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and constantly looking around him with enquiring eyes. Henry, younger by some two years, was squat, with reddish hair and seemed less self-assured. He was clinging tightly to his nurse’s apron.
    â€˜Thank you for coming down, Adie. I want you to meet someone.’ I made the introductions. ‘And now I’m going to leave you to get to know each other.’ I went out into the yard to check that Golding was no worse for his little adventure. I hoped that, in my absence, what in women passes for reason might prevail.
    When I returned some half an hour later, I saw that Lizzie’s children had joined the party. Even my own eight-year-old, Raphael (known to everyone as ‘Raffy’), had come to cast an appraising eye over our visitors. The boys seemed to be playing some form of hide-and-go-seek with Annie, and Adie. was cradling the baby. ‘They’re enjoying themselves,’ I said, pointing to the older children. I hoped they were forming a bridge between the women.
    Lizzie treated me to a wry smile. ‘Not as much as you enjoy organising other people’s lives.’ She turned to Adie. ‘You’ll find he’s very good at that.’
    â€˜I simply think it makes sense for you all to come to Hemmings till the plague has passed and this other business is sorted out.’
    Lizzie turned back to the window. ‘I can’t be that far away from Bart. I must be where he can find me easily.’
    â€˜Very well, but at least let the children come. Adie is bringing the boys down. She has the sense to realise that they can’t go back to Aldgate until Master Johannes returns. She’d be happy to take care of your bearns, too. Isn’t that so, Adie?’
    The girl gave a shy smile by way of acknowledgement.
    Lizzie made no further argument. It was arranged that I would set off into Kent three days later with my augmented household. While the servants completed the work of closing up the house and workshop and loading on to wagons the furniture and other goods which had to betaken into the country, I tidied up my business affairs.
    I also had a visit to make.
    I rode out next morning, Friday 4 September, through Ludgate and over the Fleet Bridge. Turning left into narrow Bride Lane, I had only a few yards to go before dismounting in the shadow of the high walls bordering the precinct of old Bridewell Palace. A row of quite substantial houses clustered by the boundary, as though enjoying royal protection. Three of them belonged to alien goldsmiths, a little nest of foreigners who could stare out from their casements at the City wall, mere yards away, and disregard the Guild rules binding honest London craftsmen. They could take on and train their own apprentices (usually of their own ilk), attract their own customers and charge their own prices. Theoretically the Worshipful Company exercised control over the quality of the interlopers’ merchandise. All gold items had to pass through our assay office, which authenticated the purity of the precious metal. But many of the foreigners (and there were more than a hundred of them working in and around London) ignored the regulations. In practice, we were powerless to prevent them stealing our markets. We were obliged to compete with them for quality – and some of them were hellishly good. This was bad enough but at least the distinction between us and them was clear. There were, however, a few who deliberately blurred that distinction; who had cunningly worked themselves into aposition of being able to enjoy the advantages of life on both sides of the wall. One such was John of Antwerp.
    He had run this workshop on Bride Street longer than anyone could remember. He was a fine craftsman – of that there was no doubt. He attracted custom from the highest in the land and he had prospered – really prospered. He married an Englishwoman. He reared a family. But he remained staunchly a Netherlander. He had another home