And – I think you know, don’t you? – that I love you, Anne.’ I feel as if I have been living in a loveless world for too long. The last tender face I saw was my father’s when he sailed for England. ‘You do? Truly?’ ‘I do.’ He rises to his feet and pulls me up to stand beside him. My chin comes to his shoulder, we are both dainty, long-limbed, coltish: well-matched. I turn my face into his jacket. ‘Will you marry me?’ he whispers. ‘Yes,’ I say.

Yes, Your Grace," I correct her. "I am My Lady, the King's Mother, now, and you shall curtsey to me, as low as to a queen of royal blood. This was my destiny: to put my son on the throne of England, and those who laughed at my visions and doubted my vocation will call me My Lady, the King's Mother, and I shall sign myself Margaret Regina: Margaret R.

Tell my daughter Elizabeth -- no! Tell all my daughters, everywhere, in all the ages yet to come. Tell them how I died, and why. And tell them to remember this: the future is unwritten. Know your rights.

He had taken George, my beloved George, from me. And he had taken my other self: Anne.

It is not love that matters, Mistress Boy, it is what you choose to do with it. What’d you choose to do with yours?

Although some people think I am a romantic novelist I have always thought of myself as a rather gritty radical historian.

When a man wants a mystery, it is generally better to leave him mystified. Nobody loves a clever woman.