‘That’s all,’ the man said. ‘Business done in the open where everyone can see the posted price. Fairly done and well done, and no harm to either bidder or seller.’

John nodded.

‘A pleasure to do business with you, Mr Tradescant,’ said the grower.

The tulips were delivered to John’s inn the next day and he sent them off with a courier under strict orders that they were not to be out of his sight until he had put them into the Hatfield wagon at London dock. He also sent a letter to Meopham with his love and a kiss for Baby J, and news that he was going on to Paris.

It was as he sealed the letter and put it into the hands of the courier that John knew that he was a traveller indeed. He did not fear the strangeness of Europe, he had a deep intoxicating sense that he might hire a horse here and then exchange it for another, and then another, and then another, and ride all the way across Europe, through the heart of Papist Spain and even on to Africa. He was an islander no more, he had become a traveller.

He watched the barge carrying his precious tulips slip away down the canal and turned back to the inn. The horse was waiting, saddled for him, he had paid his slate, his travelling pack was ready. John swung his thick cape around his shoulders, heaved himself into the saddle and set the horse’s head for the west gate.

‘Where are you headed?’ one of the tulip growers called to him, seeing a good customer departing.

‘To Paris,’ John called back and nearly laughed at his own sense of excitement. ‘I’m to visit the gardens of the French king. And I am buying more plants. I need even more. I think I shall buy up half of Europe.’

The man laughed and waved him on and John’s horse, its metal shoes ringing on the cobblestones, stepped delicately out on to the highway.

The roads were good to the frontier and then they deteriorated into a mud track riddled with potholes. John kept a sharp look out for great forests with a chateau set among the trees and when he saw newly planted drives he turned off the road and went to find the French gardener to discover where he got his trees from. If he found a good supplier of rare trees he placed an order with him to lift a hundred of them when the weather turned colder and they could be safely moved and sent on to Hatfield. For the great Earl Cecil himself.