkes, and they set out to enact vengeance in a series of events that are still commemorated in Britain to the present day.
