John was considering paying for some boys to help with the weeding and planting in winter greens, when the news came that the king was to be moved to Hampton Court. Within a few hours the horses were saddled and the retinue was ready to move on.

The king was in the garden, waiting to be told that his escort was ready. John found he could not keep away from the excitement of great events, and took his pruning hook to the climbers on the far wall of the royal court.

The king, strolling around with two of his courtiers, came upon John and paused to watch him work as the two men stood aside.

“I shall see you repaid for this,” he said simply. He smiled a sly little smile. “Sooner perhaps than you think.”

“John jumped from his ladder and dropped to one knee. “Your Majesty.”

“They may have defeated my army, but now they tear themselves apart,” the king said. “All I must do is wait, p-patiently wait, until they beg me to come to the throne and set all to rights.”

John risked an upward glance. “Really, Your Majesty?”

The king’s smile transformed him. “Y-Yes. Indeed. The army will destroy P-Parliament, and then t-tear themselves apart. Already the army tells P-Parliament what it should do. When they have no enemy they have no c-common cause. All they could do was to destroy, it needs a k-king to rebuild. I know th-them. There is L-Lambert. He heads the f-faction against Parliament. He will lead the army against P-Parliament and then I will have w-won.”

John paused before he could find the words to reply. “So Your Majesty will greet them kindly when they come? And make an agreement with them?”

The king laughed shortly. “I shall w-win the argument, though I lost the b-battle,” he said.

A trooper came to the garden gate. “We are ready to leave, Your Majesty,” he called.

King Charles, who had never before this year ever done another man’s bidding, turned and went from Tradescant’s garden.

John and his son went down to the gatehouse to see them leave. John was half expecting a summons to Hampton Court, but the king went by with only a flicker of recognition that his gardener was on his knees at the roadside.

“And that’s it?” Johnnie demanded again.

“That’s it,” John replied shortly. “Royal service. We’ll set things in order tomorrow and we’ll go home the next day. Our work here is done.”

They discovered why the king had been moved when they got home. The City was in uproar with the apprentices rioting in favor of the king’s return and the army had thought it safer to have him at Hampton Court with a larger garrison around him. Alexander Norman had sent Frances to the Ark for safety and forbidden her to return to the City until the riots were over – whether they were ended by the return of the king to his throne, the seizing of control by Parliament, or the arrival of Cromwell’s army. There were now three players in the game for England. The king, playing one side against the other and hoping; Parliament, increasingly directionless and fearful of its future; and the army, which seemed to be the only force with a vision of the future and the discipline and determination to make it happen.

The soldiers under Cromwell had forged their faith in themselves, in their cause and in their God during the long, hard years of fighting; they were not men who would now welcome a compromise. They wanted their pay; but they also wanted the country new-made. They had worked out their beliefs and philosophy in between battles, on forced marches, on dark nights when the rain doused their campfires. They had given up four years of peaceful life at home to fight for the causes of religious and political freedom. They wanted to see a new world in return for their sacrifice. They were under the command of Thomas Fairfax and John Lambert, two great generals who understood them and shared their beliefs, and marched them on the faithless, fearful city of London to ensure that Parliament did not bow to pressure and make a peace with a king who should be deep in despair and not radiant with hope.

Frances took her husband’s note to her father, who was hoeing the new vegetable bed. He looked at it briefly, and handed it back to her.

“You’ll stay here,” he said.

“If I may.”

He tipped his hat over his eyes and grinned at his daughter. “I imagine we can endure your company. Will you keep an eye on Johnnie for me? I don’t want him marching up to Parliament with a pruning hook over his shoulder, thinking he is bringing the king home to his own.”

“Mother is more afraid that it’ll be you running off to enlist.”

John shook his head. “I’ll not take up arms ever again,” he said. “It’s not a trade I do well. And the king is not a captivating master.”

Alexander wrote almost daily, reporting the fluctuations in the mood of the city. But it was all resolved in August when the army, under the command of General John Lambert, marched into London and declared that they could and would make peace with the king. With the House of Lords they drew up proposals to which any king could agree. Cromwell himself took the proposals to King Charles at Hampton Court.

“He will agree to them and be restored,” Alexander Norman said over a comfortable bottle of wine on the terrace. Frances sat on a stool at her husband’s feet and he rested his hand on her golden-brown head. Hester sat opposite John, who was in his father’s chair – facing out over the garden, watching the fruit in the orchard gilded with the last rays of sunshine. Johnnie sat at the top of the terrace steps. At Alexander’s words he gave a radiant smile.

“The king will be returned to his palaces,” he said wonderingly.

“Please God,” said John. “Please God that the king sees where his interests lie. He told me that he would set the army against Parliament and conquer them both.”

“Not with John Lambert in command,” Hester remarked. “That man is not a fool.”

“Can it all be as it was?” Frances asked. “The queen come home, and the court restored?”

“There’ll be some missing faces,” Alexander pointed out. “Archbishop Laud for one, Earl Strafford.”

“So what was it all for?” Hester asked. “All these years of hardship?”

John shook his head. “In the end, perhaps it was to bring the king and Parliament to realize that they have to deal together, they cannot be enemies.”

“A high price to pay,” Frances said, thinking of the years when she and Hester had struggled on their own at the Ark, “to get some sense into that thick royal head.”

Autumn 1647

“He’s gone,” Alexander said flatly the moment he entered the kitchen door and surprised the Tradescants at breakfast. His horse stood sweating in the stable yard outside. “I came at once to tell you. I rode over. I couldn’t bear to wait. I couldn’t believe it myself.”

“The king?” John leaped to his feet and strode to the door, checked and turned back.

Alexander nodded. “Escaped from Hampton Court.”

“Hurrah!” Johnnie shouted.

“My God, no,” John said. “Not to the French? Not when they were so near agreement? The French haven’t rescued him? Kidnapped him?”

Alexander shook his head and dropped into John’s vacated seat. Frances put a mug of small ale beside him and he caught her hand and kissed the inside of her wrist in thanks. “I heard the news this morning and came straight here with it. I couldn’t bear even to write it. What days we live in! When will we ever see an end to these alarms!”

“When will we ever see peace?” Hester murmured, one eye on her husband who was standing at the window gazing out into the yard as if ready to run himself.

“Who’s got him?” John demanded. “Not the Irish?”

“He just slipped away on his own, by the looks of it. There’s not word of him being broken out by soldiers. Just away with his gentlemen.”