Philippa Gregory

Virgin Earth


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Spring 1646, London

       Spring 1646

       Summer 1646

       Autumn 1646

       Spring 1647

       Summer 1647

       Autumn 1647

       Spring 1648

       April 1648, Oatlands Palace

       Summer 1648

       July 1648

       Autumn 1648

       January 1649

       Saturday 20 January 1649

       Monday 22 January 1649

       Tuesday 23 January 1649

       Wednesday 24 January 1649

       Thursday 25 January 1649

       Friday 26 January 1649

       Saturday 27 January 1649

       Sunday 28 January 1649

       Tuesday 30 January 1649

       Spring 1649

       Summer 1649

       Summer 1650

       Autumn 1650

       Spring 1651

       Summer 1651

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       Winter 1651

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       Spring 1653

       Winter 1654

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       1655

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       Summer 1657

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       Autumn 1658

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       Summer 1660

       Autumn 1660

       Winter 1660

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       Winter 1638, At Sea

      He woke to the sound of the moving ship, the creaking of the timbers and the aching sigh of the full sails spread, the sudden abrupt rattle of a pulley as a sail was reefed in, the drumming of booted feet on the deck just above his face, the holler of an order, and the continual attack of the sea – the bang of the waves against the prow and the groan of the tiny ship as she climbed up one wave and then wallowed and turned to confront another.

      He had slept and woken to this ceaseless din for six long weeks and now he found it familiar and soothing. It meant that the little ship was soldiering on through the terrifying expanse of wind and water, still headed westwards, faithful to the hope that westwards would be the new land. Sometimes J imagined their progress as a seagull might see it looking down, the vast waste of sea and the fragile ship with its lamps burning at dusk, headed trustfully towards where they had last seen the sun.

      He had set sail in deep grief, in flight from grief. Even now he dreamed of his wife with bright joyful immediacy, dreamed that she came to him on board the ship and laughingly complained that there was no need for him to set sail, no need for him to run off to Virginia alone, for see! here she was on board herself, and it had all been a game – the plague, her long days of dying, the terrible white-faced grief of their daughter – all a May game, and here she was well and strong, and when would they go home again? Then the noises of the ship were a terrible interruption and J would pull his damp blanket over his face, and try to cling to the dream of Jane and the certainty that she was alive and everything was well.

      He could not. He had to wake to the bleak truth that she was dead, and his business half-bankrupt, his father hanging on to their house and their nursery garden and their collection of rarities by the old combination of luck and the love of his friends, while J played the part of the indulged son – fleeing from all of it, calling it a venture, a chance at wealth, but knowing it was an escape.

      It was not an enviable escape at first sight. The house at Lambeth was a grand house, set among its own twenty acres of nursery garden, famous for its collection of rarities from all around the world. His father, John Tradescant, had named it the Ark, and had sworn they would be safe there whatever storms rocked the country with king and Church and