They rode north, still uncertain. The king was instantly diverted by the pleasure of being on the road. He loved to ride and liked being free of the formality of the court. He spoke of the time that he and the Duke of Buckingham had ridden across Europe – from England to Spain – without a courtier or a servant between them. He spoke of his present journey as if it was the same playful piece of adventure and the two young princes caught his mood. Prince James and Prince Charles for once in their lives were allowed to ride alongside their father, as his companions, and the country people lined the roadsides as they entered market towns and called out their blessings on the handsome bareheaded king and the two charming boys.
The courtiers, returning from their country houses and from Whitehall, joined the train, and the whole trip became an adventure: riding through the spring countryside and staying each night in a hunting lodge or a fine Tudor mansion.
A court formed around the king, and many of the loyal gentlemen dug deep into their own fortunes to support him, and tried not to begrudge the cost of the hunting and the dancing and the music which the king had to have wherever he went. Even so, there were many debts that remained unpaid. Many gentlemen stayed at home, although they were summoned more than once; many did not send money. When the king, tired of provincial minstrels, sent for the court musicians they sent back a polite letter saying they would come if they could, but since they had not been paid any wages for months they could not afford to attend His Majesty without payment in advance. The king had to do without his own musicians for the first time in his life. There was no money to pay them, neither in advance nor in arrears.
John said nothing, and did not remind the king that his wages also had not been paid since the end of last summer when he had been appointed gardener at Oatlands in his father’s place and also given the care of the Wimbledon garden. He was not following the king for gold, after all. He was not following him for love nor loyalty either. He was neither mercenary nor courtier. He was following him because the king refused to release him, and John was not yet ready to insist on his freedom. The habit of obedience was ingrained in him, he was not yet ready fully to rebel. Loyalty to the king was like honouring his father whose loyalty had never wavered; honouring his father was one of the ten commandments. John was trapped by habit and by faith.
He did not cease to try for his release. He spoke to the king in the stable yard of a pretty hunting lodge that they had commandeered for the week. Charles was out hunting on a borrowed horse and was in light-hearted mood. John checked the tightness of the girth under the saddle flap and looked up at his king.
‘Your Majesty, do I have your permission to go to my home now?’
‘You can ride with us to Theobalds,’ the king said casually. ‘It was one of your father’s gardens, was it not?’
‘His first royal garden,’ John said. ‘I didn’t know the court was moving again. Are we going back to London?’
The king smiled. ‘Who can say?’ he said mysteriously. ‘The game is not even opened yet, John. Who can say what moves there are to b … be made?’
‘It is not a game to me,’ John burst out incautiously. ‘Nor to the men and women that are drawn into it.’
The king turned a frosty look down on him. ‘Then you will have to be a reluctant player,’ he said. ‘A s … s … sulky pawn. For if I am prepared to gamble my future with daring then I expect the lesser men to throw in their all for me.’
John bit his lip.
‘Especially those who were b … born and b … bred into my service,’ the king added pointedly.
John bowed.
The stay at Theobalds brought them closer to London, but no closer to an agreement. Almost every day a messenger came and went from the palace at Theobalds to Parliament at Westminster but no progress was made. The king was certain that the country was solidly behind him – in his journey northwards from Dover people had brought invalids to him at every stopping point and the mere touch of his hand had cured them. Every loyal address at every inn and staging post assured him that the country was solidly his. No-one had the courage to point out that anyone who disagreed with the king was likely to stay away from his progress, and no-one reminded the king that at every major town there had also been petitions from common people and gentry begging him to acknowledge the rights of Parliament and to reform his advisors, and live at peace with the Scots and with his Parliament.
From London came the rumours that the Lord Mayor’s trained bands were out drilling and practising every Sunday and they would fight to the death to defend the liberty of Parliament and the freedom of the city of London. The city was solidly for Parliament and against the king and was preparing itself for a siege, entrenching both to the west and north. Every workman was bidden to dig great ditches which would run all around the city, and women, girls, and even ladies saw it as their patriotic duty to ride out on Sundays and holidays and help the men dig. There was a great wave of enthusiasm for the Parliamentary cause against the impulsive, arrogant, and possibly Papist king. There were great fears of an army coming from Ireland to put him back inside his capital city and to force Roman Catholicism back on a country which had only been free of the curse for less than a hundred years. Or if the king did not bring in the Irish then he might bring in the French, for it was well-known that his wife was openly recruiting for a French army to subdue the city and its supporters. Chaotic, excited, fearful, London prepared itself for siege against hopeless odds, and decided to choose a martyr’s death.
‘We go to York,’ the king decided. John waited to see if he would be released from royal service.
The king’s heavy-lidded gaze swept over the men in the stable yard, saddling up their horses for the ride. ‘You will all come too,’ he said.
John mounted his horse and edged it through the courtiers to the king’s side.
‘I should like to go to Wimbledon,’ he said cunningly. ‘I want to make sure that all is well there. So that it is fit for the queen when she comes home again.’
Charles shook his head and John, glancing sideways, saw that his king was beaming. The king was enjoying the sense of action and adventure, the end of the effeminate routine of masques and plays and poetry of the peacetime court.
‘W … We have no time for g … gardens now!’ he laughed. ‘M … March on, Tradescant.’
John wondered for a moment if there was anything he could say to abstract himself from the small train, and then shrugged his shoulders. The king had a whim that Tradescant should stay with him, but the whim would pass, as did all royal whims. When his attention was diverted elsewhere Tradescant would ask and receive permission to leave.
John pulled his horse up and fell in at the rear of the royal train as they trotted down the great avenue of Theobalds Park, through the sea of golden daffodils between the trees. He thought for a moment of his father, and how his father would have loved the ripple of cold wind through the yellow bobbing heads, and then he realised with a smile that his father had probably had a hand in planting them. As the party trotted out through the great gates John looked back at the avenue of trees and the sea of gold washing around their trunks and thought that his father’s legacy to the country might last longer than that of the royal master he had served.
When they reached York in mid-March the king and his immediate friends settled in the castle, while the other courtiers and hangers-on found billets in all the inns and ale houses in the town. John lodged in the stables on a pallet bed in the hay store. After a few days when he had not been summoned he thought that the king had finished with his service and he might go home. He went to find the king in the main body of the castle. He was in his privy chambers, books and maps all around him.
‘Your Majesty, I beg your pardon,’ John said, putting his head