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  Spring 1642

  Parliament, still in session, drew ever closer to accusing the queen. It was a steady, terrifying approach, which would not waver nor hesitate. They impeached twelve bishops for treason, one after another, until a round dozen had appeared before the bar of the House, with their lives on the line. And then the word was that the queen was next on the list.

  ‘What shall you do?’ Hester asked John. They were in the warmth of the rarities room where a large fire kept the collection warm and dry though there was a storm of wintry sleet dashing against the grand windows. Hester was polishing the shells and precious stones to make them gleam on their beds of black velvet, and John was labelling a new collection of carved ivories which had just arrived from India.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I shall have to go to Oatlands to see to the planning for the gardens next season. I will learn more there.’

  ‘Planning gardens for a queen who will be beheaded?’ Hester asked quietly.

  John met her gaze, his mouth twisted with anxiety. ‘I am following your creed, wife. I’m trying to survive these times. I don’t know what’s best to do other than to behave as if nothing has changed.’

  ‘But John –’ Hester started, but was interrupted by a knock at the front door, and they both froze. John saw Hester’s colour drain from her cheeks, and the hand that held the duster trembled as if she had an ague. They stood in complete silence and then they heard the maid answer and the reassuring chink of a coin as a visitor paid for entrance to the collection. Hester whisked her cloth out of sight into the pocket of her apron and threw open the handsome double doors to him. He was a well-dressed man, a country man, by the look of his brown suit and his weather-beaten face. He paused in the doorway and looked around at the grand, imposing room and the warm fire.

  ‘Well, this is a treat,’ he said in the round tones of the west country.

  Hester moved forward. ‘You are welcome,’ she said pleasantly. ‘This is John Tradescant, and I am his wife.’

  The man dipped his head. ‘I am Benjamin George,’ he said. ‘From Yeovil.’

  ‘A visitor to London?’

  ‘Here on business. I am a Parliament man representing the borough of Yeovil.’

  John stepped forward. ‘My wife will show you the rarities,’ he said. ‘But first can you tell me what news there is?’

  The man looked cautious. ‘I can’t say whether it is good or bad,’ he said. ‘I am on my way home and Parliament is dissolved, I know that much.’

  John and Hester exchanged a quick look. ‘Parliament dissolved?’

  The man nodded. ‘The king himself came marching in to arrest five of our members. You would not have thought that he was allowed to come into Parliament with his own soldiers like that. Whether he was going to arrest our members for treason or cut them down where they stood, I don’t know which!’

  ‘My God!’ John exclaimed, aghast. ‘He drew a sword in the House of Commons?’

  ‘What happened?’ Hester demanded.

  ‘He came in very civil though he had his guards all about him, and he asked for a seat and sat in the Speaker’s chair. But they were gone – the men he wanted. They slipped out the back half an hour before he came in the front. We were warned, of course. And so he looked about for them, and made a comment, and then went away again.’

  John was struggling to hide his irritation with the slowness of the man’s speech. ‘But what did he come for, if he left it too late to arrest them?’

  The man shrugged. ‘I think myself it was some grand gesture, but he bodged it.’

  Hester looked quickly at John. He made an impatient exclamation. ‘Are you saying he marched his guard into the House to arrest five members and failed?’

  The man nodded. ‘He looked powerfully put out,’ he observed.

  ‘I should think he was. What will he do?’

  ‘As to that … I couldn’t say.’

  ‘But then what will Parliament do?’

  The man slowly shook his head. Hester, seeing her husband on the edge of an outburst and the man still thinking his answer through, had to bite her lip to keep silent herself.

  ‘As to that … I couldn’t say either.’

  John took a swift step to the door and then turned back. ‘So what is happening in the City? Is everything quiet?’

  The country squire shook his head at the mystifying speed of change. ‘Well, the Lord Mayor’s trained bands are to be called out to keep the peace, the king’s men have all gone into hiding, the City is boarded up and ready for a riot or … something worse.’

  ‘What could be worse?’ Hester asked. ‘What could be worse than a riot in the City?’

  ‘War, I think,’ he said slowly. ‘A war would be worse than a riot.’

  ‘Between who?’ John asked tightly. ‘A war between who? What are you saying?’

  The man looked into his face, struggling with the enormity of what he had to say. ‘War between the king and Parliament, I’m afraid.’

  There was a brief shocked silence.

  ‘It has come to this?’ John asked.

  ‘So I am come to see the greatest sight of London which I promised myself I would see before I left, and then I am going home.’ George looked around. ‘There is even more than I thought.’

  ‘I will show it all to you,’ Hester promised him. ‘You must forgive our hunger for news. What will you do when you get home?’

  He bowed courteously to her. ‘I shall gather the men of my household and train them and arm them so that they can fight to save their country from the enemy.’

  ‘But will you fight for the king or for Parliament?’

  He bowed again. ‘Madam, I shall fight for my country. I shall fight for Right. The only thing is: I wish I knew who was in the right.’

  Hester showed him the main features of the collection and then, as soon as she could, left him to open the drawers and look at the smaller things on his own. She could not find John in the house, nor in the orangery. As she feared, he was in the stable yard, dressed in his travelling cloak, waiting for his mare to be saddled.

  ‘You’re never going to court!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘I have to,’ he said. ‘I cannot bear having to wait for scraps of news like this.’

  ‘You are a gardener,’ she said. ‘Not a courtier, not a Member of Parliament. What is it to you whether the king is quarrelling with Parliament or not?’

  ‘I am on the edge of it all,’ John said. ‘I know too much to sit quietly at home and nurse up my ignorance. If I knew less of them then I would care less. If I knew more then I could decide better what to do. I am halfway between knowledge and ignorance and I have to settle on one side or the other.’

  ‘Then be ignorant!’ she said with sudden passion. ‘Get into your garden, John, and set seeds for the gardens at Wimbledon and Oatlands. Do the trade you were born to. Stay home where you are safe.’

  He shook his head and took both her hands. ‘I won’t be long,’ he promised her. ‘I shall go over the river to Whitehall and find out the news and then come back home. Don’t fret so, Hester. I must learn what is happening and then I’ll come home. It is better for us if I know which way the wind is blowing. It is safer for us.’

  She left her hands in his, enjoying the warmth of his callused palms. ‘You say that, but you are like a boy setting out on an adventure,’ she said shrewdly. ‘You want to be in the heart of things, my husband. Don’t deny it.’

  John gave her a roguish grin and then kissed her quickly on both cheeks. ‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘It’s true. Let me go with your blessing?’

  She was breathless with the sudden casual embrace and felt herself flushing. ‘With my blessing,’ she repeated. ‘Of course you have my blessing. Always.’

  He swung himself into the saddle and let the horse walk out of the yard. Hester put her hand to her cheek where his lips had briefly touched, and watched him go.

  He had to wait for a place on the horse ferry at Lambeth,