The carriage drew up outside the door and the duke himself came out to greet his mother.
‘Thank you, John,’ he threw over his shoulder and drew her into the house and up to the king’s chamber.
‘Is the king better?’ John asked a manservant as the countess’s box was carried up the stairs.
‘On the mend,’ the man said. ‘He took some soup this midday.’
‘Then I think I’ll take a turn around the garden.’ John nodded towards the door and the enticing view. ‘If my lord wants me you will find me at the bath house, or on the mount. I have not been here for many years.’
He stepped through the front door and towards the first of the beautiful knot gardens. They wanted weeding, he thought, and then smiled at himself. These were not his weeds any more, they were the king’s.
He saw Buckingham before dinner that night. ‘If you do not need me, I shall go home tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I did not warn my wife that I was going with you, and there is much to do in the garden at New Hall.’
Buckingham nodded. ‘When you go through London you can see if my ship has come from the Indies,’ he said. ‘And supervise the unloading of the goods. They were ordered to bring me much ivory and silk. You can fetch them safely down to New Hall and see them installed in my rooms. I am making a collection of rare and precious things. Prince Charles has his toy soldiers, have you seen them? They fire cannon and you can draw them up in battle lines. They are very diverting. I should like some pretty things too.’
‘Am I to wait in London for the Indies goods to arrive?’
‘If you will,’ Buckingham said sweetly. ‘If Mrs Tradescant can spare you so long.’
‘She knows your service comes first,’ John said. ‘How does the king today? Still better?’
Buckingham looked grave. ‘He is worse,’ he said. ‘The ague has hold of him, and he is not a young man, and was never strong. He saw the prince privately today and put him in mind of his duties. He is preparing himself … I really think he is preparing himself. It is my duty to make sure he can be at peace, that he can rest.’
‘I heard he was getting better,’ John ventured cautiously.
‘We give out the best reports we can, but the truth is that he is an old man who is ready to meet his death.’
John bowed and left the room, and went down to the hall for his dinner.
The place was in uproar. Half a dozen of the physicians that John had first seen in the king’s chamber were calling for their horses and their menservants. The courtiers were shouting for their carriages and for food to take on their journeys.
‘What’s this?’ John asked.
‘It’s all the fault of your master,’ a woman replied shortly. ‘He has flung the physicians from the king’s presence, and half the court too. He said they were troubling him too much with their noise and their playing, and he said the physicians were fools.’
John grinned and stepped back to watch the confusion of their departure.
‘He will regret it!’ one doctor shouted to another. ‘I warned him myself, if His Majesty suffers and we are not at hand, he will regret this insult to us!’
‘He is beyond counsel! I warned him but he pushed me from the room!’
‘He snatched my very pipe out of my mouth and broke it!’ one of the courtiers interrupted. ‘I know that the king hates smoke, but it is a sure prevention of infection, and how should His Majesty smell it in another room? I shall write to the duke and complain of my treatment. Twenty years I have been at court, and he pushed me out of the door as if I were his serf!’
‘He has cleared the room of everyone but a nurse, his mother and himself,’ a man declared. ‘And he swears that the king shall have peace and quiet and no more meddling. As if a king should not be surrounded by his people all the time!’
John left them and strolled into dinner. Buckingham and his mother were at the high table; the place for the king was left respectfully empty. Prince Charles was seated next to the empty place, his head very close to the duke’s.
‘Aye, they’ll have much to consider,’ a man said in an undertone and took his seat next to John.
John took some fine white manchet bread and a large joint of pheasant from the plate in the centre of the table. He snapped his fingers for a girl and she came to pour him wine.
‘What’s the countess doing here?’ one man asked. ‘The king can’t abide her.’
‘Caring for the king, apparently. The physicians have been sent away and she is to nurse him.’
‘An odd choice,’ another man said shortly. ‘Since he hates the sight of her.’
‘The king is on the mend,’ yet another man said, pulling out his stool. ‘The duke was right to send those fools away. His Majesty had the fever – why! – we’ve all had a fever. And if the countess knows a remedy which cured the duke, why should she not offer it to the king?’
The men glanced at John. ‘Was it you fetched her?’ one asked.
John savoured the taste of roast pheasant, the rich juices flowing in his mouth. ‘I can hardly remember,’ he said, muffled. ‘D’you know this is the first decent meal I’ve had in a day and a half? I was damming up a fishpond in Essex not long ago. And now here I am back at Theobalds. And very good fare to be had too.’
One of the men shrugged and laughed shortly. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘We’ll get no secrets from you. We all know who is your master, and you serve him well, John Tradescant. I hope you never come to regret it!’
John looked up the hall to the top table where the duke was leaning forward to call to one of the officers. The candlelight made a reddish halo around his black curls, his face was as bright and delighted as a child’s.
‘No,’ John said with affection. ‘I’ll never regret it.’
John stayed late in the hall, drinking with the men at his table. At midnight he headed unsteadily to the duke’s chamber.
‘Where d’you sleep?’ one of his drinking companions asked him.
‘With my lord.’
‘Oh, yes,’ the man said pointedly. ‘I heard you were a favourite.’
John wheeled around and stared at him, and the man held his gaze, half a question on his face which was an insult. John spoke a hasty word and was about to strike the man when a serving maid ran between the two of them, a basin in her hand, blinded with hurry.
‘What’s the matter?’ John asked.
‘It’s the king!’ she exclaimed. ‘His fever has risen, and his piss is blue as ink. He is as sick as a dog. He is asking for his physician but he has only Lady Villiers to attend him.’
‘Asking for his physicians?’ the man demanded. ‘Then the duke must send for them, to bring them back.’
‘He will do,’ John said uncertainly. ‘He is bound to do so.’
He went to Buckingham’s chamber, and found the duke seated by the window gazing at his own reflection in the darkened glass, as if it would answer a question.
‘Shall I ride out and fetch the physicians?’ John asked him quietly.
The duke shook his head.
‘I heard the king was asking for them.’
‘He is well nursed,’ Buckingham said. ‘If anyone should ask you, John, you may tell them that he is well cared for. He needs rest; not a dozen men harrying him to death.’
‘I’ll tell them,’ John said. ‘But they tell me that he is asking for his physicians and your mother is not a favourite.’
The duke hesitated. ‘Anything else?’
‘That’s enough,’ John warned him. ‘More than enough.’
‘Go to sleep,’ the duke said gently. ‘I am going to bed myself in a minute.’
John shucked off his breeches and shoes, lay down in his shirt and was asleep in moments.
There was a hammering on the bedroom door in the early hours of the morning. John started out of sleep, leaped from his bed and ran, not to the door, but to the duke’s bed, to stand between him and whoever might be outside battering the door down. In that first moment, as
he pulled back the bed curtains, he saw that the younger man was not asleep but was lying open-eyed, as if he were silently waiting, as if he had been wide awake and waiting all night.
‘All’s safe, Tradescant,’ he said. ‘You can open the door.’
‘My lord duke!’ the shout came. ‘You must come at once!’
Buckingham rose from his bed and threw a cape around him. ‘What’s to do?’ he called.
‘It’s the king! It’s the king!’
He nodded and swiftly went from the room. John, pulling on breeches and his waistcoat, ran behind him.
Buckingham went swiftly through the door to the antechamber but the guards barred John’s way.
‘I’m with my lord,’ John said.
‘No-one goes in but the prince and the Villiers: mother and son,’ the guard replied. ‘His orders.’
John fell back and waited.
The door opened and Buckingham looked out. His face was pale and grave. ‘Oh, John. Good. Send someone you can trust to fetch His Grace the Bishop of Winchester. The king needs him.’
John bowed and turned on his heel.
‘And come back here,’ Buckingham ordered. ‘I have need of you.’
‘Of course,’ John said.
The court was subdued all day. The king was worse, there could be no doubt of it. But the countess was said to be confident. She was applying another plaster, the king was feverish, she was certain her cure would draw the heat from him.
In the evening a message came that the Bishop of Winchester was too ill to travel. ‘Get me another bishop,’ Buckingham said to John. ‘Any bloody bishop will do. Get me the nearest, get me the quickest. But get me a bishop!’
John ran down to the stables and sent three menservants riding out to different palaces, with three urgent summonses, and then went back to the gallery outside the king’s rooms to wait for the duke.
He heard the long low groan of a man in much pain. The door opened and Lady Villiers came out. ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded sharply. ‘What are you listening for?’
‘I am waiting for my lord,’ John said quietly. ‘As he bid me.’
‘Well, keep others off,’ she ordered. ‘The king is in pain, he does not want eavesdroppers.’
‘Is he getting better?’ John asked. ‘Has his fever broken?’
She gave him an odd, sideways smile. ‘He is doing well,’ she said.
The fever did not break. The king lay sweating and calling for help for two more days. Buckingham said that John could go back to New Hall but he could not bear to go until he had seen the end. The court went everywhere on tiptoe, the flirting and gambling had ceased. Around the sombre young prince was an aura of silence – everywhere he went people fell quiet and bowed their heads. The courtiers longed to recommend themselves to him; some of them had sided with his father against him, some of them had laughed at him when he had been a tongue-tied weakly younger son. Now he was the king-to-be, and only Buckingham had completely accomplished the great balancing act of being the greatest friend of the father and the greatest friend of the son.
Buckingham was everywhere. In the sick room, watching at the king’s bedside, walking with Prince Charles in the garden, moving among the men at court giving a word of reassurance here, a carefully judged snub there.
The Bishop of Lincoln arrived from his palace and was shown in to the king. The whisper came out of the sick chamber that the king, too ill to speak, had assented to the prayers by raising his eyes to heaven. He would die a true son of the English church.
That night John lay in Buckingham’s chamber listening to the quiet breathing, and knew his master was affecting sleep but was wide awake. At midnight the duke got up from his bed, pulled on his clothes in the darkness and went softly out of the bedchamber. John lost all desire for sleep, sat up in his bed and waited.
He heard the sound of a woman’s light footstep down the corridor and then her knock on the door. ‘Mr Tradescant! The duke wants you!’
John got up, pulled on his breeches, and hurried to the king’s chamber. Buckingham was standing at the window embrasure, looking out over Tradescant’s garden. When he turned from the night to face the room his face was alight with excitement.
‘It is now!’ he said shortly. ‘At last. Wake the bishop, and bring him quietly. And then wake the prince.’
John went through the maze of wood-lined corridors, tapped on the bishop’s door and forced his sleepy servant to wake His Grace. When the bishop came out of the room, robed in his vestments and holding King James’s own bible, John led him through the servants’ hall, past sleeping men and dogs which growled softly as they went by. Only firelight illuminated their way and the moving silver moon which tracked their path through the great high windows.
The bishop went into the chamber. John turned and ran along the broad wood-panelled corridor to the prince’s apartments.
He knocked on the door and whispered through the keyhole. ‘Your Highness! Wake up! The duke told me to fetch you.’
The door was flung open and Charles came quickly out, wearing only his nightshirt. Without saying a word he ran down the corridor to the king’s chamber and went in.
The palace was completely quiet. John waited outside the royal chamber, straining his ears to hear. There was the low dismal mutter of the last rites, and the prayers. Then there was a silence.
Slowly the door opened and the duke came out. He looked at Tradescant and nodded as if a difficult task had been well done.
‘The king is dead,’ he said. ‘Long live His Majesty King Charles.’
Charles was at his shoulder, looking stunned. His dark eyes fell unseeing upon Tradescant. ‘I did not know …’ he said at once. ‘I did not know what they were doing. Before God, I had no idea that your mother …’
Buckingham dropped to one knee and John followed his example.
‘God bless Your Majesty!’ Buckingham said swiftly.
‘Amen,’ Tradescant said.
Charles was silenced; whatever he might have said would never be spoken.
Spring 1625
Three hours later Prince Charles was proclaimed king at the gate of Theobalds Palace, and stepped into the royal coach to ride in state to London. Buckingham, the Master of Horse, did not follow tradition by taking the place of honour, heading the train that rode behind the royal coach. Buckingham walked into the royal coach a mere half-pace behind His Majesty and rode like a prince himself at the new king’s side. Tradescant followed in the long train of the household, closing his ears to the general gasp of horror at his master’s presumption.
They drew up at St James’s Palace in the afternoon and John waited for his orders. At first he could not find Buckingham’s chamber and waited in the hall. The palace was in complete confusion. King James had been expected to stay hunting at Theobalds for many days, and go afterwards to Hampton Court. In his absence his palace had closed down for cleaning and refurbishing. There was no food in the kitchens and no fire in the chambers. The few housekeeping staff who did not travel with the king had been spring cleaning and had swept up the strewing herbs from the floor, and taken down the curtains from the windows and the tapestries off the walls. Serving men and maids ran everywhere, trying to prepare the palace for the new king and his train and do in moments what usually took days to accomplish, delayed all the time by the storm of gossip that was running around the royal courts, explaining how the king had fallen sick, how the Villiers mother and son had nursed him and excluded all others, and how the king had died under their care.
A feast had to be prepared and the comptroller of the royal household had to use all his cash and all of the new king’s credit to buy in food, and set everyone in the kitchen – from the scullions labouring over the bellows to get the kitchen fires alight, to the great master cooks – preparing and cooking food so that a king new-come to his kingdom might sit down to his dinner.
A great press of people invaded the palace to see the new king and the first ma
n in the land: the Duke of Buckingham. The poorer people came just to see him, they liked to watch their betters eat, even when their own bellies were empty; and hundreds of others had complaints about taxes, about land ownership, about injustices, which they were eager to place before the new king. When King Charles and his duke came pushing through the hall Tradescant was forced to the back behind dozens of shouting demanding people. But even there, as he was fighting for a space in the crowd, his master looked over the bobbing heads and called to him.
‘John! You still here? What did you stay for?’
‘For your orders.’
Men craned around to see who had taken the duke’s attention and Tradescant fought his way forward.
‘Oh – forgive me, John. I have been so busy. You can go to New Hall now. Call at the docks on the way and get my India goods. Then go home.’
‘Your Grace, you have no chamber prepared for you here,’ John said. ‘I asked, and there is none. Where shall you sleep? Shall I go to your London house and bid the lady, your mother, make ready for you? Or shall I wait and we will go to New Hall together?’
The duke looked across to where the young king was moving slowly through the crowd, his hand extended for people to kiss, acknowledging their bows with a small gesture of his head. When he saw Buckingham watching him he gave him a private, conspiratorial smile.
‘Tonight I sleep in His Majesty’s chamber,’ the duke remarked silkily. ‘He needs me at his side.’
‘But there is only one bed –’ John started, then he bit back the words. Of course a truckle bed could be found. Or the two men could sleep in comfort in the big expanse of the royal bed. King James had never slept alone, why should his son do so if he wanted company?
‘Of course, my lord,’ John said, careful to ensure that none of his thoughts appeared in his face. ‘I shall leave you, if you’re well served.’
Buckingham gave John his sweet satisfied smile. ‘Never better.’