In the hot summer of 1597, the London playhouses are nailed shut after a seditious play penned by Ben Jonson and Thomas Nash lampoons the Queen and her Privy Council. Barred from performing in their own theatre, William Shakespeare and the Lord Chamberlain’s Men are forced to quit London for a tour of the provinces. But as they trudge the Great West Road toward Marlborough, the troupe stumbles upon the body of a murdered nobleman. The terrified players flee the scene only to be wrongly arrested for the crime by pursuivants (agents of Elizabeth’s secret police). The arrival of the queen on a Royal Progress wins them a temporary reprieve, but Shakespeare is forced to act as spy within the royal court. He soon becomes embroiled in a dalliance with the wife of a powerful nobleman and uncovers a papist plot to assassinate Elizabeth. Caught between pursuivants and Catholic conspirators, Shakespeare must use all his powers as dramatist to craft a play (Double Falsehood) that unmasks the plot before the murderers can strike.