After that, John sent the gardener’s lad and the stable lad together to market and though they often muddled the order and stopped for an ale at the taverns, at least it meant that any muttering about the king’s gardener was not directed at Hester.

John had to go to Oatlands and before he went he ordered wooden shutters to be made for all the windows of the house, especially the great windows of Venetian glass in the rarities room. He hired an extra lad to wake at nights and watch out down the South Lambeth road in case the mob came that way, and he and Hester went out one night in the darkness with shaded lanterns to clear out the old ice house, and put a heavy bolt on the thick wooden doors to make a hiding place for the most valuable of the rarities.

‘If they come against us you will have to take the children and leave the house,’ he ordered.

She shook her head and he found himself admiring her cool nerve. ‘We have a couple of muskets,’ she said. ‘I won’t have my house overrun by a band of idle apprentice lads.’

‘You must not take risks,’ he warned her.

She gave him a tight, determined smile. ‘Everything is a risk in these days,’ she said. ‘I will see that we come safe through it all.’

‘I have to leave you,’ John said anxiously. ‘I am summoned to Oatlands. Their Majesties will visit next week and I have to see the gardens are at their best.’

She nodded. ‘I know you have to go. I shall keep everything safe here.’

John was at Oatlands ready for the full court, but the queen came alone. The king and half the court were missing, and the rumour was that he had gone north to negotiate with the Scots himself.

‘He is in Edinburgh and all will be mended,’ the queen said with her complacent smile when she came upon John dead-heading the roses. She was concealing her boredom as best as she could. She was accompanied only by a few ladies, the old flirtatious, artistic, idle entourage was broken up. The more adventurous and more ambitious men were riding with the king. There was the smell of opportunity and advancement in the court of a king at war, and the young men had been sick of peace and a court devoted to marital love for so long. ‘It will all be resolved,’ the queen promised. ‘Once they meet him again he will charm them into seeing that they were wrong to march against him.’

John nodded. ‘I hope so, Your Majesty.’