‘Looks like we do pay it,’ John said grimly. ‘I imagine that everyone is going to have to pay it.’

J swore and took a brief step down the room and back again. ‘How much?’

‘Enough,’ John said. ‘Do we have savings?’

‘We have my last quarter’s wages untouched, but that was to buy cuttings and seeds this spring.’

‘We’ll have to dip into that,’ John told him.

‘Can we refuse to pay?’

John shook his head.

‘We should refuse,’ J declared passionately. ‘The king has no right to levy taxes. Parliament levies the taxes and passes the money raised on to the king. He has no right to demand on his own account. It is Parliament that should consent to the tax, and any complaint the people have is heard in Parliament. The king cannot just charge what he pleases. Where is it to end?’

John shook his head again. ‘The king has closed down Parliament, and I doubt he’ll invite them back. The world has changed, J, and the king is uppermost. If he sets a tax then we have to pay. We have no choice.’

J glared at his father. ‘You always say we have no choice!’ he exclaimed.

John looked wearily at his son. ‘And you always bellow like a Ranter. I know you think me an old fool, J. So tell me your way. You refuse to pay the tax, the king’s men or the parish officers come and arrest you for treason. You are thrown into prison. Your wife and children go hungry. The business collapses, the Tradescants are ruined. This is a master plan, J. I applaud you.’

J looked as if he were about to burst out but then he laughed a short bitter laugh. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Very well. You’re in the right. But it sticks in my throat.’

‘It’ll stick in many throats,’ John predicted. ‘But they’ll pay.’

‘There will come a time when they will refuse,’ J warned his father. ‘You cannot choke a country year after year and not have to face the people at the end of it. There will come a time when good men will refuse in such numbers that the king has to listen.’

‘Maybe,’ John said thoughtfully. ‘But who can say when?’

‘If the king knew that his subjects object, that they don’t like being ordered to church and the prayers ordered for them, that they don’t like being ordered to play like children in the churchyard after the service, that there are men in the country who want to use the Lord’s Day for thought and reflection and who don’t want to practise archery and sports – if the king knew all that –’

‘Yes, but he doesn’t know that,’ John pointed out. ‘He dismissed the men who might have told him, and those left at court would never bring him bad news.’

‘You could tell him,’ J observed.