Philippa Gregory - Earthly Joys

“Hush,” Elizabeth said. “Time enough to speak like that when things have changed, if they ever do.”

“Things are changing now,” J insisted. “This king will have to deal with the people of the country. He will have to listen to Parliament. He cannot cheat on honest, good men, as his father did. We are tired of paying for a court which shows us nothing but luxury and sin. We will not be allied to papists; we will not be brothers to heretics!”

She shook her head, but she did not stop him.

“At New Hall there is a man who knows another man who says that there should be a petition against the king that should tell him his duties. That he cannot levy taxes without calling a parliament. That he must listen to his advisers in Parliament. That the duke should not rule over everything and scrape all the wealth into his own pocket. That orphans and widows should have the protection of the Crown, so that a man can die in peace and know that his estate will be well managed and not farmed by the duke for his own good.”

“Are there many that think this?” Her whisper was a thread of sound.

“He says so.”

Her eyes were wide. “Does any say so in your father’s hearing?”

J shook his head. “Father is known as the duke’s man through and through. But there are many, even in the duke’s own service, who know that the mood of the country is turning against the duke. They blame him for everything that goes wrong, from this hot weather to the plague.”

“What will become of us if the duke should fall?” she asked.

J’s young face was determined. “We would survive,” he said. “Even if the country never wanted another duke, it would always need gardeners. I should always find work and there will always be a home for you with me. But what would become of my father? He’s not just the duke’s gardener – he is his vassal. If the duke falls then I think Father’s heart will break.”

John met his master in Paris as he had been ordered. He waited for him in the black-and-white marble hall of the great house until the double doors swung open and the duke was framed in the bright Paris sunlight. He was wearing diamonds in his hat, on his finely embroidered doublet. His cape was hemmed with brilliants which John hoped very much were glass but feared were also diamonds. He sparkled in the spring sunshine like the new leaves on a silver birch tree.

“My John!” he exclaimed with delight. “And have you brought all my clothes? I am reduced to rags!”

John found he was beaming with delight at the sight of his master. “So I see, my lord. I was afraid that I would find you looking very poor and mean. I have brought everything and your coach and six horses is coming behind me.”

Buckingham grasped him by the shoulder. “I knew you would do it for me,” he said. “I would trust no other. How are things at New Hall?”

“Everything is well,” John told him. “The garden is looking well, your water terrace is working and looks lovely. Your wife and mother are at New Hall and are both well.”

“Oh yes, gardens,” the duke said. “You must meet the gardeners to the French court; you will be impressed with what they do here. The queen will give me a note for you to introduce yourself to them.” He bent toward John and spoke softly in his ear. “The queen would give me a good deal more too, if I asked for it, I think!”

John found he was smiling at the shameless vanity of the man. “I know the Robinses, but I shall be pleased to see them again. And you have been amusing yourself.”

Buckingham kissed his fingertips like a Frenchman acknowledging beauty. “I have been in paradise,” he said. “And you shall come with me and we shall see the palace gardens together. Come, John, I shall change my clothes and I shall take you around the city. It’s very fair and very joyful, and the women are as easy as mares in heat. It’s a perfect town for me!”

John chuckled unwillingly. “My wife would be most distressed. I will go and see the gardens but I cannot go visiting women.”

Buckingham put his arm around Tradescant’s shoulders and hugged him tight. “You shall be my conscience then,” he said. “And keep me on the straight and narrow way.”

It could not be done. The Archangel Gabriel with a flaming sword could not have kept the Duke of Buckingham on the straight and narrow way in Paris in 1625. The French court was besotted with the English, a new prince on the throne, a French princess as his chosen bride and the handsomest man in Europe at court to fetch her to her new home. Crowds of women gathered outside Buckingham’s hôtel just to see him come and go, and to admire the astounding sight of his carriage and six, and the jewels and his clothes and his hat, the “bonnet d’anglais” which was copied by a hundred hatters as soon as they glimpsed it.

The queen herself blushed when he came near her, and watched him from behind her fan if he so much as spoke to another woman, and little Princess Henrietta Maria stammered when he was in the room and forgot what little English she knew. The whole of France was in love with him, the whole of Paris adored him. And Buckingham, smiling, laughing, fêted everywhere he went, passed through adoring crowds as if he were the king himself and not a mere ambassador: the bridegroom himself and not a proxy.

John was weary of Buckingham’s ceaseless round of parties within days.

“Keep up, John,” Buckingham threw over his shoulder. “We are going to a masked ball tonight.”

“As you wish,” John said.

Buckingham turned and laughed at John’s stoical expression. “Have you no assignations? No dances promised?”

“I’m a married man,” John said. “As you are, my lord.” He paused for Buckingham’s crack of laughter. “But I will attend you there and wait for you as long as you wish, my lord.”

Buckingham rested his hand on Tradescant’s shoulder. “No, I have a dozen men who can wait on me, and only one who loves me like a brother. I shan’t waste your love and loyalty on watching me dancing. What would you like to do most?”

Tradescant thought. “I’ve seen some plants which would look very well at New Hall,” he said cautiously. “If you could spare me, I shall visit the Robins’s garden to order the plants and see them packed, and then they could come home with us when we leave.”

Buckingham thought, his head on one side. “I think we can do better than that.” He reached into the deep pocket of his coat and pulled out a purse. “D’you know what this is?”

“Money?”

“Better than that. A bribe. An enormous bribe, from Richelieu or his agents.”

John looked at the purse as if it were a venomous snake. “Do you want me to return it?”

Buckingham threw back his head and laughed. “John! My John! No! I want you to spend it!”

“French money? What do they want for it?”

“My friendship, my advice to the king, my support of the little princess. Take it!”

Still John hesitated. “But what if you need to warn the king against them? What if things change?”

“Who’s our worst enemy? Worst enemy of the faith? Greatest danger to the freedom of our Protestant brothers in Europe?”

“The Spanish,” John said slowly.

“So we befriend the French to make an alliance against the Spanish,” Buckingham said simply. “And if they want to give me a fortune for doing what I would be doing anyway – then they may!”

“But what if it all changes?” John asked. “What if the Spanish make an alliance with the French? Or the French turn against us?”

Buckingham tossed the purse in the air and caught it again. It fell as if it were indeed very heavy. “Then the money is spent and I have done my country the service of draining the coffers of our enemy. Here! Catch!” He threw the purse to John, and John caught it as a reflex action before he could stop himself.

“Take it to Amsterdam,” Buckingham said, as skillfully tempting as a serpent in Eden. “Take it to Amsterdam, and buy tulips, my John.”

He could have said nothing which would have worked more powerfully on Tradescant. Unaware of the action, John hefted the purse in his hand, guessing at the weight. “They are going at a terrible price,” he said. “The market has gone mad for tulips. Everyone is buying, everyone is speculating in them. Men who have never left their money counters are buying the names of tulips on scraps of paper; they never even see the flower. I can’t be sure how many bulbs I could get, even with this money.”

“Go,” Buckingham commanded. He flung himself into a chair and swung his long legs over the arm. He looked at Tradescant with his teasing smile. “You know you are longing for them, my John. Go and look at the tulip fields and buy as many as you want. There’s that purse, and another to follow. Bring me a couple of bulbs back and we will put them in a pot, set ourselves up as burghers and grow rich.”

“The Semper Augusta is scarlet and white,” John said. “I’ve seen a painting of it. The color is most beautifully broken, and it has a most wonderful shape, the true tulip cup shape but with tiny points on each petal, so each petal stands a little proud from the others. And long curvy leaves…”

“In faith! This is love!” Buckingham mocked. “This is true love, John. I’ve never seen you so moved.”

Tradescant smiled. “There’s never been a more perfect flower. It’s the best there is. There’s nothing better. And there’s never been one which cost more.”

Buckingham pointed to the French bribe in Tradescant’s hand. “Go and buy it,” he said simply.

Tradescant packed that night and was ready to leave at dawn. He left a note for his master, promising that the gold would be safe in his keeping and that he would buy as many bulbs as could be gotten but, to his surprise, when he was about to mount his horse in the street outside the Buckingham hôtel, the duke himself came lounging out, pulling on a robe against the cold morning air, dressed only in his shirt and boots and breeches.