John kept one hand firmly on Baby John, and with the other drew his granddaughter to him and kissed her smooth warm head, just before the plain white cap which Jane insisted that she wore.

‘It’s not always the best thing to be, the Favourite,’ he said, thinking of his lord and the parliament that impeached him, and the king who mourned for him.

‘Yes it is,’ she said instantly. ‘I was always your favourite and I still am.’

He settled her into the crook of his arm. ‘Yes, you are,’ he said. ‘You are my precious girl.’

‘And when I am grown I shall be gardener to the king,’ she said firmly. ‘And run the Ark.’

‘Girls cannot be gardeners,’ John said gently.

‘Cook says that girls can be gardeners because women are equal to men at the Day of Judgement,’ Frances volunteered. ‘And that prophesying and preaching comes natural to women who es … es … eschew carnival knowledge.’

‘I think you mean carnal knowledge,’ John said unsteadily.

‘Carnival,’ Frances corrected him. ‘It means you can’t go maypole dancing or buy fairings, or play in the churchyard on feast days.’

‘I suppose it does,’ John said. He was very near to laughter but he managed to turn it into a gruff cough.

‘And I am going to eschew carnival knowledge and be free of sin,’ Frances went on. ‘And then I can be the king’s gardener.’

‘We’ll see,’ John said pacifically.

‘Is Baby John going to be the king’s gardener?’ she demanded.

John nestled the baby back into his arm and took up the plump dimpled hand. ‘I think he’s too small to work yet,’ he said tactfully. ‘Whereas you’re a great big girl. By the time he’s ready for work you’ll have been prophesying and gardening for years.’

It was exactly the right answer. Frances beamed at him and went to the door. ‘I have to go now,’ she said seriously. ‘I’ve got some seedlings that want watering.’

John nodded. ‘You see? You’re a gardener already and all Baby John can do is sit inside with his grandfather.’

Frances nodded and slipped through the door. John looked out of the window and saw her heaving the heavy watering bottle down towards the seed beds set against the warm south wall. Her little thumb was too small to fit the hole at the top of the bottle and she was sprinkling a shiny trail of water behind her like a determined snail.

January 1635

The letter that arrived for the Tradescants at Lambeth bore the royal stamp on the bottom. It was a demand for a tax, a new tax, another new tax. John opened it in the rarities room, standing beside the Venetian windows to catch the light, J beside him.

‘It’s a tax to support the Navy,’ he said. ‘Ship money.’

‘We don’t pay that,’ J said at once. ‘That’s only for the ports and the seaside towns who need the protection of the Navy against pirates and smugglers.’