The first book in the epic bestselling Morland Dynasty series which spans from the Wars of the Roses to Queen Victoria's long reign, where war and famine, peace and plenty, love and loyalty, greed and envy spread the lines of the family throughout the country—into the courts of kings and the salons of the Regency, onto the battlefields of Culloden and the Crimea and beyond.

In The Founding, seeking power and prestige, grim, ambitious Yorkshireman Edward Morland arranges a marriage between his meek son Robert and spirited Eleanor, young ward of the influential Beaufort family. Eleanor is not only appalled at being forced to marry a mere "sheep farmer," but is secretly in love with Richard, Duke of York. Yet, in time, this apparently ill-matched union becomes both passionate and tender, the foundation of the Morland Dynasty, and sustains them through bloody civil war which so often divides families, sets neighbor against neighbor, and brings tragedy close to home.