Tradescant, who was seated at a lower table down the hall, got up from his bench and dropped to his knee on the stale rushes on the floor. ‘Yes, Your Majesty.’ He kept his head down so that he showed no surprise.

‘See that the horses are ready at dawn,’ the king ordered.

The royal family rose from their places at the top table and left the great hall by the door at the back of the dais. Their withdrawing room would be cold and smoky with a chimney which did not properly draw.

‘Are they running for it?’ one of the ushers asked John as he rose from his knees. ‘All of them?’

John looked appalled. ‘They cannot do so!’

‘Did they need to run from London? Like cowards?’

‘How can you tell? The mood of the rabble around Whitehall was angry enough. There were moments when I feared for their lives.’

‘The rabble!’ the man jeered. ‘They could have thrown them a purse of gold and turned them around in a moment. But if they run from London, will they run from the country? Is that why they’re going to Dover? To take a ship to France? And what will become of us then?’

John shook his head. ‘This morning I was taking leave of my wife in my stable yard at Lambeth,’ he said. ‘I hardly know where I am, let alone what is to become of the king and the queen and their kingdoms.’

‘Well I bet you they run for it,’ the young man said cheerfully. ‘And good riddance,’ he added under his breath, and then snapped his fingers at his dog and left the hall.

It was a long, cold journey to Dover; the royal family were muffled up inside the coach but John was standing in the footman’s place behind, holding on to the strap. By the time the coach rumbled in to Dover castle John was clinging on with fingers that were blue, his eyes running with tears from the cold wind in his face, every bone in his face aching as if he had an ague. From his place on the back of the coach he had heard, over the rumble of the wheels, the queen steadily complaining, all the way down the long frosty roads.