Part IV: June 1483

"Finally," Margaret thinks, standing still before the mirror as her ladies dress her in her coronation robes of cloth of silver, "Finally, the day is here and I can be the woman Papa always promised me I would be. Queen Margaret of England."

Yes. The day she has longed for and prayed for as far back as she can remember has come at last. In a matter of hours, she, Margaret Beaufort, daughter to the Duke of Suffolk, will be Queen. God's anointed Queen. And that is something not even her spoiled boy of a husband can take away from her.

With that thought in mind, Margaret hurries down to the floor below hers in the Tower to see how her children are coping with the excitement of the day.

Two year old Princess Cecily is as calm as you could expect a young child in her position to be, playing happily with her spinning top and submitting to her mother's kiss and embrace when she is expected to, but Margaret's son is anything but calm.

Five month old Richard, named for his Uncle, the only man who can anger his father and survive relatively unscathed, is yelling in his nurse's arms when Margaret enters.

"He's been like this all morning, Madam," the poor, exhausted woman explains, "I can't put him down for an instant. I just tried and...well, what you see is the result."

Nodding, Margaret reaches out for her son, hoping that his mother's touch will soothe him enough for him to be changed and carried down to the litter he and his sister are to share with their governess for the coronation procession.

Unfortunately, she achieves the exact opposite. Richard's roars of protest seem to redouble at her touch. He arches his back, howling to be returned to his nurse. Eventually, Margaret has to give in, hiding her pain at her son's rejection of her. He is most definitely a York boy.

"Margaret."

Her husband's voice cuts through their son's raging bellows as easily as a hot knife through butter. "Are you ready? Or would you rather stay here and hide in the nursery like the nursemaid you are?"

"No, I am ready," Margaret returns equably, spinning around and taking his reluctantly proffered arm with grace. Edward doesn't want her at his side today, she is sure. If it was left to him, his consort of choice would be young Jacquetta Grey, his younger half-cousin on his mother's side. But they are cousins, and besides, Margaret was Edward's wife long before they even met.

As such, Jacquetta can never be more than Edward's mistress; her children, should she have any, no more than his bastards. It is she, Margaret, who will be Edward's Queen and mother to the lawful Princes and Princesses until the day she dies.

And so it is she, Edward's hated wife, with whom Edward has to share his coronation day.

It is she, not Jacquetta, who rides alongside him to Westminster, watching the pageants on the way.

It is she, not Jacquetta, who sits upon the throne above the Stone of Scone, chrism oil glistening upon her hands, feet, hair and breast, to receive a silver crown inlaid with rubies on her head and the sceptres of the sovereign into her grip.

Above all, it is she, not Jacquetta, who now has the right to sign herself 'Margaret Regina', or rather 'Margaret, Queen of England'.

Just like her father always believed she would.