‘Don’t forget!’ she said passionately. ‘We have lost too much already by your weakness! Not one concession without my agreement. You must tell them that they will have to concede to us: Church, army, and Parliament. I am a queen, not a market trader to huckster over the price. Not one concession.’

‘God speed, m … my love,’ he said tenderly.

She smiled at him at last. ‘God bless you,’ she said. Without thinking of the effect it would have on the king’s waiting servants, she made the sign of the cross, the dreadful Papist gesture, over his head; and Charles bowed his head beneath the sign of the Anti-Christ.

Henrietta Maria picked up her full silk skirts and went carefully up the gangplank to the sailing ship. ‘And don’t forget,’ she called, raising her voice from the ship. ‘No concessions!’

‘No, my love,’ the king said sadly. ‘I would d … die rather than disappoint you.’

The ship moved away from the quayside and the king called for his horse. He mounted and rode alone, up the steep cliffs behind the little town, keeping the queen’s sail in sight, riding and waving his hat to her until the little ship was vanished into the pale mist lying sluggishly on the waves, and there was nothing for God’s anointed monarch to do but ride slowly and sadly back to Dover castle and write to his wife promising that he would always do whatever she thought best.

John subtracted himself carefully from the men who surrounded the king as they returned to break their fast in Dover castle. He ordered a horse from the tavern, and when he was ready to leave went to seek the king.

‘With Your Majesty’s permission I will go to my home,’ he said carefully. He saw at a glance that the king was in one of his moods of high drama. John did not want to be the audience to one of the tragic speeches. ‘I promised my wife I would only be away a matter of hours, and that was weeks ago. I must return.’

The king nodded. ‘You may travel w … with me for I am going to London.’

‘Back to the City?’ John was astounded.

‘I shall see. I shall see. Perhaps it is n … not too late. Perhaps we can agree. The queen would be pleased, d … don’t you think, if my next letter to her came from my palace at Whitehall?’

‘I am sure everyone would be pleased if you could reclaim your palace by agreement,’ John said carefully.

‘Or I could go to B … Bristol,’ the king said. ‘Or north?’

John bowed. ‘I shall pray for Your Majesty.’

‘I hope you will do … do more than that. I hope you will be with me.’

There was an awkward silence. ‘In these troubled times …’ John began.