Exemplifying Kipling's adage, a white man falls to pieces when he is in the South Seas.

Ottilie Van Zandt is forced to wed her cousin, despite her love for Richard Wayne, the gardener's son. Richard leaves, vowing to return a wealthy man and eligible suitor for her. He returns to find she has already married and, in turn, marries another girl on impulse. Two generations later, the grandchildren of Ottilie and Richard, who both have inherited their names as well, meet and develop a close friendship that culminates in the romance that their grandparents began but could not consummate years before.

Mary Tudor falls in love with a new arrival to court, Charles Brandon. She convinces her brother King Henry VIII to make him his Captain of the Guard. Meanwhile, Henry is determined to marry her off to the aging King Louis XII of France as part of a peace agreement.