Virgin Earth

They rode north, still uncertain. The king was instantly diverted by the pleasure of being on the road. He loved to ride and liked being free of the formality of the court. He spoke of the time that he and the Duke of Buckingham had ridden across Europe – from England to Spain – without a courtier or a servant between them. He spoke of his present journey as if it was the same playful piece of adventure and the two young princes caught his mood. Prince James and Prince Charles for once in their lives were allowed to ride alongside their father, as his companions, and the country people lined the roadsides as they entered market towns and called out their blessings on the handsome bareheaded king and the two charming boys.

The courtiers, returning from their country houses and from Whitehall, joined the train, and the whole trip became an adventure: riding through the spring countryside and staying each night in a hunting lodge or a fine Tudor mansion.

A court formed around the king, and many of the loyal gentlemen dug deep into their own fortunes to support him, and tried not to begrudge the cost of the hunting and the dancing and the music which the king had to have wherever he went. Even so, there were many debts that remained unpaid. Many gentlemen stayed at home, although they were summoned more than once; many did not send money. When the king, tired of provincial minstrels, sent for the court musicians they sent back a polite letter saying they would come if they could, but since they had not been paid any wages for months they could not afford to attend His Majesty without payment in advance. The king had to do without his own musicians for the first time in his life. There was no money to pay them, neither in advance nor in arrears.

John said nothing, and did not remind the king that his wages also had not been paid since the end of last summer when he had been appointed gardener at Oatlands in his father’s place and also given the care of the Wimbledon garden. He was not following the king for gold, after all. He was not following him for love nor loyalty either. He was neither mercenary nor courtier. He was following him because the king refused to release him, and John was not yet ready to insist on his freedom. The habit of obedience was ingrained in him, he was not yet ready fully to rebel. Loyalty to the king was like honouring his father whose loyalty had never wavered; honouring his father was one of the ten commandments. John was trapped by habit and by faith.

He did not cease to try for his release. He spoke to the king in the stable yard of a pretty hunting lodge that they had commandeered for the week. Charles was out hunting on a borrowed horse and was in light-hearted mood. John checked the tightness of the girth under the saddle flap and looked up at his king.

‘Your Majesty, do I have your permission to go to my home now?’

‘You can ride with us to Theobalds,’ the king said casually. ‘It was one of your father’s gardens, was it not?’

‘His first royal garden,’ John said. ‘I didn’t know the court was moving again. Are we going back to London?’

The king smiled. ‘Who can say?’ he said mysteriously. ‘The game is not even opened yet, John. Who can say what moves there are to b … be made?’

‘It is not a game to me,’ John burst out incautiously. ‘Nor to the men and women that are drawn into it.’

The king turned a frosty look down on him. ‘Then you will have to be a reluctant player,’ he said. ‘A s … s … sulky pawn. For if I am prepared to gamble my future with daring then I expect the lesser men to throw in their all for me.’

John bit his lip.

‘Especially those who were b … born and b … bred into my service,’ the king added pointedly.

John bowed.

The stay at Theobalds brought them closer to London, but no closer to an agreement. Almost every day a messenger came and went from the palace at Theobalds to Parliament at Westminster but no progress was made. The king was certain that the country was solidly behind him – in his journey northwards from Dover people had brought invalids to him at every stopping point and the mere touch of his hand had cured them. Every loyal address at every inn and staging post assured him that the country was solidly his. No-one had the courage to point out that anyone who disagreed with the king was likely to stay away from his progress, and no-one reminded the king that at every major town there had also been petitions from common people and gentry begging him to acknowledge the rights of Parliament and to reform his advisors, and live at peace with the Scots and with his Parliament.

From London came the rumours that the Lord Mayor’s trained bands were out drilling and practising every Sunday and they would fight to the death to defend the liberty of Parliament and the freedom of the city of London. The city was solidly for Parliament and against the king and was preparing itself for a siege, entrenching both to the west and north. Every workman was bidden to dig great ditches which would run all around the city, and women, girls, and even ladies saw it as their patriotic duty to ride out on Sundays and holidays and help the men dig. There was a great wave of enthusiasm for the Parliamentary cause against the impulsive, arrogant, and possibly Papist king. There were great fears of an army coming from Ireland to put him back inside his capital city and to force Roman Catholicism back on a country which had only been free of the curse for less than a hundred years. Or if the king did not bring in the Irish then he might bring in the French, for it was well-known that his wife was openly recruiting for a French army to subdue the city and its supporters. Chaotic, excited, fearful, London prepared itself for siege against hopeless odds, and decided to choose a martyr’s death.

‘We go to York,’ the king decided. John waited to see if he would be released from royal service.

The king’s heavy-lidded gaze swept over the men in the stable yard, saddling up their horses for the ride. ‘You will all come too,’ he said.

John mounted his horse and edged it through the courtiers to the king’s side.

‘I should like to go to Wimbledon,’ he said cunningly. ‘I want to make sure that all is well there. So that it is fit for the queen when she comes home again.’

Charles shook his head and John, glancing sideways, saw that his king was beaming. The king was enjoying the sense of action and adventure, the end of the effeminate routine of masques and plays and poetry of the peacetime court.

‘W … We have no time for g … gardens now!’ he laughed. ‘M … March on, Tradescant.’

John wondered for a moment if there was anything he could say to abstract himself from the small train, and then shrugged his shoulders. The king had a whim that Tradescant should stay with him, but the whim would pass, as did all royal whims. When his attention was diverted elsewhere Tradescant would ask and receive permission to leave.

John pulled his horse up and fell in at the rear of the royal train as they trotted down the great avenue of Theobalds Park, through the sea of golden daffodils between the trees. He thought for a moment of his father, and how his father would have loved the ripple of cold wind through the yellow bobbing heads, and then he realised with a smile that his father had probably had a hand in planting them. As the party trotted out through the great gates John looked back at the avenue of trees and the sea of gold washing around their trunks and thought that his father’s legacy to the country might last longer than that of the royal master he had served.

When they reached York in mid-March the king and his immediate friends settled in the castle, while the other courtiers and hangers-on found billets in all the inns and ale houses in the town. John lodged in the stables on a pallet bed in the hay store. After a few days when he had not been summoned he thought that the king had finished with his service and he might go home. He went to find the king in the main body of the castle. He was in his privy chambers, books and maps all around him.

‘Your Majesty, I beg your pardon,’ John said, putting his head around the door.

‘I did not send for you,’ the king said frostily.

John came no nearer. ‘Spring is here, Your Majesty,’ he said. ‘I seek your permission to go and supervise the planting of the queen’s gardens. She likes the flower gardens at Oatlands to be well-planted, and she wants fruits from her manor at Wimbledon. They need to be planted soon.’

The king softened at once at the mention of his wife.

‘I would hate Her Majesty to be disappointed.’

‘You shall go,’ the king decided. He thought for a moment. ‘After we have taken Hull.’

‘Hull, Your Majesty?’

He beckoned Tradescant in and gestured him to shut the door against eavesdroppers. ‘The queen bids me to make the garrison of Hull my own,’ he said. ‘So that I may have a strong port for our allies to send supplies. She has bought up half the armies of Europe, and her brother the king of France will aid us.’

John closed his eyes briefly at the thought of French Papist troops marching against the English Protestant Parliament.

‘She wants us to take Hull for her – and so we will,’ the king said simply. ‘After that you can go home.’

John dropped to one knee. ‘Your Majesty, may I speak freely?’

The king smiled his tender smile. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘All my people can speak to me freely, and in safety. I am their father, I am their only true friend.’

‘A French army, a Papist army, will not aid your cause,’ John said earnestly. ‘There are many men and women in the country who do not understand the rights and wrongs of this quarrel between you and Parliament; but they will see a French army as their enemy. People will speak ill of the queen if they think she has summoned the French against her own people, English people. Those that love her and love you now will not accept a French army. You will lose their love and trust.’

Charles looked thoughtful as if he had never had such counsel before. ‘You believe this, Gardener Tradescant?’

‘I know these people,’ John urged. ‘They are simple people. They don’t always understand arguments, they often cannot read. But they can see the evidence of their own eyes. If they see a French army marching on the English Parliament they will think we have been invaded and that their right course of action is to fight against the French. My own father went with your friend, the Duke of Buckingham, to make war against the French. They have been our enemies for years. Country people will think that the French have invaded us, and they will take up arms against them.’

‘I had not seen it that way.’ Charles looked undecided. ‘But I must have an army and I must have munitions and H … Hull has the mightiest store of weapons outside of London …’

‘Only if you have to fight a war,’ John said persuasively. ‘You only need arms if you fight. But if you could come to an agreement …’

‘I l … long to come to an agreement,’ the king said. ‘I have sent them m … message after message offering talks and concessions.’

John thought of the queen’s tempestuous demands that the Members of Parliament should be hanged before she would return to her city.

‘I shall take Hull, and then I shall be able to make concessions,’ the king said decisively.

John felt the sense of frustration that all the king’s advisors were learning to endure.

‘If you came to an agreement you would not have to take Hull,’ he pointed out. ‘If you could agree with Parliament, then the country would be at peace and there would be no need for a fort, Hull or any other. There would be no need for a position of strength.’

‘She wants me to take Hull,’ the king said stubbornly. ‘And it is mine own. I am claiming nothing but what is mine by right.’

Tradescant bowed. When the king started speaking of his rights it was difficult to make any headway. By right everything in the four kingdoms was his; but in practice the countries were ruled by all sorts of compromises. Once the king assumed the voice he used in his masques and spoke grandly of his rights nothing could be agreed.

‘When do we go to Hull?’ John asked resignedly.

The king smiled at him, a flash of the old merriment in his eyes. ‘I shall send the P … Prince James in to Hull on a visit,’ he said. ‘They cannot refuse a visit from the prince. He shall g … go with his cousin, the Elector Palatine. And then I shall f … follow him. They cannot separate father and son. And once he is inside he will open the gates to me. And once I am there –’ he snapped his fingers ‘– it is mine! As easily and peacefully as that.’

‘But what if …’

The king shook his head. ‘No. N … No carping, Tradescant,’ he said. ‘The city of Hull is all for me, they will throw open the gates at the sight of Prince James, and then when we are installed we can make what terms we wish with Parliament.’

‘But Your Majesty …’

‘You may go now,’ the king said pleasantly. ‘Ride with me at n … noon tomorrow to Hull.’

They left late, of course, and idled along the road. By the time they finally arrived on a little rise before the town it was getting cold with the sharp coldness of a northern spring afternoon, and growing dark, getting on for dinner time. The king had brought thirty cavalrymen, carrying his standards and pennants, and there were ten young gentlemen riding with him as well as Tradescant and a dozen servants.

As they came towards the city Tradescant saw the great gates swing closed, and his heart sank.

‘What’s this?’ the king demanded.

‘A damned insult!’ one of the young men cried out. ‘Let’s ride at the gates and order them open.’

‘Your Majesty …’ Tradescant said, bringing his horse a little closer. The young courtiers scowled at the gardener riding among them. Tradescant pressed on. ‘Perhaps we should ride by, as if we never intended coming in at all.’

‘What use would that be?’ the king demanded.

‘That way, no-one could ever say that an English town closed its gates to you. It did not close its gates because we were not trying to enter.’

‘Nonsense!’ the king said easily. One or two of the young men laughed aloud. ‘That’s the way to teach them b … boldness. Prince James’s party will open the gates to us if the governor of Hull does not.’

The king took off his hat and rode down towards the town. The sentries on the wall looked down on him and John saw, with a sense of leaden nausea, that they were casually pointing their crossbows towards him, their monarch, as if he were an ordinary highwayman coming towards the city walls.

‘Please God no fool fires by accident,’ John said as he followed.

‘Open the gates to the king of England!’ one of the courtiers shouted up at the sentries.

There was a short undignified scuffle and the governor of Hull, Sir John Hotham himself, appeared on the walls.

‘Your Majesty!’ he exclaimed. ‘I wish we had known of your coming.’

Charles smiled up at him. ‘It does not m … matter, Sir John,’ he said. ‘Open the gates and let us in.’

‘I cannot, Your Majesty,’ Sir John said apologetically. ‘You are too many for my little town to house.’

‘We don’t m … mind,’ the king said. ‘Open the gates, I would see my son.’

‘There are too many of you, it is too large and too warlike a party for me to let in at this late hour,’ Sir John said.

‘We are not warlike!’ Charles exclaimed. ‘Just a small party of pleasure-seekers.’

‘You are armed,’ the governor pointed out.

‘Only my usual g … guards,’ the king said. He was still smiling but John could see the whiteness around his mouth and his hand trembling slightly on the reins. His horse shifted uneasily. The royal guards stared, stony-faced, at the sentries on the towers of Hull.

‘Please, Your Majesty,’ Sir John Hotham pleaded. ‘Enter as a friend if you must enter. Bring in just a few of your men if you come peacefully.’

‘This is my t … town!’ the king shouted. ‘Do you … do you … do you deny your king the right to enter his own town?’

Sir John closed his eyes. Even from the road before the gate the king’s party could see his grimace. John felt a deep sense of sympathy for the man, torn between loyalties just like himself, just like every man in the kingdom.

‘I do not deny Your Majesty the right to enter into your town,’ the governor said carefully. ‘But I do deny these men the right to enter.’ His gesture took in the thirty guards. ‘Bring in a dozen to guard Your Majesty and you shall dine with the prince in the great chamber this night! I shall be proud to welcome you.’

One of the courtiers edged his horse up to the king. ‘Where is the prince’s party?’ he said. ‘They should have thrown open the gates to us by now.’

Charles shot him an angry look. ‘Where indeed?’ He turned back to the governor of Hull. ‘Where is m … my son? Where is Prince James?’

‘He is at his dinner,’ the governor said.

‘Send for him!’

‘Your Majesty, I cannot. I have been told he is not to be disturbed.’

Charles spurred his horse abruptly forward. ‘Have d … d … done with this!’ he shouted up at the governor. ‘Open the gates! That is an order from your k … king!’

The man looked down. His white face had gone paler still. ‘I may not open the gates to thirty armed men,’ he said steadily. ‘I have my orders. As my king you are always welcome. But I do not open the gates of my town to any army.’

One of the king’s courtiers rode forward and shouted at the people whose curious faces were peering over the tops of the defensive walls. ‘This is the king of England! Throw your governor down! He is a traitor! You must obey the king of England!’

No-one moved, then a surly voice shouted, ‘Aye, and he’s the king of Scotland and Ireland too and what justice do they have there?’

The king’s great horse reared and shied as he pulled it back. ‘Then b … be damned to you!’ the king shouted. ‘I shall not forget this, John Hotham! I shall n … not forget that you locked me out of my own town!’

He wheeled the horse around and flung it into a gallop down the road, the guards thundering behind him, the courtiers, servants and John with them. He did not pull up till his horse was blown and then they turned and looked back down the road. In the distance they could see the gates finally open, the drawbridge come down, and a small party of horsemen ride out, following in their tracks.

‘Prince James,’ the king said. ‘Ten minutes too l … late.’

The king’s party waited while the horsemen rode nearer and nearer and then pulled up.

‘Where the devil were you, sir?’ the king demanded of his nephew, the Elector Palatine, who had led the party.

‘I am sorry, Your Majesty,’ the young man replied stolidly. ‘We were at our dinner and did not know you were outside the gates until Sir John came to us just now and said you had ridden away.’

‘You were supposed to open the g … gates to me! Not idle with your no … noses in the trough!’

‘We were not sure you were coming. You were due before dinner. You said you would come in the afternoon. We gave up waiting for you. I thought the governor would have opened the gates to you himself.’

‘But he refused! And there was no-one to force him, b … b … because you were at your dinner, as usual!’

‘I’m sorry, Uncle,’ the young man replied.

‘You will be sorrier yet!’ the king said. ‘For now I have been refused admittance to one of my t … t … towns as well as being banned from my City! You have done evil, evil work this day!’ He turned on his son. ‘And you, J … James! Did you not know that your father was outside the gates?’

The prince was only eight years old. ‘No, sire,’ he said. His little voice was scarcely more than a thread in the cold evening air.

‘You have disappointed your f … father very much this day,’ Charles said gloomily. ‘Pray to G … God that we have not taught disloyal and wicked men the lesson that they can defy me and travel in their w … wicked ways and fear nothing.’

The prince’s lower lip trembled slightly. ‘I didn’t know. I am sorry, sir. I didn’t understand.’

‘It was a harebrained plan from first to last,’ the Elector said dourly. ‘Whose was it? Any fool could see that it would not work.’

‘It was m … my plan,’ the king said. ‘But it required speed and decisiveness and c … courage, and so it failed. How am I to succeed with such servants?’ He surveyed them as if they were all equally to blame, then he turned his horse’s head towards York and led them back to the city through the darkening twilight.

April 1642

When they got back to York John found a letter waiting for him from Hester. It had taken nearly a month to reach him instead of the usual few days. John, looking at the dirt-stained paper, realised that, along with loyalty and peace, everything else was breaking down too: the passage of letters, the enforcement of laws, the safety of the roads. He went to his pallet bed in the hayloft and sat where a crack in the shingles of the roof let in the cold spring light and he could see to read.

Dear Husband,

I am sorry that you have gone away with the court and I understand that it was not possible for you to come and say farewell before you rode away. I have hidden the finest of the rarities where we agreed, and sent others into store at the Hurtes’ warehouse where they have armed guards.

The city is much disturbed. Every day there is drilling and marching and preparations for war. All the apprentice boys in Lambeth have given up their rioting around the streets and are now formed into trained bands and drilled every evening.

Great ditches are dug outside London against the coming of a French or Spanish army and all of our gardeners have to go and take their turn with the digging whether they will or no.

Food is scarce because the markets are closed as country people will not travel from their homes, and carters are afraid of meeting armies on the roads. I am feeding vagrants at the door with what we can afford but we are all doing very poorly. All the dried and bottled fruit is finished and I cannot get hold of hams to salt down for love nor money.

These are strange and difficult times and I wish you could be with us. I am keeping up my courage and I am caring for your children as if they were mine own, and your rarities and gardens also are safe.

I trust you will come home as soon as you are released from service.

God be with you,

Your wife,

Hester Tradescant.

John turned Hester’s letter over in his hands. He had an odd, foolish thought that if she were not his wife already, he would admire and like this woman more than any other he knew. She cared for the things that mattered most to him as if they were her own. It was a great comfort to him to know that she was in his house, in his father’s house, and that his children and his rarities and his garden were under her protection. He felt an unexpected tenderness towards the woman who could write of the difficulty of the times and yet assure him that she was keeping up her courage. He knew he would never love her as he had loved Jane. He thought he would never love another woman again. But he could not help but like and admire a woman who could take control of a household as she had done, and confront the times that they lived in as she did.

John rose to his feet, picked hay off his doublet, and went to his dinner in the great hall of York castle.

The king and his noble friends, splendidly dressed, were already in their place at the top table as John slipped into the hall. They were dining off gold plate but there were only a dozen dishes. The county was finding it hard to feed the appetite of the court, the provincial cooks could not devise the dishes that Charles expected, and the farms and markets were drained by the hunger of the enlarging, idle, greedy court.