Men who had stood by and watched Cromwell’s army take the victory in the first king’s war were now seized with such an impatience for peace that they turned out for Charles, certain that only by restoring him to the throne could the kingdom find peace. Men who had been indifferent soldiers under Cromwell turned their coats and hoped for pay and a victory under the command of the royalists. And those who had fought for the king over the long four years of the king’s war and suffered and feared in the two years since, prayed that this one last chance might restore them to their former fortunes.

They were not summoned by a message. They responded almost individually, spontaneously, in an uprising which was as much an irritated demand for a return to more peaceful days, as a struggle of principle about the existence of bishops.

It was incredible to Hester that the king could be the centre of a second catastrophe, even while he was in his prison. Without even being at liberty his mere presence could be the focus of unrest, and the country which had been at peace for nearly two years was suddenly at war again. It was a full-scale war fought in a hundred different pitched battles all over the kingdom, and then news came to Lambeth that Lord Norwich was besieging the City of London itself and was likely to take it for the king. If London fell then Parliament itself would be taken, and then the war must be over and the king would be the victor.

Hester caught Johnnie sneaking a saddle on to the horse in the stable yard, a pack at his side. Her steady temper suddenly broke. ‘And where the devil d’you think you’re going?’

He turned to her. ‘You can’t stop me. I’m going to fight for the king.’

‘You’re a child.’

‘I’m nearly fifteen, old enough to fight.’

It was that spark that fired the charge. Hester sprung on him and seized him by his shirt collar and marched him, like a schoolboy, down the garden path, past the glorious rose beds where waves of perfume billowed in their wake, to the orchard where John was up a ladder disbudding apple trees.

‘The king needs fools!’ Hester exclaimed. ‘A fools’ army for a fool of a king.’

‘I will go!’ Johnnie proclaimed, struggling out from her grip. ‘I will not be under your command. I’m a man, I shall play a man’s part.’

Hester thrust him at his father. ‘He’s fourteen,’ she announced baldly. ‘Says he’s a man. I can’t rule him any more. You will have to decide. Is he to go to serve the king or not?’

John stepped slowly off the lower rungs of the ladder and looked at his son. ‘What’s this?’