John pinned a smile on his face and stepped forward and bowed. ‘I am sorry for the poor welcome,’ he said. As he spoke the great doors creaked open and a frightened-looking footman peeped out. ‘There’s a couple of cooks here, and a household of servants,’ John said reassuringly. ‘They’ll make Your Majesties comfortable enough.’

At the sight of a servant the queen brightened. She rose to her feet and waited for the footman to hand her down from the carriage. The children followed her.

The king turned to John. ‘I thank you for the service you have given us this day. We were glad of your escort.’

John bowed. ‘I am glad to see Your Majesty safe arrived,’ he said. At least he could say that with a clear conscience, he thought. He was indeed glad to get them safe out of London. He could not have stood by and seen the queen and the royal princes pulled out of their carriage by a mob, any more than he could have watched Hester and the children abused.

‘Go and see that there are r … rooms made ready for us,’ the king commanded.

John hesitated. ‘I should return home,’ he said. ‘I will give orders that everything shall be done as you wish, and then go to my home.’

The king made that little gesture with his hand which signified ‘No.’

John hesitated.

‘S … stay until we have some order here,’ the king said coolly. ‘Tell them to prepare our p … privy chambers and a dinner.’

John could do nothing but bow and walk carefully backwards from the king’s presence and go to do his bidding.

There was only so much that could be done. There was only one decent bed in the house fit for them; and so the king, queen, and the two royal princes were forced to bed down together in one bed, in the only aired linen in the whole palace. There was a dinner which was ample, but hardly royal; and no golden plate and cups for the service. The trappings of monarchy – the tapestries, carpets, gold plate and jewels, even the richly embroidered bed linen that always travelled with the king in his great progresses around the country – were still at Whitehall. All that was ever left in the empty palaces was second-rate goods, and Hampton Court was no exception. The queen ate off pewter with an air of shocked disdain.

Dinner was served by the kitchen staff and the lowly gentlemen of the household who maintained the palace in the king’s absence. They served it as it should be done, on bended knee, but all the ceremony in the world could not conceal that it was plain bread and meat on pewter plates on a plain board table.

‘You will escort the queen and I to Windsor tomorrow,’ the king said, when he had finished eating. ‘And from thence to Dover.’