He grimaced at her bluntness. ‘It wasn’t that simple,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want to die for a cause I can’t believe in. I didn’t want to kill a man because like me he had half-heartedly joined, but on the other side. But if the king is ready for peace then I could serve him with a clear conscience. And I don’t like to think of him alone at Oxford, without the queen and with the prince fled to Jersey, and no-one with him.’

‘There’s a whole crowd with him,’ Hester said. ‘Drinking themselves senseless every night and shaming Oxford with their behaviour. He is in the thick of company. And if he sees you he will only remember you and ask where you have been. If he wanted you he would have sent for you by now.’

‘And has there been no word?’

She shook her head. ‘Since they wanted us to serve under the Commission of Array there has been nothing,’ she said. ‘And they risked our lives for a lost cause then. There is nothing you can do for the king unless you can persuade him to come to terms with his people. Can you do that?’

‘No.’

As soon as John’s new boots were ready he put them on, dressed in his best suit and announced his intention of formally visiting his daughter in her new home. Hester and Johnnie, also dressed in their best, went with him in the boat downriver.

‘Will he be angry?’ Johnnie asked under the noise of the oars in the water.

‘No,’ Hester said. ‘The moment he sees her she’ll have him wrapped around her finger like always.’

Johnnie chuckled. ‘Can we shoot the bridge?’ he asked.

Hester hesitated. Timorous passengers would make the ferrymen leave them on the west side of Tower Bridge and walk round to rejoin their boat at the other side. The currents around the pillars of the bridge were terrifyingly swift and when the tide was on the ebb and the river was full, boats could overturn and people could drown. It was Johnnie’s great passion to shoot the rapids and generally Hester would stay in the boat with him, her hands gripping the side, her knuckles white, and a smile firmly fixed on her face.

‘Do what?’ John asked and turned around.

‘Shoot the bridge,’ Johnnie replied. ‘Mother lets me.’

John looked in surprise at his wife. ‘You can’t enjoy it?’ he asked.

One glance at her face told him that she was terrified. ‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘Johnnie loves it.’

John gave a short bark of laughter. ‘Then Johnnie can do it,’ he said firmly. ‘You and I will land at the Swan Stairs like Christians and Johnnie can meet us on the other side.’

‘But I like Mother coming too!’ Johnnie protested.