‘They tell me this is sweet,’ he said, proffering a rose striped white and scarlet. ‘A Rosamund rose, but with a perfume.’
His lord bent and sniffed. ‘How can you breed for scent when you cannot smell them yourself?’ he asked.
John shrugged. ‘I ask people if they smell good or better than other roses. But it is hard to judge. They always tell me the scent in terms of another scent. And since I have never had a nose which could smell then it’s no help to me. They say “lemony” as if I would know what a lemon smells like. They say “honey” and that is no help either, for I think of one as sour and one as sweet.’
Robert Cecil nodded. He was not the man to pity a disability. ‘Well, it smells good to me,’ he said. ‘Could I have great boughs of it by August?’
John Tradescant hesitated. A less faithful servant would have said ‘yes’ and then disappointed his master at the final moment. A better courtier would have guided him away to something else. John simply shook his head. ‘I thought you wanted it for today or tomorrow. I cannot give you roses in August, my lord. Nobody can.’
Cecil turned away and started to limp back to the house. ‘Come with me,’ he said shortly over his sloped shoulder. Tradescant fell in beside him and Cecil leaned on his arm. Tradescant took the burden of that light weight and felt himself soften with pity for the man who had all the responsibility for running three, no, four kingdoms with the new addition of Scotland, and yet none of the real power.
‘It’s for the Spanish,’ Cecil told him in an undertone. ‘This gift that I need. What do people in the country think of the peace with Spain?’
‘They mistrust it, I think,’ John said. ‘We have been at war with Spain for so long, and avoided defeat so narrowly. It’s impossible to think of them as friends the very next day.’
‘I cannot let us stay at war in Europe. We will be ruined if we go on pouring men and gold into the United Provinces, into France. And Spain is no threat any more. I must have a peace.’
‘As long as they don’t come here,’ John said hesitantly. ‘No-one cares what happens in Europe, my lord. Ordinary people care only for their own homes, for their own county. Half the people here at Cheshunt or Waltham Cross care only that there are no Spaniards in Surrey.’
‘No Jesuits,’ Cecil said, naming the greatest fear.
John nodded. ‘God preserve us. We none of us want to see burnings in the market place again.’
Cecil looked into the face of his gardener. ‘You’re a good man,’ he said shortly. ‘I learn more from you in a walk from my mount to my orangery than I do from a nation full of spies.’
The two men paused. The orangery at Theobalds was open at every doorway, the double white-painted doors allowing the warm summer sunshine to flood into the rooms. Tender saplings and whips of oranges, lemons, and vines were still kept inside – Tradescant was a notoriously cautious man. But the mature fruit trees were out in the fine weather, housed in great barrels with carrying loops at four points so they could adorn the three central courts of Theobalds in the summer, and bring a touch of the exotic to this most English of palaces. Long before the first hint of frost Tradescant would have them carried back into the orangery and the fires lit in the grates to keep them safe through the English winter.
‘I suppose oranges are not impressive,’ he said. ‘Not to Spaniards who live in orange groves.’
Cecil was about to agree but he hesitated. ‘How many oranges could we muster?’
John thought of the three mature trees, one placed at the centre of each court. ‘Would you strip the trees of all their fruit?’ he asked.
Cecil nodded.
John swallowed at the thought of the sacrifice. ‘A barrel of fruit. By August, perhaps two barrels.’
Cecil slapped him on the shoulder. ‘That’s it!’ he cried. ‘The whole point is that we show them that they have nothing which we need. We give them great boughs of oranges and that shows them that anything they have, we can have too. That we are not the supplicants in this business but the men of power. That we have all of England and orange orchards too.’
‘Boughs?’ John asked, going to the central point. ‘You don’t mean to pick the fruit?’
Cecil shook his head. ‘It is a gift for the king to give to the Spanish ambassador. It has to look wonderful. A barrel of oranges could have been bought on the quayside, but a great branch of a tree with the fruit on it – they will see that it has been fresh-cut by the quality of the leaves. It has to be boughs laden with fruit.’
John, thinking of the savage hacking of his beautiful trees, suppressed an exclamation of pain. ‘Certainly, my lord,’ he said.
Cecil, understanding at once, hugged Tradescant around the shoulders and planted a hearty kiss on his cheek. ‘John, I have had men lay down their lives for me with an easier heart. Forgive me, but I need a grand gesture for the king. And your oranges are the sacrificial lamb.’
John reluctantly chuckled. ‘I’ll wait till I hear then, my lord. And I’ll cut the fruit and send it up to London as soon as you order.’
‘Bring it yourself,’ Cecil directed him. ‘I want no mistake, and you of all men will guard it as if it were your firstborn son.’
August 1604
John’s oranges were the centre of the feast to celebrate the peace. King James and Prince Henry held bibles and swore before the nobles and the Spanish ambassadors that the Treaty of London would install a solemn and lasting peace. In a glorious ceremony de Velasco toasted the king from an agate cup set with diamonds and rubies and then presented him with the cup. Queen Anne at his side had a crystal goblet and three diamond pendants.
Then King James nodded to Cecil, and Cecil turned to where Tradescant was behind him and John Tradescant walked forward bearing in his arms, almost too great a weight to carry, a great spreading bough of oranges, their leaves glossy and green with drops of water like pearls still rolling on the central vein, their fruit round, scented like oil of sunshine, blazing with colour, ripe and fleshy. The king touched the bough and at his gesture Tradescant laid it at the Spanish ambassador’s feet as two of his lads laid another and then another in a heap of ripe wealth.
‘Oranges, Your Majesty?’ the man exclaimed.
James smiled and nodded. ‘In case you were feeling homesick,’ he said.
De Velasco threw a quick look back at his entourage. ‘I had no idea that you could grow oranges in England,’ he said enviously. ‘I thought it was too cold here, too damp.’
Robert Cecil made a casual gesture. ‘Oh, no,’ he replied nonchalantly. ‘We can grow anything we desire.’
A page came through the crowd, carrying a great pannier of fruit, and another followed him with a basket. In pride of place, nestling amid some aromatic southernwood leaves, was a large pale melon.
‘Wait a minute,’ said John. ‘Let me see that.’
The page was in Lord Wootton’s livery. ‘Let me pass,’ he said urgently. ‘I am to present this to the king to give to the Spanish ambassador.’
‘Where’s it from?’ John hissed.
‘From Lord Wootton’s garden at Canterbury,’ the lad replied and pushed through.
‘Lord Wootton’s gardener can grow melons?’ John asked. He turned to his neighbour, but no-one but John cared one way or the other. ‘How does Lord Wootton grow melons at Canterbury?’
The question remained unanswered. In a nearby inn John sought out Lord Wootton’s gardener, who merely laughed at him and said there was a trick to it but John would have to join Lord Wootton’s service if he wanted to learn it.
‘D’you plant them in the orangery?’ John guessed. ‘D’you have an earth bed inside?’
The man laughed. ‘The great John Tradescant asking me for advice!’ he mocked. ‘Come to Canterbury, Mr Tradescant, and you shall learn my secrets.’
John shook his head. ‘I’d rather serve the greatest lord in the greatest gardens in England,’ he said loftily.
‘Not the greatest for long,’ the gardener
warned him.
‘Why? What d’you mean?’
The gardener drew a little closer. ‘There are those who are saying that he has signed his own letter of resignation from service,’ he said. ‘Now that Spain is at peace with England, who can doubt that the lords who stayed with the true faith through all the troubles will come back to court? They’ll find their places at court again.’
‘Catholics at court?’ John demanded. ‘With a king like ours? He’d never bear it.’
The man shrugged. ‘King James is not the old queen. He likes differences of opinion. He likes to dispute with them. Queen Anne herself takes the Mass. My own lord takes the Mass when he is abroad and avoids the English church whenever he can. And if he is high in the king’s favour, giving him melons and the like, then the tide is turning. And stout old defenders of the faith like your lord may find their time has gone.’
John nodded, bought the man another ale, and left the tavern to find Cecil.
His master was in one of the courtyards at Whitehall, about to board his barge to take him upriver to Theobalds.
‘Ah, John,’ he said. ‘Will you come home with me by water or travel back with the wagon?’
‘I’ll come with you, if I may, my lord,’ John said.
‘Get your bag then, for we leave at once, I want to catch the tide.’
John hurried to fetch his things and came back as the barge was preparing to cast off. The rowers stood at salute, their oars raised. The Cecil pennant flew at bow and stern. Robert Cecil was seated amidships, a canopy over his head and a rug at his side to ward off the evening chill. John leaped nimbly aboard and sat at the rear of the boat behind the golden chair.
The boatmaster cast off and the rowers started the regular beat, beat of their rowing, the oars splashing in the water and the boat pulling forward and then resting, pulling and then resting. It was a soporific, lulling movement, but John kept his eyes on his master.
He saw the head flecked with premature grey hair nod and then sink. The man was exhausted after months of painstaking negotiation and unending civility, mostly conducted in a foreign language. John drew a little closer and watched over his master’s sleep as the sun went down before them and painted the sky gold and peach, and turned the river into a shining path which took them slowly and steadily back to their garden.
When the sky grew darker blue and the first stars came out, John reached for his lord and gathered the blanket around his crooked shoulders. The man, the greatest statesman in the land, probably the greatest in Europe, was as light as a girl. His head lolled to John’s shoulder and rested there. John gathered his lord to him and guarded his rest as the boat went quietly on the inward-flowing tide all the way up the river.
Just before the Theobalds landing stage Cecil awoke. He smiled to find John’s arms around him.
‘A warm pillow you’ve been to me this evening,’ he said pleasantly.
‘I did not want to disturb you,’ John replied. ‘You looked weary.’
‘Weary as a dog after a whipping,’ Cecil yawned. ‘But I can rest now for a few days. The Spanish are gone, the king will return to Royston for the hunting. We can prune our orange trees back into shape, eh John?’
‘There’s one thing, my lord,’ John said cautiously. ‘A thing that I heard and thought I should tell you.’
Cecil was instantly awake, as if he had never dozed at all. ‘What thing?’ he asked softly.
‘It was Lord Wootton’s man, he suggested that now there is peace with Spain the Roman Catholics will come back to court, that there will be new rivals for you at court, and in the king’s favour. He knew that the queen has become a Roman Catholic. He knew she takes Mass. And he named his own lord as a man who worships in the old way when he can, when he is abroad, and avoids his own church when he can at home.’
Cecil nodded slowly. ‘Anything else?’
John shook his head.
‘Do they say I am in the pay of Spain? That I took a bribe to get the peace treaty through?’
John was deeply shocked. ‘Good God, my lord! No!’
Cecil looked pleased. ‘They don’t know about that yet then.’
He glanced at John’s astounded face and chuckled. ‘Ah, John, my John, it is not treason to the king to take money from his enemies. It is treason to the king to take money from his enemies and then do their bidding. I do the one, I don’t do the other. And I shall buy much land with the Spanish gold and pay off my debts in England. So the Spanish will pay hardworking English men and women.’
John looked scarcely comforted. Cecil squeezed his arm. ‘You must learn from me,’ he said. ‘There is no principle; there is only practice. Look to your practice and let other men worry about principles.’
John nodded, hardly understanding.
‘As to the return of the Catholic lords,’ Cecil said thoughtfully, ‘I don’t fear them. If the Catholics will live at peace in England, under our laws, then I can be tolerant of some new faces in the king’s council.’
‘Are they sworn to obey the Pope?’
Cecil shrugged. ‘I care nothing for what they think in private,’ he said. ‘It’s what they do in public that concerns me. If they will leave good English men and women to follow their own consciences in peace and quiet, then they can worship in their own way.’ He paused. ‘It’s the wild few I fear,’ he said softly. ‘The madmen who lack all judgement, who care nothing for agreements, who just want to act. They’d rather die in the faith than live in peace with their neighbours.’
The boat nudged the landing stage and the rowers snapped their oars upright. A dozen lanterns were lit on the wooden pier and burned either side of the broad leafy path to the house to light the lord homeward. ‘If they attempt to disturb the peace of the land that I have struggled so hard to win – then they are dead men,’ Cecil said gently.
October 1605
The peace Cecil worked for did not come at once. A year later in mid-autumn John saw one of the house servants picking his way down the damp terrace steps to where he was working in the knot garden. Cecil had finally agreed that he should take out the gravel and replace it with plants. John was bedding in some strong cotton lavender which he thought would catch the frost and turn feathery white and beautiful in the winter, and convince his master that a garden could be rich with plants as well as cleanly perfect in shapes made with stones.
‘The earl wants you,’ the servant said, emphasising the new title, reflecting the pleasure the whole household felt. ‘The earl wants you in his private chamber.’
John straightened up, sensing trouble. ‘I’ll have to wash and change my clothes,’ he said, gesturing to his muddy hands and his rough breeches.
‘He said, at once.’
John went towards the house at a run, entered through the side door from the Royal Court, crossed the great hall, silent and warm in the afternoon quiet after the hubbub of the midday dinner, and then went through the small door behind the lord’s throne which led to his private apartments.
A couple of pageboys and menservants were tidying the outer room, a couple of the lord’s gentlemen gambling on cards at a small table. John went past them and tapped on the door. The sound of the Irish harp playing a lament abruptly stopped and a voice called: ‘Come in!’
John opened the door a crack and sidled into the room. His lordship was, unusually, alone, seated at his desk with his harp on his knee. John was instantly wary.
‘I came at once; but I’m dirty,’ he said.
He wanted Robert Cecil to glance up, but the man’s face was down, looking at the harp on his lap. John could not see him, nor read his expression.
‘The man said it was urgent –’
The figure at the desk was still.
There was a silence.
‘For God’s sake, my lord, tell me you are well and that all is well with you!’ John finally burst out.
At last Cecil looked up and his face, normally scored with pain, was alive with mischief. His eyes were spark
ling, his mouth, under his neat moustache, was smiling.
‘I have a game to play, John. If you will take a hand for me.’
The relief to see his lord happy was so great that John assented at once, without thinking. ‘Of course.’
‘Sit down.’
John pulled a little stool up to the dark wood desk and the two men went head to head, Robert Cecil speaking so softly that a man in the same room could not have heard them, let alone any of them waiting outside the door.
‘I have a letter that I want delivered to Lord Monteagle,’ he whispered. ‘Delivered to him and none other.’
John nodded and leaned back. ‘I can do that.’
Cecil reached across and pulled him closer again. ‘It’s more than a messenger boy I want,’ he whispered. ‘The contents of the letter are enough to hang Monteagle, and to hang the messenger. You must not be seen delivering it, you must not be seen with it. Your own life depends on you getting it to him with no man seeing you.’
John’s eyes widened.
‘Will you do it for me?’
There was a brief silence.
‘Of course, my lord. I am your man.’
‘Don’t you want to know what’s in the letter?’
Superstitiously, John shook his head.
Cecil, mightily amused at the sight of his gardener stunned into silence, broke down and laughed aloud. ‘John, my John, what a poor conspirator you will make.’
John nodded. ‘It is not my trade, my lord,’ he said with simple dignity. ‘You have others in your service better skilled. But if you want me to take a letter and deliver it unseen, then I will do that.’ He paused for a moment. ‘It will not undo Lord Monteagle? I would not be a Judas.’
Cecil shrugged his shoulders. ‘The letter itself is nothing more than words on a page. It’s not poison, it won’t kill him. What he does with the letter is his own choice. His end will be determined by that choice.’
John felt himself to be swimming in deep and dark waters. ‘I’ll do what you wish,’ he muttered, clinging only to his faith in his lord and his own vow of loyalty.