The carter spat accurately over the side of the wagon and hit the dirt road. ‘Nothing new,’ he said. ‘A lot worse.’

J waited.

‘Everything you can eat or drink is taxed,’ the carter said. ‘But that was true before you went away, I dare say. Now they’ve got a new tax, a rotting crime of a tax: ship money levied on everyone, however far they are from the sea. It’s the ports that should pay ship money, they’re the ones that need the navy to keep them free of pirates. But the king is making all the towns pay, even inland towns. My sister lives in Cheltenham. Why should she pay ship money? What are the seas to her? But she has to.’

J nodded. ‘The king won’t call a parliament, then?’

‘They say he won’t even hear the word mentioned.’

J allowed himself a pleasurable ‘tut tut’ of disapproval.

‘If he called a parliament and asked them to set a tax they would tell him what they think of him as king,’ the carter said baldly. ‘They would tell him what they think about a Privy Council which is advised by a Papist French queen, and a court which is run by Frenchmen and Jesuits.’

‘That can’t be so,’ J said firmly. ‘I’ve only been gone a few months.’

‘It’s well known the Tradescants are the king’s servants,’ the man said unpleasantly.

‘It is indeed,’ J agreed, remembering his father’s regular warnings against gossip that could be overheard as treason.

‘Then I’ll say no more,’ the carter remarked. ‘And see how you like it when they knock on your door and tell you that now there is a monopoly declared on the dirt in your garden and you have to pay a fine of ten per cent to some courtier if you want to plant in it. Because that’s what’s happened to every other trade in the kingdom while the king taxes the traders but won’t call a parliament which could tax the gentry for their rents.’

The man paused, waiting for a shocked response. J discreetly kept silent.

‘You’ll have heard that the Scots have sworn they won’t read their prayers from the new book?’

‘No?’

The man nodded. ‘All of ’em. Taken against Archbishop Laud’s prayer book. Say they won’t read a word of it. Archbishop is put out. King is put out. Some say he’ll make ’em, some say he can’t make ’em. Why should a king order what you say to God?’

‘I don’t know,’ J said tactfully. ‘I’ve no opinion on the matter.’ And he tipped his hat over his eyes and dozed as the wagon jolted down the familiar road to his home.