Johnnie had good cause to suggest that everything could change once again. The defeat at Dunbar was not the last battle fought in Scotland, the Scots army did not flee in a rout but in a retreat; and the shaky alliance between the Kirk and the dissolute prince did not completely collapse. Instead, the prince’s stature grew and the Scots warmed to him. All through the year, reports of a continuing campaign filtered back to London telling of Cromwell, ill-supported and in a mostly hostile country, trying to gain a decisive victory. Then in midsummer the Scots army, with Charles at their head, did the unthinkable. They broke out of Scotland and crossed the border.

‘Can we hide it from him?’ Hester demanded urgently of John when he told her the news in the kitchen.

He shook his head. ‘He’s bound to hear of it sooner or later and I’d not have him think me guilty of double dealing.’

‘You swore they’d not come south,’ she accused. ‘You said Cromwell would defeat them on Scottish soil.’

John’s face was taut with worry. ‘It was a gamble,’ he said. ‘And it served us well. They have to go beyond York, remember. That was the agreement.’

‘Is Lambert still there?’ she asked, as if that were a talisman against the king’s advance.

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ John snapped and turned away from her and marched out into the garden, looking for his son.

He found him dead-heading the roses and tossing the petals into a deep carrying basket for sale in the London markets to the perfumiers or the confectioners. Frances, staying at the Ark to avoid the plague months in town, was working at the opposite end of the bed. John heard their casual chatter and paused for a moment to hold the moment in his mind: his two children doing their work, the family’s work, in such easy harmony, in the sunshine, on their own land, in a country so near to peace.

He squared his shoulders and stepped forwards. ‘Johnnie –’

The young man looked up. ‘Father?’

‘There’s news. I heard it in London. Charles Stuart is leading a troop over the border. Lambert is chasing after him, but it looks as if he has broken out of Scotland and is determined to invade.’

‘Is he south of York?’ Johnnie demanded. For a moment John thought that the young man was resonating, like a harp string tuned too tight. ‘Is he south of York? Can I go to him?’

‘He’s headed south,’ John said cautiously. ‘As soon as we hear from Alexander we’ll know for sure.’

Alexander came himself in August.