They fluttered like hens in a coop around Elizabeth, straightening her cap and kissing her cheek, but she brushed them off and they pattered to the door, ducking under John’s arm as he held the door firmly. More than one woman shot a quick look at the gardener and the strength of his outstretched arm and thought that Elizabeth had done better than she could possibly have hoped for. John closed the door and shot the bolt on them all. The rowdiest hammered on the door in reply. ‘Let us in! We want to drink your healths! We want to see Elizabeth to bed!’

‘Go away! We’ll drink our own healths!’ he shouted back. ‘And I shall bed my own wife!’ He turned, laughing, from the door but the smile died from his face.

Elizabeth had risen from her bed and was kneeling at the foot, her head in her hands, praying.

Someone hammered on the door again. ‘What are you going to plant, Gardener John?’ they shouted. ‘What seeds do you have in your sacks?’

John swore under his breath at their bawdy humour, and wondered that Elizabeth could stay so still and so quiet.

‘Go away!’ he shouted again. ‘Your sport is over! Go and get drunk and leave us in peace!’

With relief he heard the clatter of their feet going downstairs.

‘We’ll be back in the morning to see the sheets!’ he heard a voice shout. ‘We expect stains, glorious red and white stains!’

‘Roses and lilies!’ shouted one wit. ‘Red roses and white lilies in John Tradescant’s flower bed!’ There was a great guffaw at this sally, and then the front door of the cottage banged, and they were in the streets.

‘Dig deep, Gardener John!’ came the shout from the darkness outside. ‘Plant well!’

John waited until he could hear the staggering footsteps go up the lane to the village’s only ale house. Still Elizabeth kneeled at the foot of the bed, her eyes closed, her face serene.

Hesitantly John kneeled down beside her, closed his eyes and composed himself for prayer. He thought first of the king – not the man he saw and knew, but the man he thought of when he said the word ‘king’ – a being halfway between earth and heaven, the fount of law, the source of justice, the father to his people. A man like the Lord Jesus, sent from God, directly from God, for the guidance and good ruling of his people. A man whose touch could heal, who could perform miracles, whose mantle covered the nation. ‘God save the king,’ Tradescant whispered devoutly.