Virgin Earth

April 1648, Oatlands Palace

A troop of Parliamentary horse was still quartered at Oatlands and John’s first action, after he had opened up his old house next to the silkworm house, was to find the commander and demand that the horses be banned from grazing in any of the courts or on the bowling lawns.

The commander was happy to agree and promised John the use of as many troopers as he needed to help him in the weeding and the setting of the garden to rights.

“I visited your garden ten years ago,” he said. “It was a wonderful sight. D’you still have that service tree? I remember it so well.”

“Yes,” John said. “It still grows. And we have many more rare trees that I have brought back from Virginia. I have a tulip tree with great green leaves that flowers with a blossom like a tulip as big as your head. I have a maple tree which has leaves of scarlet. I have a creeper called a passion flower since some say it shows the marks of Jesus. I have a beautiful new convolvulus, I can sell you the seeds for that, and a Virginian foxglove.”

“As soon as I am discharged and in my own home again I shall come and see what you have for sale,” the officer promised.

“Where is your home?” John asked.

“Sussex, in the west of the county,” the man replied. “I have a light, sandy soil, very fertile and easy to work. A little dry in summer perhaps, and I’m on the edge of the South Downs so I get a cold wind in winter; my Lenten lilies only come at Easter. But my summer flowers last for longer than my neighbors’.”

“You will grow almost anything then,” John said encouragingly. “Some of my new Virginia plants can tolerate very cold weather and very hot summers since that is the weather of their home. They would do well with you. I have a creeper with leaves that turn as red as a cardinal’s cloak in autumn. It would look well against any wall, red as a rose.”

“I should like to see it,” the man said. “And what will you do here?”

“Just set the place in order again,” John said. “I was not ordered to do any planting.”

“Is His Majesty to be brought here?” Johnnie asked, driven to interrupting.

The officer heard the hero worship in the boy’s voice and looked hard at him. “I think we should all pray that he never comes near any of his palaces again,” he said sternly. “His greed has taken me and all my men away from our homes and our families and our gardens for six long years. He can rot in Carisbrooke Castle forever, for all I care.”

John leaned on his son’s shoulder and the boy obediently said nothing, only the scarlet flush up to his ears showed his distress.

“But you were in his service,” the man said irritably. “I suppose you’re all royalists.”

“We’re gardeners,” John said steadily. “And now I am gardening for Parliament. Still gardening. My enemies are inclement weather and pests. I need no other.”

Unwillingly the commander laughed. “I know no worse, actually,” he said.