The three of them were at dinner when there was a knock at the door. Hester turned her head and they listened to the cook stamping irritably along the hall to open it. There was the noise of a mild disagreement. ‘It’ll be a sailor with something to sell,’ Hester said.

‘I’ll go,’ Johnnie said, pushing back his chair. ‘You finish your dinner.’

‘Call me before you agree a price,’ John warned him.

Johnnie scowled at his father’s lack of trust; and went out of the door.

They heard him shout an oath, and then they heard the noise of his running footsteps down the hall, and the door to the terrace slam as he set off down the garden.

‘Good God, what now?’ John sprang to his feet and went to the front door. Hester paused by the window to see Johnnie, head down, running blindly towards the lake. She hesitated, and followed her husband.

A bewildered man was at the front door. ‘I offered him this for sale,’ he said, showing a dirty piece of black cloth. ‘I thought it was the sort of thing you would like for your collection. But he jumped back as if it were poison and fled from me. What ails the lad?’

‘He’s sick,’ Hester said shortly. ‘What is it?’

The man suddenly gleamed with enthusiasm. ‘A piece of pall from the scaffolding of the Martyr King, Mrs Tradescant. And if you like it you can have it and a pen-knife cast from the metal of his statue. And I may be able to find you a scrape of earth soaked with his sacred blood. All very reasonable considering the rarity of it and the price you will be able to charge for those coming to see it.’

Hester instinctively recoiled in distaste. She looked to John. His eyebrows were knotted in thought.

‘We don’t take such things,’ he said slowly. ‘We buy rarities, not relics.’

‘You have Henry VIII’s hunting gloves,’ the man pointed out. ‘And Queen Anne’s nightgown. Why not this? Especially as you could make your fortune with it.’

John took a swift turn away from the doorstep and down the hall. The man was right, anything to do with the king would be a goldmine for the Ark, and they were barely making enough money to pay the cook’s and Joseph’s wages.

He turned back to the front door. ‘I thank you, but no. We will not exhibit the king’s remains.’

Hester found that her shoulders had been hunched while she waited for her husband’s decision. ‘But please do bring us any other rare things you have,’ she said pleasantly, and went to shut the door.