Virgin Earth

‘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.’