It's 530 years today since Henry VII's coronation in Westminster Abbey, two months after he defeated Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth. After 14 years in exile and two invasion attempts, he was King of England at the age of 28. His fiancée Elizabeth of York, still officially illegitimate, didn't attend the ceremony, but his mother Margaret Stanley (née Beaufort) had pride of place. Her conspiracies for her son had earned her house arrest and the confiscation of her lands under Richard, and she must have feared Henry's cause (and her own) lost forever. But now, in a dramatic change of fortune, she was the king's mother, and the first lady of his coronation. The two were close after their long separation, and Margaret maintained an active political role until Henry's death, when she was the new king's grandmother.

Image: King Henry VII by an unknown Netherlandish artist, 1505, National Portrait Gallery 416