‘It is here, at these gardens,’ the young duke said. He led the way down the allee, talking as he went, throwing a smile over his shoulder as John followed. ‘The house is a thing of rare beauty, King Henry’s summer house. But the gardens have been sorely neglected. I love my gardens, Mr Tradescant. I want you to make these rich and lovely with your rare trees and flowers. I have seen Hatfield and I envy you the planting of such a place! Can you work the same magic for me here?’

‘Hatfield was many years in the making,’ John said slowly. ‘And the earl spent a fortune on buying in new plants.’

‘I shall spend a fortune!’ the young man said carelessly. ‘Or rather, you shall spend my fortune for me. Will you do that for me, John Tradescant? Shall I earn a fortune and you spend it? Is that a fair agreement?’

Despite his sense of caution, John chuckled. ‘Very fair on me, my lord. But perhaps you had better take a care. A garden can gobble up wealth as it can gobble up manure.’

‘There’s always plenty of both,’ Buckingham said quickly. ‘You just have to go to the right place.’

John was tempted to laugh, but then thought better of it.

‘So will you do it?’ Buckingham paused at the end of the allee and looked back towards his house. It looked like a fairy-tale palace in the afternoon sunshine, a crenellated turreted palace set in the simple loveliness of the fertile green countryside of England. ‘Will you make me a fine garden here, and another at my other house in Rutland?’

John looked around. The ground was fine, the aspect of the house was open and facing south. The ground had been terraced in wide beautiful steps down the hillside; at the bottom was a marshy pond that he could do all sorts of things with: a lake with an island, or a fountain feature, or a man-made river for boating.

‘I can make you a fine garden,’ he said slowly. ‘There will be no difficulty in growing what you will.’

Buckingham slipped his hand in John’s arm. ‘Dream with me,’ he urged him persuasively. ‘Walk with me and tell me what you would grow here.’

John looked back at the long allee. ‘There’s little that will grow under yew,’ he said. ‘But I have had some success with a plant that came from Turkey to France: lily of the valley. A small white flower, the daintiest thing you have ever seen. Like a snowdrop only smaller, a frilled bell, like a little model of a flower made in porcelain. It is scented, they tell me, as sweet as a rose, only sharp like lemons. A true lily scent. It will grow in great thick clumps and the white flowers are like stars against broad green leaves.’