John smiled, unperturbed. ‘Why, the king himself is the grandson of a mere Mister,’ he said. ‘These are times for men to rise.’

‘And the Duke of Buckingham was called an upstart to the end of his days,’ Jane observed.

John dropped his eyes to his plate so that no-one could see his sharp pang of grief.

‘Even so,’ J said. ‘I can’t think of a motto which would suit.’

They were a family which did not fit the usual tags handed out by the College of Heralds. They were on the way to being gentry, with their own house and land, and rents coming in from the fields at Hatfield, and a couple of houses newly bought at a bargain price in the city. But John and J still worked with their hands deep in the dark earth of their fields and gardens, and could tell to the nearest farthing how much a seedling had cost them in terms of labour and the price of the seed.

Tradescant plants went all over the country, all over Europe. John Gerard the herbalist borrowed from their garden and gave new cuttings back to them. John Parkinson quoted them by name in his book on gardening and acknowledged his debt to them, even though he was the king’s own botanist. Every gardener at every great house in the land knew that for something strange and lovely the Tradescants at the Ark were the only men to ask. The Ark was the only place to buy rare tulips outside the Low Countries and their prices were as reasonable as they could be in a market which was still growing and growing every season.

The orders came in almost every day. Once the MPs were forced home to their estates there was little for the gentlemen to do but to look to their fields and their gardens.

‘His Majesty did us a great favour,’ John remarked to Elizabeth as she sat at the dining table and sorted seeds into packets for Jane to label and dispatch. ‘If the squires were still at Westminster they would not be planting their gardens.’

‘We’re the only ones likely to be grateful for it then,’ she said with something of her old sharpness. ‘Mrs Hurte was telling me that in the city they are saying that we might as well never have had a parliament if the king is going to run the country like a tyrant and never hear the will of the people. There are new taxes every day. We had a demand for a salt tax only yesterday.’

‘Peace,’ John said quietly, and Elizabeth bent her head to her work.