At night Hester and the children and the gardener, Joseph, carried the boxes carefully to the ice house, and stacked them inside. The ice house was lined with brick, it was damp and dark. Frances shivered and pulled her hood over her head, fearing spiders and bats. The boxes filled the small circular room. When they came out they nailed up the door. Hester had an odd, superstitious feeling that it was as if they were mourners before the family vault and that all that was most precious to them had been buried.

‘I’ll plant a couple of shrubs before it tomorrow,’ Joseph promised, ‘and grow some ivy over the door. In a month or so you won’t know it’s there.’

‘I hope we have a month or so,’ Hester said. ‘Cut some branches and lay them over the door to hide it while the ivy is growing. And put a couple of saplings in.’

‘Is the king’s army coming so soon?’ Joseph asked.

‘The king himself is coming,’ Hester said grimly. ‘And please God that whether he wins or loses the battle is over swiftly and the winners bring the country back to peace, because I don’t think I can bear another year like this one.’

Within days in the city of London everything was rationed and nothing could be bought. The king’s army was coming down the Great North Road and no wagons could get into London to feed the people. The Lord Mayor of London himself set up distribution points where people could buy food and set fair prices so that racketeers could not profit from the city’s desperation. Joseph was drafted out every day to dig trenches to protect the city from the cavalry, and there was even an inquiry from the local commander of the trained bands as to how old Johnnie might be, and when he would be old enough to serve.

Johnnie, with his home under siege from the king, was wild to sneak out at night and get to the king’s army. ‘I could be a scout,’ he said. ‘I could be a spy. I could tell the king where the ditches are dug, where the cannon are mounted. He needs me, I should go to him.’

‘Be quiet,’ Hester snapped. The sense of an impending disaster for the house and the children she loved was wearing her patience very thin. ‘The king has enough fools running to his standard. You are a child. You will stay home like an obedient child.’

‘I am nearly eleven!’ he protested. ‘And the head of the household.’

Hester gave him a small smile. ‘Then stay and defend me,’ she said. ‘We hold the treasures of the country here. We need to stay at our post.’

He was a little mollified. ‘When I am a man I shall train and join Rupert’s cavalry,’ he promised.