‘I never thought that he could govern without you,’ John volunteered. ‘I never thought he would turn against the army.’

‘He’s become nervous,’ Lambert explained. ‘He doesn’t want a parliament full of new ideas, he doesn’t want an army that might argue with him. So he dissolved Parliament and took my regiment away from me.’

‘Could you not have objected?’ John asked. ‘Surely you command more influence than him, especially in the army.’

Lambert gave a rueful smile. ‘And do what?’ he asked. ‘Lead them out to fight him? Another war fought over the same ground with the same men? Another half-dozen years of heartbreak? I’m not a man for faction, or division. My task has been to pull the country together, I wouldn’t tear it apart for my own ambitions. I promised that I wouldn’t raise a storm against him if he left my regiment alone, in one piece. I traded: my work and reputation for the integrity of my men. Cromwell agreed. They’re under another man’s command but no good men have been thrown out in the street for thinking for themselves. It was a fair deal, and I have to stick to my side of the contract.’

‘I couldn’t believe they were talking of Cromwell for king,’ John said. ‘I thought that we were building a new country here, and now it seems that we were just exchanging one king for another. The family of Stuart for the family of Cromwell.’

‘The person doesn’t matter,’ Lambert said staunchly. ‘Nor the name. What matters is the balance. The will of the people in Parliament, the reform of the law so that everyone can get justice, and the limitation of the king – or Lord Protector – or Council of State. It doesn’t matter what the third power is called, but everything has to work in balance. The one with the other. A three-legged stool.’

‘But what will you do if the Lord Protector doesn’t want to be in balance?’ John asked. ‘What if he wants the balance tipped all his way? What if the milkmaid on your three-legged stool is thrown down and all the milk spilled?’

Lambert looked at the orange trees in their carrying tubs without really seeing them. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘We shall have to pray that he has not forgotten so much of what we all once wanted.’ His mood suddenly changed and he grinned at John. ‘But I’m damned if I call him Your Majesty though,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I swear to you, Tradescant, I just couldn’t do it. It would choke me.’

Frances and Alexander stayed at the Ark for the spring. Alexander’s cough was no better and Frances wanted him away from the smell and noise of the city streets.