Virgin Earth. Philippa Gregory
Sir John Hotham pleaded. ‘Enter as a friend if you must enter. Bring in just a few of your men if you come peacefully.’
‘This is my t … town!’ the king shouted. ‘Do you … do you … do you deny your king the right to enter his own town?’
Sir John closed his eyes. Even from the road before the gate the king’s party could see his grimace. John felt a deep sense of sympathy for the man, torn between loyalties just like himself, just like every man in the kingdom.
‘I do not deny Your Majesty the right to enter into your town,’ the governor said carefully. ‘But I do deny these men the right to enter.’ His gesture took in the thirty guards. ‘Bring in a dozen to guard Your Majesty and you shall dine with the prince in the great chamber this night! I shall be proud to welcome you.’
One of the courtiers edged his horse up to the king. ‘Where is the prince’s party?’ he said. ‘They should have thrown open the gates to us by now.’
Charles shot him an angry look. ‘Where indeed?’ He turned back to the governor of Hull. ‘Where is m … my son? Where is Prince James?’
‘He is at his dinner,’ the governor said.
‘Send for him!’
‘Your Majesty, I cannot. I have been told he is not to be disturbed.’
Charles spurred his horse abruptly forward. ‘Have d … d … done with this!’ he shouted up at the governor. ‘Open the gates! That is an order from your k … king!’
The man looked down. His white face had gone paler still. ‘I may not open the gates to thirty armed men,’ he said steadily. ‘I have my orders. As my king you are always welcome. But I do not open the gates of my town to any army.’
One of the king’s courtiers rode forward and shouted at the people whose curious faces were peering over the tops of the defensive walls. ‘This is the king of England! Throw your governor down! He is a traitor! You must obey the king of England!’
No-one moved, then a surly voice shouted, ‘Aye, and he’s the king of Scotland and Ireland too and what justice do they have there?’
The king’s great horse reared and shied as he pulled it back. ‘Then b … be damned to you!’ the king shouted. ‘I shall not forget this, John Hotham! I shall n … not forget that you locked me out of my own town!’
He wheeled the horse around and flung it into a gallop down the road, the guards thundering behind him, the courtiers, servants and John with them. He did not pull up till his horse was blown and then they turned and looked back down the road. In the distance they could see the gates finally open, the drawbridge come down, and a small party of horsemen ride out, following in their tracks.
‘Prince James,’ the king said. ‘Ten minutes too l … late.’
The king’s party waited while the horsemen rode nearer and nearer and then pulled up.
‘Where the devil were you, sir?’ the king demanded of his nephew, the Elector Palatine, who had led the party.
‘I am sorry, Your Majesty,’ the young man replied stolidly. ‘We were at our dinner and did not know you were outside the gates until Sir John came to us just now and said you had ridden away.’
‘You were supposed to open the g … gates to me! Not idle with your no … noses in the trough!’
‘We were not sure you were coming. You were due before dinner. You said you would come in the afternoon. We gave up waiting for you. I thought the governor would have opened the gates to you himself.’
‘But he refused! And there was no-one to force him, b … b … because you were at your dinner, as usual!’
‘I’m sorry, Uncle,’ the young man replied.
‘You will be sorrier yet!’ the king said. ‘For now I have been refused admittance to one of my t … t … towns as well as being banned from my City! You have done evil, evil work this day!’ He turned on his son. ‘And you, J … James! Did you not know that your father was outside the gates?’
The prince was only eight years old. ‘No, sire,’ he said. His little voice was scarcely more than a thread in the cold evening air.
‘You have disappointed your f … father very much this day,’ Charles said gloomily. ‘Pray to G … God that we have not taught disloyal and wicked men the lesson that they can defy me and travel in their w … wicked ways and fear nothing.’
The prince’s lower lip trembled slightly. ‘I didn’t know. I am sorry, sir. I didn’t understand.’
‘It was a harebrained plan from first to last,’ the Elector said dourly. ‘Whose was it? Any fool could see that it would not work.’
‘It was m … my plan,’ the king said. ‘But it required speed and decisiveness and c … courage, and so it failed. How am I to succeed with such servants?’ He surveyed them as if they were all equally to blame, then he turned his horse’s head towards York and led them back to the city through the darkening twilight.
When they got back to York John found a letter waiting for him from Hester. It had taken nearly a month to reach him instead of the usual few days. John, looking at the dirt-stained paper, realised that, along with loyalty and peace, everything else was breaking down too: the passage of letters, the enforcement of laws, the safety of the roads. He went to his pallet bed in the hayloft and sat where a crack in the shingles of the roof let in the cold spring light and he could see to read.
Dear Husband,
I am sorry that you have gone away with the court and I understand that it was not possible for you to come and say farewell before you rode away. I have hidden the finest of the rarities where we agreed, and sent others into store at the Hurtes’ warehouse where they have armed guards.
The city is much disturbed. Every day there is drilling and marching and preparations for war. All the apprentice boys in Lambeth have given up their rioting around the streets and are now formed into trained bands and drilled every evening.
Great ditches are dug outside London against the coming of a French or Spanish army and all of our gardeners have to go and take their turn with the digging whether they will or no.
Food is scarce because the markets are closed as country people will not travel from their homes, and carters are afraid of meeting armies on the roads. I am feeding vagrants at the door with what we can afford but we are all doing very poorly. All the dried and bottled fruit is finished and I cannot get hold of hams to salt down for love nor money.
These are strange and difficult times and I wish you could be with us. I am keeping up my courage and I am caring for your children as if they were mine own, and your rarities and gardens also are safe.
I trust you will come home as soon as you are released from service.
God be with you,
Your wife,
Hester Tradescant.
John turned Hester’s letter over in his hands. He had an odd, foolish thought that if she were not his wife already, he would admire and like this woman more than any other he knew. She cared for the things that mattered most to him as if they were her own. It was a great comfort to him to know that she was in his house, in his father’s house, and that his children and his rarities and his garden were under her protection. He felt an unexpected tenderness towards the woman who could write of the difficulty of the times and yet assure him that she was keeping up her courage. He knew he would never love her as he had loved Jane. He thought he would never love another woman again. But he could not help but like and admire a woman