John did his lord a favor with such faith. Buckingham had no master plan and no plan hidden behind it. He was not a Cecil, with a conspiracy for every eventuality. Everything in his life had come easily to him, and he had thought that this would come easily too. He had thought that he could seduce the Spanish as he had seduced everyone else. But the cold formal court of Spain proved hard-hearted even to England’s heartbreaker, and his disappointment turned him against them. His letters from home from his mother and from his wife warned him that a Spanish bride would never be accepted and the man who tried to bring her to the English throne could meet with nothing but disaster. Buckingham turned like a weathercock; but Charles – who had learned early that love is always a matter of disappointment – clung to his picture of a desirable and unattainable woman. Indeed, the more unattainable she became, the more she mirrored Charles’s vision of true love and desire.

It was Buckingham’s task to lift the prince’s view from a woman who might never love him, whom he could trail behind for the rest of his days, as he had trailed behind his brother, and encourage him to think that as a prince of England he might hope for a little more.

It was not easy. Buckingham reminded him of the concessions of the marriage contract – wild promises of religious tolerance and the children of the marriage to be brought up as papists. He questioned Spanish probity, wondering if the infanta could really be constrained into marrying a heretic, or if she would not, on her wedding day, make a dive for a nunnery and leave Charles looking like a fool. The steady drip, drip, of cynicism and doubt eroded the prince’s confidence, which was, at the best of times, unsteady. By the time the two had ridden from Madrid to Santander to meet the English fleet, Buckingham and the prince were the best of friends, and Spain was their opponent. By the time they sailed into Portsmouth they were as close as brothers and Spain was not to be the new alliance, but was once again the deadliest enemy, and the marriage contract which they had worked for so fervently was a trap that they were determined to escape.

As they came into Portsmouth, through the cold sea mist of October, sailing in with the tide, uncertain of their welcome in the Protestant city in the staunchly Protestant country after trying for a marriage which would have brought the proud Tudor independence to an abrupt end, they saw a light blaze on the quayside; a bonfire had been lit. Then another, then another, in a string of light along the city walls. Then there was the boom of a cannon salute which echoed across the harbor, and then another, and the scream of loudly blown trumpets, and the sound of people cheering. Buckingham smiled to himself, slapped his prince on the back and went below to put the diamond studs in his hat.

“He did it, he brought the prince safe home,” John said to Elizabeth when the news of the triumphant entry of the two young men into London reached New Hall. “There was dancing on the streets and roasted oxen at every corner. They are calling him a greater statesman than England has ever seen. They are calling him the savior of his country. Shall we go into Chelmsford tonight and see the merrymaking?”

He did not mean to crow but he heard the joy in his own voice. It was not that Buckingham had proved himself to be a statesman or a diplomat. But at least he was lucky, and in this new court, luck and beauty would do everything.

The face that Elizabeth turned to him was pinched and cold. “He took the prince into danger in the first place,” she said unforgivingly. “Danger of his body and deadly danger to his mortal soul. And the prince only escaped from marrying a disciple of the Devil by being forsworn. He gave his word of honor to a noble princess. He courted her and promised to marry her. But now he has broken his promise. I shan’t go dancing because your lord took the prince into danger and then made him a jilt to bring him safe home. It was vanity and folly to go in the first place. I won’t drink to his safe return.”

John quietly put on his coat and hat and let himself out of the door. “I think I’ll go then,” he said mildly. “Don’t wake for me.”

“He’s home,” J announced without enthusiasm.

John was standing on the mount he had created in the duke’s new lake, checking the line of the winding path to the top. Below him, the men hired to plant the trees were digging and setting in apple, cherry, pear and plum alternately up the circling slope. Small stakes supported each tree against the constant easterly winds which were John’s bugbear in this Essex garden. Bigger posts were set in the ground, tied tautly with twine, one to another, to guide the espaliered branches to reach out, one tree to another, so they would make unbroken lines of blossom in spring, and unbroken lines of fruit in autumn. J’s task was to check that each tree was placed to its best advantage with the outstretched branches lying conveniently along the twine, and tied in so they could not stray and be wayward. John was following with a sharp knife to cut off any twigs which were growing out of the smooth line of the interlaced trees. It was one of John’s most favorite tasks: a delicate marriage of wildness and artifice, an imposition of order upon unruliness which in the end looked as if it had grown ordered and well-ruled out of simple good nature. A garden as God might have left it, an Eden without disorder or weeds.

“God be praised!” John said, straightening up from his pruning. “Did he ask for me? Is he coming out into the garden?”

J shook his head. “He’s sick,” he said. “Very sick.”

John felt his breath suddenly stop as if he too were ill. A sudden pulse of dread went through his body at the thought of his master’s frailty. He suddenly remembered Cecil, dying in bluebell time. “Sick?” he asked. “Not the plague?”

J shrugged. “A great quarrel with the king, and he took to his bed.”

“He is pretending to be ill?” John asked.

“I think not. The duchess is running all around their apartments and the kitchen is making possets. They want some herbs for medicine.”

“Good God, why did you not tell me at once?” John ran down the path, slithering on the muddy track, and flung himself into the rowing boat moored at the delicate ornamental jetty. He grabbed at the oars and labored clumsily across the lake, splashing himself with water and cursing his own slowness. He got to the shore, beached the boat and ran through the shallows and up toward the house.

He went straightaway toward the great hall, his boots making wet prints on the floor. “Where is the apothecary? What does he need?”

The man gestured him toward the duke’s private quarters, up the beautiful staircase which had cost him such a fortune. John went up the stairs at a run. The duke’s apartments were in uproar, the doors wide open, the duke sprawled neglected on his bed, still in his riding boots. Dozens of men and women were running in and out with coals for his fire and fresh straw for the floor, warming pans, cooling drinks, someone opening the windows, someone closing the shutters. Amid it all was Kate, the young duchess, weeping helplessly in a chair, and half a dozen apothecaries quarreling over the bed.

“Quiet!” Tradescant shouted, too angry at the sight of such chaos for his usual politeness. He took a couple of footmen, spun them around and pushed them out of the room. He closed the door on them and then pointed to the maids who were sweeping the floor and the men who were stacking logs on the fire. “You! Out.”

The room slowly emptied of complaining servants, and Tradescant turned his attention to the apothecaries. “Who’s in charge here?” he asked.