1558: Twelve children, gifted far beyond their years, are banished by their Tudor queen to the town of Rotherweird. Some say they are the Golden Generation; some say the devil's spawn. But everyone knows they are to be revered--and feared. Four and a half centuries later, cast adrift from the rest of England by Elizabeth I and still bound by its ancient laws, Rotherweird's independence is subject to one disturbing condition: no one, but no one studies...