Virgin Earth

1640

In the absence of any voluntary money the king was forced to call a parliament. For the first time in ten years the squires and landlords returned to Westminster with a belief that they might now get back to the proper task of advising the king and running the country.

Hester went to find John in the orchard with the news of the new parliament. The buds on the apple trees were fattening and splitting and showing white and pink petals as crumpled as ribbons crammed into a pocket.

“Perhaps the king will listen to the voice of the people,” John said hopefully.

“He might,” she said. “But he is listening to the old Earl Strafford and to the queen. Two voices instead of the one. Will he listen to the voice of the people in preference to the voice of his own wife, who is trying to gather an army of English Papists and a Spanish army for him?”

John thought for a moment. “No,” he said. “Of course not.”

Hester nodded. “Takings are down for the gardens,” she warned. “People are not ordering plants and seeds. This should be our busiest time of the year but it’s as quiet as winter. No one can think about gardens while the king is half at war with the Scots and has called a parliament that is filled with men who disagree with him.”

“We can manage for a short spell,” John said.

“We earn more in the spring than we do for all the rest of the year,” she said. “I have been looking at the account books. We have to make money in spring. A war starting in springtime is the worst thing that could happen for us. If the uncertainty carries on till June or July we will not make a profit this year.”

“What about the rarities?”

“There are more visitors because there are more people in the city,” Hester said. “The country gentry who have come in for the parliament are curious to see Tradescant’s Ark. But if the business between the king and Scots grows more serious I think they’ll stop coming too. A trade like ours depends on people feeling safe enough to spend money on pleasure: on visiting, on rarities, and on their gardens. A country at war does not plant gardens.”

“I still have my post at Oatlands,” John pointed out. “And I will succeed my father as chief gardener and draw his wage.”

Hester nodded. “If the worst comes to the worst we can live on your wages.”

“At the very worst we can close the Ark and live at Oatlands,” John said. “The house there is only little; but we could manage for a while if we cannot afford to keep the Ark open.”

“I’m not sure that I would want to live in the grounds of a royal palace in times like these,” Hester said cautiously.

“I thought you were such a royalist?”

“I don’t want to take sides,” Hester said. “Not when I don’t know exactly what the sides will be. Nor when I don’t know which side will win.”

The sides became rapidly clearer after the king’s army, unenthusiastic and poorly paid, were defeated by the Scots who went on to occupy Newcastle and Durham and hammer out a peace with the king which would force him to call a new parliament in England. It became clear to everyone in the country, except perhaps to the king and the queen, that the Scots and the Independent English thinkers had the king on the run. Hester started a correspondence with Mrs. Hurte, the mother of John’s first wife, who kept her eyes and ears open in the City and was as skeptical as Hester, and rightly concerned for the safety of her grandchildren.

The new Parliament will impeach Strafford, just as the old one was wild to impeach Buckingham. If J has ever had any dealings with the Earl, or if his father kept any correspondence, it should be hidden or, better yet, burned. They are saying that Strafford is a traitor prepared to wage war against his own country for the benefit of the king and queen. They will accuse him of treason – treason against the people of England, and once one royal servant is accused how many others will be charged?

Hester went upstairs to the attic and opened John’s old chest of papers. The Tradescants had supplied seeds and young saplings to the Earl but there were no incriminating letters left from the years when John Tradescant had been known as a discreet man who regularly visited Europe and could be trusted with a letter or a message.

The Earl was a loudmouthed unattractive old man, twisted with gout and losing his sight. He had been a relentless force in Ireland, hammering a Protestant will on a Catholic people; but he was old now. The king had recalled him to England only for the unscrupulous clarity of his advice, and been indebted to him for the suggestion that if towns did not send enough money for the king’s army their aldermen should be hanged in their robes to clarify the urgency of the situation. The Earl had walked past John in the gardens of Oatlands a dozen times and never wasted more than a glance on him.

The Tradescants were safe from any accusation of complicity with the king. But many royal servants slipped away and went abroad, or retired to their country estates. Others were not so quick or careful. In December, Archbishop Laud was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower to await the pleasure of the Houses of Parliament.

Hester did not pray from any prayer book at evening prayers that night but read from the King James Bible as the only text which did not define the household as for or against the king.

“No prayers?” John asked her quietly as the household went about its last tasks of the day and Hester counted out the bedtime candles.

“I don’t know any more what words God would prefer,” she said drily. “And no one knows what man requires.”