‘I’ll not ill-wish him,’ another man said stoutly.

‘Then why will he not come to the City and make an agreement?’ someone demanded. ‘God knows all we want is to have things at peace.’

John looked from one angry, worried face to another and drained his ale. ‘I must go back to my garden,’ he said. He had a sense of relief at the thought of the rarities room restored and the garden in its autumn order. ‘Whether the king has his own again or no, I have my work to do.’

‘You won’t go and garden for him at Carisbrooke?’ one of the men asked mischievously.

John did not rise to the bait. ‘I bid you good day,’ he said gently, took his hat in his hand and went out.

They learned the rest of the news in dribs and drabs over the week. The king had no deep-laid plans, just as John had suspected. King Charles had taken an impulsive leap into freedom at the very moment when he was about to sign the agreement with Cromwell which would have brought peace between king and Parliament and stability to the kingdom riven by civil war.

Cromwell had faced down his own army, the men who had fought for him in the long and bitter war. The men had told their commander and told Parliament that they expected more from the peace than a king restored to his own, they wanted changes. They wanted justice for the common people, and a living wage. They wanted Parliaments which would represent all the working men of the country and not just the gentry. Cromwell had taken the hard line against them, defending the king against his own men. He had shot the leaders for mutiny, he had made the men drop down their pamphlets into the mud, and then he had returned to Hampton Court with the blood of his own soldiers on his hands, to meet with Charles and conclude the other side of the bargain which would bring the king home. Cromwell had defeated the men who would have shouted against a restoration of the king, and then returned to the king for his signature on the document, as they had agreed it.

But Charles had gone. He had given his word, his word of honour as a king, and then slipped away in the night. He rode with two gentlemen to the New Forest where he had hunted so often with Buckingham in the old days, and taken a boat across to the Isle of Wight, putting his faith in the belief that the governor, Robert Hammond, would take his part on the slight evidence that Hammond had once said he disliked the Levellers in the army, because he was a nephew of one of the king’s chaplains, and cousin, many times removed, to the Marquess of Winchester.