WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON, 28 NOVEMBER 1489

The pains start in the early hours of the morning, waking me with a deep stir in my belly. My mother is with me the moment that I groan, and she holds my hands while the midwives mull some ale and set up the icon so that I can see it while I labor. It is my mother’s cool hand on my head when I am sweating and exhausted, and it is her gaze, locked on mine, quietly persuading me that there is no pain, that there is nothing but a divine cool floating on a constant river, that takes me through the long hours until I hear a cry and realize that it is over and that I have a baby and they put my little girl into my arms.

“My son commands that you honor me with naming Her Grace the Princess for me.” The sudden appearance of Lady Margaret jolts me back to the real world and behind her I see my mother folding linen and bowing her head and trying not to laugh.

“What?” I ask. I am still hazy with the birthing ale and with the magic that my mother manages to weave, so that pain recedes and the time passes.

“I shall be very glad to be her name-giver.” Lady Margaret pursues her own thought. “And it is so like my son to honor me. I only hope that your boy Arthur is as good and as loving a son to you, as mine is to me.”

My mother, who had two royal sons who adored her, turns away and puts the linen into a chest.

“Princess Margaret of the House of Tudor,” My Lady says, savoring the sound of her own name.

“Is it not vanity, to name a child after yourself?” my mother inquires, dulcet from the corner of the room.

“She is named for my saint,” Lady Margaret replies, not at all disconcerted. “It is not for my own glory. And besides, it is your own daughter who chooses the name. Is it not, Elizabeth?”

“Oh yes,” I say obediently, too tired to argue with her. “And the main thing is that she is well.”

“And beautiful,” my beautiful mother remarks.

Because so many have the pox in London, we don’t hold a big christening, and I am churched privately and return to my rooms and to the life of the court without a great feast. I know also that Henry is not going to waste money on celebrating the birth of a princess. He would have had a public holiday and wine flowing in the public fountains for another boy.

“I’m not disappointed in a girl,” he assures me as he meets me in the nursery and I find him with the precious baby in his arms. “We need another boy, of course, but she is the prettiest, daintiest little girl that was ever born.”