The next part of the orders bade them to go to La Rochelle for the grateful welcome of the besieged townspeople. Even this apparently simple command could not be fulfilled. When the fleet hove to before the town and spread the pennants so that the town could see that the great duke himself had come to relieve the siege, the townspeople were neither grateful nor particularly welcoming. They were deep in complicated and subtle negotiations with Richelieu’s agents for their rights to practise their religion, and to live freely among other Frenchmen. The arrival of Buckingham’s fleet threw their diplomatic agreements into jeopardy.

‘So we can go home with honour,’ John suggested. He was standing at the back of Buckingham’s richly decorated cabin. Seated around the table were his advisers, French Protestant leaders among them.

‘Never! We must show that we are serious,’ Soubise the Frenchman said. ‘We should take the Ile de Rhé at the harbour mouth and then they will see we are in earnest. It would give them the courage to declare against Richelieu, break off these negotiations and defy him.’

‘But our orders were to wait for them to declare,’ John said levelly. ‘Not stir up trouble. The townspeople must invite our help. And if they do not declare against Richelieu, we were ordered to sail to Bordeaux and escort the English wine fleet home. We need not fight for La Rochelle, if the townspeople do not invite us.’

The Frenchman tried to catch Buckingham’s eye. ‘My lord duke did not come all this way to fetch a wine fleet home,’ he laughed.

‘Nor to find himself embroiled in a quarrel which no-one wants,’ John said stoutly.

Buckingham lifted his head from admiring a large new diamond on his finger. ‘Are you homesick, John?’ he asked coldly.

Tradescant flushed. ‘I am your man,’ he said steadily. ‘Nothing else. And I don’t want to see you drawn into a battle for a small island opposite a small town on a small river in France.’

‘This is La Rochelle!’ Soubise exclaimed. ‘Hardly a small town!’

‘If they are not willing to fight for themselves,’ John persisted doggedly, ‘then why should we fight for them?’

‘For glory?’ Buckingham suggested, smiling across the room at John.

‘You are glorious enough,’ John smiled back, indicating the new diamond, and a shining stone in Buckingham’s thick plumed hat on the table before him.

The Frenchman swore softly underneath his breath. ‘Are we to go home as if we were defeated then?’ he demanded. ‘Without firing a shot? That will please the king, that will silence Parliament! They will say that we were suborned, that we are the queen’s men, Papist men! They will say that this mission was a masque, a piece of theatre. They will say we were players, not soldiers.’