She came close to him and lowered her voice. ‘We will not go to London again until it is all agreed,’ she confided. ‘Not even to my little manor at Wimbledon. We shall go nowhere near to Westminster. After the death of my Lord Strafford –’ She broke off. ‘They said they would try me after the Earl! Try me for treasonous advice!’

John had to resist the temptation to take one of her little white hands. She looked genuinely afraid.

‘He should have stood against them,’ she whispered. ‘My husband should not have let them take Strafford, nor Laud. If he lets them pick us off one after another we will all be lost. And then he will be left all alone and they will have tasted blood. He should have stood against them for William Laud, he should have stood against them for Strafford. How can I be sure he will stand for me?’

‘Your Majesty, matters cannot go so far,’ John said soothingly. ‘As you say yourself, the king will come home and it will all be resolved.’

She brightened at once. ‘He can scatter a few baronies around the Houses of Parliament, and places at court,’ she said. ‘These are all lowly men, commoners up from the provinces. They have neither learning nor breeding. They will forget their folly if the price is high enough.’

John felt the familiar rise of irritation. ‘Majesty, I think they are men of principle. They did not behead Lord Strafford on a whim. I think they believe in what they are doing.’

She shook her head. ‘Of course not! They are scheming with the Scots, or with the Dutch, or with someone for their own ends. The House of Lords is not with them, the court is not with them. These are little men come up from the country, crowing like little cocks on their own dunghills. We just have to wring their necks like little cocks.’

‘I pray that the king can find a way to agree with them,’ John said steadily.

She flashed him her charming smile. ‘Why, so do I! He shall make all sorts of promises to them, and then they can vote us the taxes we need and the army we need to crush the Scots and they can go back to their dunghills and we can rule without them again.’

Autumn 1641