‘He believes in nothing, he’s a professional soldier,’ John said bitterly. ‘He fought for King Charles before he saw that Cromwell would win and so changed sides. Then he saw what Cromwell did. He saw one man come to power, nearly to kingship at the head of the army. He won’t trust John Lambert not to do the same. And he’ll be thinking there’s a chance for him.’

‘John Lambert is the only man you could trust with that power,’ Hester said. ‘He’s never broken his word, not once, not in all these difficult times.’

‘And he paid us for the daffodils that I took to him that day,’ John said. ‘I hope to God he is able to plant them.’

Lambert never did plant the daffodils that John brought him. In planting time in November, he obeyed his orders from the Committee of Safety to protect England against General Monck and marched north to meet him at the head of eight thousand men.

He would not attack at once. General Monck had been a comrade in arms, and they were both parliamentarians. Lambert believed, trustingly enough, that it must be a misunderstanding. He wrote to Monck to try to explain, to try to convince him of the plans of the Committee of Safety, to persuade him that at last England had a chance to make a free and just society.

Monck pretended to consider, wrote and argued by letter with Lambert, while the Committee in London scraped around trying to find money to pay the soldiers under Lambert’s command. They sent nothing. Lambert was caught between the deceit of General Monck and the incompetence of the Committee. He would not attack General Monck when they were still in debate, and by the time he realised that the general was spinning out the argument as a tactic, his army had melted away, and the general had won without a shot being fired.

When he should have been planting his orange-hearted narcissi in his orange garden at Wimbledon House he was watching his army disappear down the Great North Road, knowing that he had been tricked by Monck and betrayed by London.

‘What will happen to him?’ Hester asked John.

John scowled. ‘Monck has had him accused of treason,’ he said miserably. ‘Treason against the old parliament, who were so lazy and incompetent that no-one cared when Lambert locked them out. Now they’ll call themselves martyrs, no doubt. And they’ll call him a traitor. Once he’s in the Tower it’s not a very long walk to the scaffold.’

Spring 1660

In February Lambert turned the remnants of his army south and marched them home in tattered boots. There was no money to buy them provisions or proper clothes. Monck was far ahead of him and marched into Whitehall to be greeted by a stony silence.