November 1628

They crossed the river at Lambeth with a waterman rowing them: Jane bulky and eight months pregnant in the stern of the boat, John, Elizabeth and J seated amidships. Elizabeth had the keys to their new home in her lap, bought outright with Buckingham’s diamonds. When she turned the heavy key over and over the sun glinted on the cold metal.

On the south side of the river was the Swan Inn where J had ordered a cart to meet them. He helped Jane up and then climbed up beside her. John smiled when he saw how his son held his wife as the cart lurched in the ruts of the South Lambeth road.

The journey was a short one and none of them spoke. They were waiting for John to break the silence but he said nothing. He had handed over the diamonds and the responsibility together. He sat in the wagon as if he were convalescent, weak from a long illness. His wife and his son could take the decisions for him.

‘There it is,’ J said at last, pointing ahead. ‘I hope to God he likes it,’ he muttered in an undertone to Jane. ‘He let us buy it for him, but what if he refuses us now?’

Tradescant looked at his new home. It stood with its back to the road, an old half-timbered farmhouse with criss-cross beams turning silvery grey from the weather of many seasons. The plaster between the beams had once been painted white but was mellowing to the colour of pale mud. There was a little stream running between the road and the farm, crossed by a low bridge, broad enough for a cart. John got down and walked across it alone, the others waiting for him to speak.

The garden between the road and the house was a tiny patch, overgrown with briars and nettles. Tradescant walked around the house to the front. It faced south east, placed to catch the morning and midday sun, and before it lay a good broad acre of meadow. Tradescant scuffed the heel of his boot in the soil and then bent down and inspected it. It was a dark soil, rich and easy to work. John took up a handful and rubbed it in his palm. He could grow things in this earth, he thought. Beyond the meadow was an orchard. He walked down to where the little wooden fence divided the meadow from the trees and measured it with his eyes. About two acres, he thought, and already stocked with apples, pears, and plums; and along the south-facing wall a quince tree was growing in a ragged fan beside a pair of peach trees, roughly espaliered.