Later it transpired that she had been brought up by her strong-minded mother, but with Rene' a prisoner, her mother must go to Lorraine to take charge there, and Margaret was sent to Anjou to be with her grandmother, Yolande of Aragon, who governed that land.

"We lived mainly in Angers." she said.

"You remember Angers?"

I shivered. How could I forget Angers?

"My grandmother was a wonderful woman. My mother was a wonderful woman. There are times when I believe it should be left to women to govern."

I looked alarmed and she gave me a somewhat pitying glance which betrayed her judgement that I was not going to be one of those.

"I was fortunate in my mother and my grandmother." she said.

"It was a sad blow to me when my grandmother died. But my father was free then. He came with my mother to Angers and we were all together for a while "It must have been wonderful to be united with your family."

"Such pleasures do not last. I was your age when I was betrothed to the King of England. But I had been on the verge of betrothals many times, so I was not sure whether this one would ever come to pass. It might have been like all the others."

"Why were you betrothed so many times?"

"Because my father's fortunes were ever rising and falling. In the beginning I should have had a very poor match but when he inherited Lorraine and Anjou, well, it was a different matter."

There are always such reasons why we are betrothed." I said sadly.

"But of course. My child, marriages are the strongest of alliances. Never forget that. It is the duty we are called on to accept... whatever is best for our countries at the time."

"I know."

"I thought I was so fortunate." she said.

"I was married to a man with a very gentle nature ... a good man a saint perhaps. But good men do not necessarily make good kings and saints were never meant to wear a king's crown. The outcome usually is that they have no will to keep it and do not hold it long."

"Perhaps it is good when they marry strong wives."

A wry smile touched her lips.

"My mother and my grandmother taught me self-reliance." she said.

"That is the best lesson any woman can learn."

She looked at me a little severely, thinking, I was sure, that women who had learned that lesson did not give way to tears.

But there was a hint of kindliness in her stern manner now and I began to look forward to these sessions with her. Oddly enough, I began to realise that she did also.

And so I grew to know my mother-in-law-to-be and, in place of the fear and revulsion which she had at first aroused in me, there was an admiration which was tinged with affection.

I liked to hear her talk of the past and she seemed to take a certain pleasure in doing so. Perhaps she thought it was good for me to know what had happened to others so that I might become less concerned with my own fate. I think she also wanted to stop herself starting at every sound ... to forget, even for half an hour, the desperate need to hear good news from England.

She made me see and feel her departure for England. I could picture her as a beautiful child, for she must have been beautiful. There were still remains of beauty to be seen and sometimes when she talked of the past and her eyes would soften in reminiscence and her lips would curl into a smile of remembering happiness, I would be struck by it.

Through her eyes I saw the brilliant cavalcade. It was a match desired by the French as well as the English.

She said: "The King of France took me into his arms and kissed me. That was when I was formally handed over to the Duke of Suffolk who had come to collect me. My parents were there and they rode with us to Bar where I had to say goodbye to them."

"How very sad you must have been. How frightened."

"I was sad," she said.

"I loved my parents dearly, but I knew it must be. We went to Paris. The people expressed their pleasure with enthusiasm. They love these marriages. They are a chance for revelry and they always think they will bring peace to the country. They called me the little Daisy." She gave a short, ironic laugh.

"Daisy! They do not call me that in England. Little Daisy! In England, I am the hated Jezebel. And then I met the man who ... next to your father ... was to be my greatest enemy."

"Do you mean the Duke of York?"

"I do indeed, and as I talk to you now I can see his head in its paper crown on the walls of the city of York." She had changed. She was the vindictive hating woman when she talked of the Duke of York, father of Edward who soon, she hoped, would be replaced by her husband.

"He was a rogue, though I did not know it then. And his wife ... she was worse. She gave herself airs even then."

"They called her Proud Cis." I said.

"Cecily, Duchess of York, would be mother of kings." she said bitterly.

I might have reminded her that she was indeed the mother of a king, for Edward had reigned for nearly ten years.

"I had no notion then what to expect from that family," she said.

"Nor from your father. That cursed war ... the War of the Roses. Roses should be beautiful ornaments. And they betrayed their king and went to war. They are going to regret it. Edward will go the way of his father."

"Please tell me how you felt when you first saw England."

Her eyes were hazy and a smile touched her lips, softening her face miraculously.

"The crossing! I thought I should die! And I was not the only one. I thought, I shall never see England. I forgot all my fears for the future. I thought: this is the end. This is death. They told me that as soon as my feet touched dry land the sickness would pass. It did ... for some of them. But not for me. It was horrific. My face and body were covered in spots. They thought I was suffering from the small pox. I pictured myself disfigured for ever. I thought: this is how my husband will see me for the first time. I was vain about my appearance. I knew that I had some beauty. Beauty is one of God's gifts. It is so useful. It wins special privileges. It is admired and treated with gentleness wherever it is. And I thought I should lose that. Beautiful people learn what a precious gift they have and once a woman has possessed it she will cling to it and cannot easily let it go. Imagine my feeling a young girl about to lose her beauty!"

"But you did not."

"It was not the small pox. I began to recover. My spots went as quickly as they had come, and I was myself again. I cannot The Reluctant Queen explain to you the relief, not only to me but to everyone. We disembarked at Southampton and there I was told that the king's squire had brought a letter of welcome from the king. Would I receive him, they asked? How could I not receive the king's squire? He came in so respectfully. He knelt before me. I was still feeling very weak, I remember. I was seated in a chair with rugs about me.

"He was a very gentle young man with a soft, sweet expression; he was most humble. He handed me the letter and I told him that when I read it I would write to the king. They said to me afterwards: "Did you like the squire?" and I said: "He seemed a most modest and worthy young man." Then they laughed. The squire, they told me, was the king."

"Why did he come to you thus?"

"He told me afterwards that he had feared I might be scarred by the small pox and he wanted to see me first to realise how badly I was marked. He wanted to be prepared in case he was going to be very shocked, and he did not want to betray his feeling on first sight of me. Oh, he is a very gentle, kindly man, but She was silent and for a long time sat staring into space, reliving it all, I supposed.

At length she said: "Alas, he was not of the nature to be a king when there were others fighting for the crown."

The softness vanished. She was thinking of those hated men: the Duke of York, his son Edward and most of all my father. Suddenly she seemed to remember who I was. She peered at me, frowning.

"Why do I talk to you, Warwick's daughter? I hate Warwick. I hate him more than I hate the Duke of York. York is dead now. Never shall I forget that head. Have you ever seen a head without a body?"

I shuddered and shrank from her.

"It is a good sight when it is the head of one you hate. And the paper crown ... that was amusing. He had so longed for our crown ... Henry's crown ... and it was meet and fitting that he should die ignobly wearing a crown made of paper. I see you turn from me. I am in truth a hard, cruel wicked woman. What did they tell you of me?"

I was silent, amazed by this sudden change in her. She was a wild and passionate woman and I did not always understand her.

There was another time when she said to me: "Why do I talk to you as I do, Lady Anne? I do talk to you, do I not? Let me tell you this. You do not understand. To talk to a child is like talking to oneself. Perhaps that is it. Warwick's daughter! Daughter of the man who ruined my life. Oh, I had forgotten. He is my friend now." Then she fell to laughing.

"Oh, if only Henry were strong! I should have married a strong man ... a man like Edward who calls himself King of England. A man like Warwick. What a pair we should have made! But they married me to Henry. He knows nothing of the evil ways of men. He is a stranger to evil. For him it does not exist because he does not possess it himself. He would be every man's friend, so he believes every man to be his friend. He shrinks from punishing his enemies. Oh, why am I talking to this child of matters she cannot understand?"