Two hundred years after the Norman Conquest, during the reign of Edward I, Saxon scholar Walter of Gurnie, the illegitimate son of the lately deceased Earl of Lessford, returns from Oxford and hears the reading of his father's will. He receives only a pair of boots, but Walter recognizes it as a token of his father's love for him. The earl's Norman widow takes Saxon hostages against possible unrest. Walter joins a group of Saxons who free them, but is forced to flee England when he is recognized.