There was a silence – this was an agricultural audience, and the thought of free land struck to the very heart of their deepest desire.

‘Will the king do this for us?’ a man asked.

‘Once he is rid of false advisers he will certainly do it for us,’ the preacher answered.

‘What, and break down his own park gates?’

‘There is enough land. The commons and wastes of England are vast. There is more than enough land for us all, aye, and for all the city men too, and if we need more then we have only to look around. Why! The very gardens of New Hall would feed fifty families if they were brought under the spade! There is wealth in this country! There is enough for us all, if we can take the surfeit from the wicked men and give it to the children in need.’

Elizabeth felt a gentle hand on her elbow. ‘Come away,’ John said softly in her ear. ‘This is not preaching, this is ranting: a sermon with more treason than writ.’

Silently, she let him draw her away from the crowd and back up the lane to their home. ‘Did you hear it all?’ she asked as they entered the house.

‘I heard enough,’ John replied shortly.

J looked up at their entrance and then dropped his head and went on with his supper.

‘He blamed the duke for everything,’ Elizabeth said.

John nodded. ‘Some do.’

‘He said that without his bad advice the king would give land away, and make no more wars.’

John shook his head. ‘The king would live as a king whether or not my lord was at his shoulder,’ he said. ‘And no king gives away his land.’

‘But if he did …’ Elizabeth persisted.

John pulled out his stool and sat beside J at the table. ‘It is a dream,’ he said. ‘Not reality. A dream to whisper to children. Think of a country where every man might have his own garden, where every man might grow enough for his own pot, and then grow fruits and flowers as well. This is not England, it is Eden. There would be no hunger and no want, and a man might draw his garden in the ground and plant it as he wished, and watch it grow.’

There was a silence in the little room. John, who had been meaning to deride the preacher’s vision, found himself tempted at the thought of a nation of gardens, of every park an orchard, every common a wheatfield, and no hunger or want.

‘In Virginia they cut their land from the forest, however much land they want,’ J said. ‘It need not be a dream.’

‘There is no shortage of land here either,’ John said. ‘If it were shared equally among every man and woman. There are the commons and the wastelands and the forests … there is enough land for everyone.’