Set in the late 1990s, in the months up to and after the death of Princess Diana, New King Palmers is narrated by its principal character Humfrey Joel, a close friend of Earl Eliot d'Oc. The earl's ancestry is bound up with the Habsburgs and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. D'Oc is a member of the British Privy Council and a close friend of Prince Charles (now King Charles III) and Princess Diana. In the months preceding Diana's death, d'Oc commissions a young theatre professional to develop a play, whose theme is constitutional issues surrounding the British monarchy.