And if the abbey retreated, the little port advanced. Soon after the great Death, when the third King Edward and his glamorous son the Black Prince were conducting their brilliant campaigns - in the so-called Hundred Years War - against the French, the Lymington men were already able to supply several vessels and mariners. Better yet, this proved to be one of the few wars that were actually profitable for England. Plunder and ransom money flowed in. The English took land and valuable ports from their French cousins. Modest though it was, the port of Lymington found itself trading wines, spices, all sorts of minor luxuries from the rich and sunlit territories of the French. Its merchants grew in confidence. By the time, in 1415, that heroic King Henry V won the final English triumph over France at Agincourt they felt very pleased with themselves indeed.

And if, in recent times, things had not been going so well, their attitude was: 'There's still money to be made.'

There were times when Henry Totton worried about his son. 'I'm not sure he really takes in what I say to him,' he once complained to his friend.

'All ten-year-olds are the same,' the other assured him. But this was not quite good enough for Totton and, as he looked at his son now, he felt an uncertainty and disappointment he tried not to show.

Henry Totton was of rather less than medium height and he had an unassuming manner; but his dress informed you at once that he meant you to take him seriously. When he was a young man, his father had given him clothes suitable for his station; and this was important. The old Sumptuary Laws had long ago set out what each class in the richly varied medieval world might wear. Nor were these laws an imposition. If the aldermen of London wore crimson cloaks and the lord mayor his chain, the whole community felt honoured. The master from Oxford University had earned his solemn gown; his pupils as yet had not. There was honour in order. The Lymington merchant did not dress as a nobleman and would have been mocked if he had; but he did not dress like the peasant or the humble mariner either. Henry Totton wore a long houppelande - a sleeved coat, buttoned from neck to ankle. He wore it loose, without a belt and, although plain, the material was the best brown burnet cloth. He had another, made of velvet, with a silken belt for special occasions. He was clean-shaven and his quiet grey eyes did not quite conceal the fact that, within the precise limits belonging to his station in life, he was ambitious for his family. There had been Totton merchants in Southampton and Christchurch for centuries; he did not intend the Lymington branch to lag behind their many cousins.