There was much to do in the garden. The ships of the Navy still obeyed Buckingham’s command that John should have the pick of rarities and new plants every time they returned from a voyage. Often a traveller would make his way to the garden at New Hall with something to sell: a plant, a seed, a nut, or some rare and curious gift. John bought many things and added them to the collection, keeping a careful account and submitting it to William Ward, who repaid him. The things accumulated in the cabinet, the India skins grew dirty and John ordered a woman to come into the rarities room to dust and clean. Still the duke did not come home.

Finally, in May a message came for Tradescant, scrawled in the duke’s own hand and brought all the way from Paris. It read:

‘My best suit and shirts forgotten in the hurry. Do bring all the things I may need, and anything precious and rare which might amuse the little princess.’

‘He sends for you?’ the steward asked.

John read and re-read the note and then laughed aloud, like a man who has been told that he shall be rescued. It was a laugh of relief. ‘He needs me. At last he needs me. I am to take his best suit and some curious playthings for the princess herself!’ He stuffed the note in his pocket and headed for the rarities room, his step lighter, his whole being straighter, more determined, as if he were a young man commanded to set out on a quest, a chivalric quest.

‘William, help me. Send for the housekeeper and get his things packed for me at once. He must have everything he might need. His best suit, but shirts as well, and I had better take a pair of his horses. Remember his riding clothes, and his hats. Everything he might want, I must take it all. His jewel box and his best diamonds. Nothing must be forgotten!’

The steward laughed at Tradescant’s urgency. ‘And when is all this to be ready?’

‘At once!’ John exclaimed. ‘At once! He has sent for me, and he trusts me to forget nothing. I must leave tonight.’

John scattered orders like plentiful seed up the stairs and down the stairs, in the stable and in the kitchen, until everyone in the household was running to pack whatever the duke might require in France.

Tradescant himself ran like a man half his age across the park to his cottage. Elizabeth was spinning, her wheel pushed alongside the window so that the sunshine fell on her hands. John hardly saw the beauty of the moving strands of wool in the sunshine and the quiet peace of his wife, humming a psalm as she worked.

‘I’m off!’ he cried. ‘He has sent for me at last!’

She rose to her feet, her face shocked, knowing at once who he meant. ‘The duke?’

‘God be praised!’