Virgin Earth

Spring 1641

The day that Strafford was called to account in the great hall at Westminster there were no visitors to the Ark at all. Everyone who could get a ticket or a pass to see Strafford at bay before his accusers was in the city. Even the streets were deserted.

In the unnatural silence of the house at Lambeth there was suddenly a thunderous knock on the front door. Frances went running to open it, but Hester darted out from the rarities room and caught her in the hall.

“Frances! Don’t answer it!”

The girl halted at once.

“Go ’round to the gardens and find your father. Tell him to go to the stables, saddle a horse, and wait till I send a message.”

Frances caught the note of urgency in her stepmother’s voice, nodded, white-faced, and ran. Hester waited until she was out of sight, smoothed down her apron, straightened her cap, and opened the door.

It was a gentleman usher of the royal household. Hester showed him into the parlor. “My husband is not here at the moment,” she said, deliberately vague. “I can send a message for him if it is urgent.”

“The king is at Whitehall and wishes to see him.”

Hester nodded. “I shall have to write to him at Oatlands,” she said. “He is the king’s gardener at Oatlands, you know. May I tell him why the king wants him?”

The gentleman usher raised his eyebrows. “I should have thought it would be enough to tell him that he is wanted,” he said rudely.

Hester bowed slightly. “Of course,” she said. “But if the king requires some plants or seeds then we need to know at once, so that we can prepare them. Or if he wants some rarities delivered…”

“Oh,” the man said. “I see. The king is buying a hunting lodge at Wimbledon for the queen. They want Mr. Tradescant to design a garden.”

No trace of her relief appeared on Hester’s face. “I will send for him at once,” she said. “He may not even have arrived at Oatlands yet. He left only this morning. I may catch him on the road, and tell him to come back.”

The gentleman usher nodded.

“Can I offer you some refreshment?” Hester asked. “A glass of wine?”

The gentleman usher shook his head. “I shall return to Whitehall,” he said. “These are difficult times.”

“Very difficult,” Hester agreed with feeling. She showed him to the door and then went to the stables to find John. He was leaning against the pump in the stable yard, enjoying the early warm sunshine on his face.

“Frances came flying out as if all the devils in hell were at the door,” he said carelessly. “Why are you so fearful?”

“I thought it might have been the press gang or the tax collectors, or a message from the court that you would be safer to miss,” she explained. “I don’t know what I fear except I am uneasy, I am afraid for us. If the king’s own adviser can be on trial for his life then the king can protect no one. Indeed, it’s the loyal servants of the king who are the most endangered. And we have been known as royal servants for two generations. I don’t want this family suddenly named as enemies of the people of England because we have taken royal gold. We all have to make our own safety in these days.”

John put his hand on her shoulder. It was his first ever gesture of affection. Hester stood very still, as if she had been approached by a wary wild animal and did not want to scare it away. She felt herself lean, very slightly, toward his caress.

“You’re very careful for me,” he said. “I appreciate it.”

She could have stood like that, in the warm sunny yard with his hand on her shoulder, forever. But John dropped his hand. “So who was it?”

“It was a message from the court. The king is buying a manor at Wimbledon for the queen and they want you to design a garden.” She paused for a moment. “The king’s adviser and chief minister is at bay before his enemies and on trial for his life, and yet the king has time to send to you to tell you to make a new garden.”

“Well, at least that solves the problem of selling seeds and plants,” he said. “If I am making a new royal garden we will need all our stocks. We’re back in profit, Hester. Am I to go at once?”

“I said you were on the road to Oatlands, before I knew what the message was. So you can go today or tomorrow.”

“So our troubles are over!” John exclaimed happily. “A new garden to design, and all our seedlings and plants bought by the king.”

“I don’t think our troubles will be over that quickly,” Hester said cautiously. “Take great care, John, when you meet the king and queen.”

When John got to Wimbledon the king and queen were not to be found.

“Their Majesties are walking privately in the garden,” one of the courtiers told him. “They said you were to go and meet them there. You may approach Their Majesties.”

John, accustomed to the ways of the court, expected to find twenty to thirty people with the king and queen walking privately, but for once they were indeed alone, just the two of them, with her hand in the crook of his arm and her embroidered silk skirts brushing against his legs as they walked together.

John hesitated, thinking that for once they might have chosen to be alone and might be enjoying their privacy. But when they turned at the edge of the grass court and saw him the queen smiled and the king beckoned him forward with one of his little gestures. Although they wished it to be always understood that they were very much in love, they preferred each other’s company before an audience. The queen liked to be seen publicly basking in the king’s adoration, even more than she enjoyed a private moment.

“Ah, Gardener Tradescant!” the queen said. John bowed low and dropped to one knee. The king flicked his finger to permit John to rise and John got up. At once he saw that they were not having a carefree stroll in the garden. The queen was flushed and her eyelids were red, the king looked pale and strained.

“Your Majesties,” John said warily.

“The king has bought me this pretty house to take our minds off our troubles,” the queen said in her lilting accent. “We are much troubled, Gardener Tradescant. We want to be diverted.”

John bowed. “It could be a fine garden,” he said. “The soil is good.”

“I want it done all new,” the queen said eagerly. “A pretty style to match the house.” She gestured back at the manor house. It was a handsome place new-built of red brick, with two arching flights of steps down from the terrace and gardens terraced down the slope. “I want many fruit trees. The king and I will come here in midsummer to escape from the noise and fuss of the court and we will eat fruit off the trees and grapes off the vine and melons off the-” She broke off.

“Off the ground,” the king suggested. “They g-grow on the g-ground, do they not, Tradescant?”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” John said. “My father learned the way of making them grow rich and ripe when he was with Sir Henry Wootton at Canterbury, and he taught me the way. I can grow you melons here and all sorts of fruit.”

“And pretty flowers,” the queen added. “White and blue flowers in the knot garden.”

John bowed his assent, keeping his face hidden. White and blue were the flowers of the Virgin Mary. The queen was asking for a Papist knot garden on the very edge of a London on the brink of revolt.

“We need somewhere to retire in these troubled times,” the king said. “A little hidden garden, Tradescant. Somewhere that we can b-be ourselves.”

The queen stepped to one side to look at a neglected watercourse, lifting her silk dress carefully away from the wet ground.

“I understand,” John said. “Will you be here only in summer, Your Majesty? It helps me if I know. If you are not to be here in autumn then I do not need to plant for that season.”

“Yes,” the king said. “A summertime p-place.”

John nodded and waited for further orders.

“It pleases me to give her a p-pretty little h-house of her own,” the king said, watching the queen at the end of the little terrace. “I have great work to do – I have to d-d-defend my crown against wild and wicked men who w-would pull me down, I have to d-defend the church against Levelers and s… and s… and sectaries and Independents who would unstitch the very fabric of the country. It is all for m-me to do. Only I can preserve the country from the m-madness of a few wicked men. Whatever it costs me, I have t-to do it.”

John knew he should say nothing; but there was such a strange mixture of certainty and self-dramatization in the king’s voice that he could not remain silent. “Are you sure that you have to do it all?” he asked quietly. “I know some sectaries, and they are quiet men, content to leave the Church alone, provided that they can pray their own way. And surely, no one in the country wants to harm you or the queen, or the princes.”

Charles looked tragic. “They d-do,” he said simply. “They drive themselves on and on, c-caring nothing for my good, c-caring nothing for the country. They want to see me cut down, cut down to the size of a little p-prince, like the d-doge of Venice or some cat’s-paw of Parliament. They want to see the p-power my father gave me, which his aunt g-gave him, cut down to n-nothing. When was this country t-truly great? Under King Henry, Queen Elizabeth and my f-father, King James. But they do not remember this. They don’t w-want to. I shall have to fight them as traitors. It is a b-battle to the death.”

The queen had heard the king’s raised voice and came over. “Husband?” she inquired.

He turned at once, and Tradescant was relieved that she had come to soothe the king.

“I was saying how these m-madmen in Parliament will not be finished until they have destroyed my ch-church and destroyed my power,” he said.

John waited for the queen to reassure him that nothing so bad was being plotted. He hoped that she would remind him that the king and queen he most admired – his father, James, and his great-aunt Elizabeth, had spent all their lives weaving compromises and twisting out agreements. Both of them had been faced with argumentative parliaments and both of them had put all their power and all their charm into turning agreements to their own desire, dividing the opposition, seducing their enemies. Neither of them would ever have been at loggerheads with a force that commanded any power in the country. Both of them would have waited and undermined an enemy.

“We must destroy them,” the queen said flatly. “Before they destroy us and destroy the country. We must gain and then keep control of the Parliament, of the army and of the Church. There can be no agreement until they acknowledge that Church, army, and Parliament is all ours. And we will never compromise on that, will we, my love? You will never concede anything!”

He took her hand and kissed it as if she had given him the most sage and levelheaded counsel. “You see how I am advised?” he asked with a smile to Tradescant. “You see how w-wise and stern she is? This is a worthy successor to Queen Elizabeth, is sh-she not? A woman who could defeat the Sp-Spanish Armada again.”

“But these are not the Spanish,” John pointed out. He could almost hear Hester ordering him to be silent while he took the risk and spoke. “These are Englishmen, following their consciences. These are your own people – not a foreign enemy.”

“They are traitors!” the queen snapped. “And thus they are worse than the Spanish, who might be our enemies but at least are faithful to their king. A man who is a traitor is like a dog who is mad. He should be struck down and killed without a second’s thought.”

The king nodded. “And I am s-sorry, Gardener Tradescant, to hear you sympathize with them.” There was a world of warning despite the slight stammer.

“I just hope for peace and that all good men can find a way to peace,” John muttered.

The queen stared at him, affronted by a sudden doubt. “You are my servant,” she said flatly. “There can be no question which side you are on.”

John tried to smile. “I didn’t know we were taking sides.”

“Oh yes,” the king said bitterly. “We are certainly t-taking sides. And I have paid you a w-wage for years, and you have worked in my h-household, or in the household of my dear D-Duke since you were a boy – have you not? And your f-father worked all his life for my advisers and servants, and my f-father’s advisers and servants. You have eaten our b-bread since you were weaned. Which side are you on?”

John swallowed to ease the tightness in his throat. “I am for the good of the country, and for peace, and for you to enjoy what is your own, Your Majesty,” he said.

“What has always b-been mine own,” the king prompted.

“Of course,” John agreed.

The queen suddenly smiled. “But this is my dear Gardener Tradescant!” she said lightly. “Of course he is for us. You would be first into battle with your little hoe, wouldn’t you?”

John tried to smile and bowed rather than reply.

The queen put her hand on his arm. “And we never betray those who follow us,” she said sweetly. “We are bound to you as you are bound to us and we would never betray a faithful servant.” She nodded at the king as if inviting him to learn a lesson. “When a man is ready to promise himself to us he finds in us a loyal master.”

The king smiled at his wife and the gardener. “Of course,” he said. “From the highest servant to the l-lowest, I do not forget either loyalty or treachery. And I reward b-both.”