Once Princess Platinum was safe in Verdant, Clover’s family knew she wouldn’t be safe unless the town was behind her.
Harrow, her father, set up something of a network, confiding in everypony he trusted and keeping tabs on everypony he didn’t, ensuring only those who would stay loyal to her if and when the time came to take the throne would be privy to the information.
[Note: There are dark tales abound that purport that Harrow was set on keeping the secret by any means necessary. When he saw a stallion at the inn writing down what he’d overheard from the innkeep about Platinum’s hiding-place, Harrow crept into the stallion’s house at night and left a farmer’s sickle embedded in the bedpost of the stallion’s youngest foal.
The stallion chose never to speak of his discoveries to anypony ever again.]
With Pinchley Salt gone, Platinum took teachings under Clover. The weight of the potential scandal that may have occurred had the unicorns discovered a princess was being taught by a self-trained commoner would have been staggering, particularly when, according to Platinum’s memoirs, Clover would cuff her round the ear or tug at her tail if she wasn’t paying attention during her lessons. Yet Platinum valued the wisdom and intelligence of this new friend of hers.
A great deal of Clover’s knowledge was based on theory. By her reasoning, if anything was likely, it was worth considering and planning for were it to be the case.
And one day, seemingly out of the blue, Clover suggested the theory of how to take the throne that Platinum considered hers. Her strategy was to show herself to Arsenic and outwardly show support. Arsenic was a powerful figure at this time and charismatic with the masses but those who knew her personally rarely ever found the cold, caustic mare friendly or even very inspiring. It was largely thanks to Gilead that she held onto the power her lineage granted her.

Clover put forward the most likely scenario...
Pyrite was weak and sickly and likely would die young. With this in mind, his new father-in law, Lord Pinchley Salt, would have the colt subtly killed off or at least placed in a situation where he would quickly die, leaving her daughter on the throne free to marry whoever he wished her to and rule through both of them as de-facto head of state. Yet however cunning he would consider such a move, even the dullest masses would see through it. They would support Arsenic, being of the opinion that anypony the unlamented Ferric and Antimony hated would have to be a good pony, especially the daughter of the good-hearted and innocent Queen Galena (Perhaps letting themselves believe she was, in fact, the daughter of Prince Galvan, the good king who never was, however impossible this was in reality).
Once Arsenic and Gilead took the capital, Platinum would be free to watch Arsenic’s power crumble. While Arsenic was influential as a freedom-fighter against the remaining servants of her tyrannical father, she was not queenly material. She was fanatical in her wish to bring the Agneian Faith to Equestria, far more so than Gilead, Cerulean or Woolsey would consider necessary. She would make enemies of the non-Agneians and give the actual Agneians a bad name. Platinum would simply show gentleness and generosity to those around her, just as her mother had done in King Ferric’s time, and steadily build up an image of an ideal monarch waiting for her moment to come.
Over the course of two weeks, Platinum weighed Clover’s words, debating in her mind how likely this ‘most likely scenario’ was if it were the best course of her claiming the crown.
Until at last, she agreed and, taking Clover with her, met Arsenic at her frontier and swore her allegiance to her half-sister. It’s widely accepted that Arsenic wanted nothing to do with her but, at the behest of her counsellors, accepted her into her inner circle.

And like (Aptly) magic, all that Clover theorised came true. Pinchley Salt had Pyrite’s cradle placed directly beside the open window and let him climb a curtain on a windy day, causing the foal to fall to his death (Witnesses claim a smiling black cat was watching from the rooftops when it happened and may have been what lured Pyrite to his doom. Salice was declared queen and married to one of Pinchley’s distant cousins. The capital swiftly turned on Pinchley and welcomed Arsenic home, the Privy Council turning on the Salt family and handing them over to Gilead.
When the time came to judge the defeated enemies of Arsenic, Platinum hoped to serve as one of the judges as some of the accused were friends of hers such as Soda-Water, Pinchley’s nephew. Arsenic vehemently refused this role to Platinum and so Clover volunteered in her stead. She managed to spare twelve of the thirty prisoners from the scaffold, including Soda-Water and Salice but Pinchley Salt was sentenced to death, pleading for his life and claiming he’d always been a good Agneian.
Unfortunately for Arsenic, Lord Carvery had escaped the city and roused a rebellion against her, declaring Salice the true queen of Precia and himself the true king, claiming the late Queen Antimony had promised him Salice before the day she was born. To deny him the right to the throne, Arsenic had Salice and four of the surviving twelve defendants judged again and executed.
It’s said that Salice was executed after her father, her father-in-law and her husband were killed, all three stallions wept and pleaded in their final moments. Salice, meanwhile was quiet and accepting, never showing fear or regret.
Platinum adds a note in her memoirs while relating this simply saying...

'Unicorn mares are like that. We’re tough.'

Soda-Water, and his close siblings, however, were spared, their parents having died long before Pinchley Salt seized the throne. However, with Arsenic slowly starting to see enemies everywhere and Carvery’s loyalty doubtful, Clover advised them to go into hiding alongside several others whom Platinum had been close to in her youth.

Arsenic’s hold over politics weakened as soon as it was complete. One of her first decrees was that Precia would be Agneian state and all its subjects would convert at the point of a sword or be burnt at the stake. This was in direct contradiction to the Creed of Amneddu, the more modern and comparatively liberal tenant system of the Agneia which encouraged the importance of wilful conversion to build a communion of the loyal and dutiful rather than the desperate and fearful. By forcing the faith on them through threat of death, she damaged the reputation of the Agneians drastically. Woosley advised against it and the Granpastoris himself wrote to plead that the non-faithful be shown mercy and patience but Arsenic would listen to nopony, calling Woosley a foolish old sheep who knew nothing of her suffering. Slighted once more, Woolsey left Equestria and departed back to the Agneia with his closest associates in tow. A few Agneian priests stayed behind, either the most gentle and understanding or the most harsh and uncompromising, causing an unsteady imbalance of power in the newly established faith. The peace with Marchion, however, was cemented through her marriage to Gilead though to their misfortune, they soon found that the royal court was a bubbling pot of poisonous gossip and slander.
Her marriage to a foreign official, not even a pony at that, was a source of never-ending spite. It was here that Platinum found a key flaw of Gilead’s. His pride was a precious thing to him and, having fought against prejudice all his life back in Marchion, he faced the same here in Precia. And it wasn’t even limited to hushed whispers. Arsenic’s privy counsellors advised her to divorce Gilead and marry a unicorn while the hippogriff himself was in hearing.
The relationship between them soured and Gilead took the battlefield more often after arguments with her.
Desperate, Arsenic began believing that her marital problems, combined with her inability to produce a child, where the Lamb of Faith’s punishment towards her for tolerating heretics in her realm. Under her new religious policy, over two hundred non-Agneians (Predominantly Mirians, the traditional unicorn worship of magical, elemental entities; though there are records of Aardents, Cloudwatchers, Capricians and Humanists among them) were imprisoned and burnt at the stake. A pogrom ensued, starting with the known practitioners of non-Agneian religions and culminating in breaking into every house and arresting whole families for the presence of a single non-Agneian relic or symbol in their houses.
Platinum and Clover were able to establish something of an underground network in the capital to protect innocent civilians but they enjoyed very little success until much later. In the wake of Arsenic’s fanaticism, just under five-thousand Precians had died. As a result, xenophobia gripped at the hearts of the masses and Agneians whom Arsenic had vowed to protect were attacked or killed in the streets.

Carvery capitalised on the hatred and violence as his rebellion grew in strength until at last, Gilead’s armies faced them in open combat. Platinum and Clover took the battlefield with him, commanding armies of their own, Clover serving as a strategist, promising Platinum she would be safe.
That seemed not to be the case as the battle progressed. Alongside his peasant militia and defecting nobility, Carvery had amassed a mercenary force that surrounded the royal army and quickly seemed ready to overwhelm them. Gilead was caught in a crossfire and went down fighting, shot by a hundred arrows and pierced by dozens of spears, felling countless foes with the Lamb of Faith’s name on his voice until he fell. Platinum recants in her memoirs that, despite the threat he posed to her, she had nothing but respect for the hippogriff who had braved the cruelty of his foes and the spite of his colleagues for the sake of duty even if it claimed his life.
As Platinum and Clover were surrounded, the young princess exasperatedly asked her friend how safe she considered this. Clover replied ‘Very safe’.
As if in answer to her own, a horn came from over the hill as a great army galloped forward, waving banners bearing Platinum’s Cutie Mark. Leading the charge were her old friends, Soda-Water, Wild Goose and Sleeping Dog, as well as Clover’s father, Harrow, and countless others the two had looked out for, cheering their names as they broke Carvery’s line. Imbued with courage, Platinum rushed back into the fray, cut her way through Carvery’s bodyguard and slew the stallion personally.
Platinum writes that when she asked Clover if she’d had this planned, Clover simply smiled and winked.

The day was won, if only for Platinum. With the loss of Gilead and the surge of popularity for Platinum that should have been hers, Arsenic fell into a state of hysteria, followed by a wasting illness and was ready to die in the coming month.
In that time, those who had actively supported her fled to Marchion to pledge their loyalty to Cerulean.
By the end of the season, Arsenic lay on her death bed, alone and childless, and summoned Platinum to her side.
She gave her half-sister the crown of Precia, apologising for all the slights she’d shown her and begging her to not make the same mistakes she did.
Soon afterwards, Arsenic died.
A group of Privy Counsellors suggested that Arsenic’s body be thrown to the masses who hated her and the Agneians in Precia rounded up and put to death.
Platinum immediately had all those who made such a suggestion sacked and flogged. She declared that, while Arsenic had been an unpleasant mare to know and a poor queen, she was still a queen and her sister nonetheless and she and her subjects would show her respect.
So Platinum gave the departed Arsenic a stately funeral, buried beside Gilead in the grounds of the Grand Agneian chapel she’d built just outside the capital.
Afterward Platinum was at last crowned Queen of Precia, her friends were allotted roles suited to their skills in the Royal Council while Clover sought out and nominated the most skilled individuals in or around Precia for the remaining roles.
Soda-Water was named the Lord Steward of the Palace.
Wild Goose was named the Lord Admiral.
Sleeping Dog was named the Lady Private Secretary.
And Clover was named the High Advisor and Head of the Royal Privy Council.
Platinum’s reign was headed by a campaign of civil tolerance in terms of both race and religion. In order to end the hostilities her father and sister had started, she instituted a policy of inter-communal peace through careful security.
In the modern day these policies are criticised as segregationist, religious and racial communities advised to keep separate from each other, but in the wake of the earlier chaos, it seemed the safest option and was steadily recalled over time as the situation settled itself.
And to end the hardship gripping the common pony, Platinum opened the royal treasury and tasked Clover with finding King Ferric’s secret vault he kept his most coveted treasures. Clover did so and Platinum immediately had the treasures sold off and the money made used to fund the reestablishments of housing, farms and markets.
Clover mentions that, through such reforms, her family, and many others like it, never went hungry again.
After a shaky start, Platinum’s reign was secure and she was widely adored by both noble and worker.
She wasn’t perfect. Her notorious temper and acid tongue were feared around the court and to those who wilfully offended her, she could prove most vicious.
A noted case of her wrath was the case of Spewney Bawd, one of Ferric’s court minstrels and propagandists who once wrote a lewd theatrical farce on the subject of the alleged incestuous-affair between Silvia and Cutlery. When Platinum found him, such was her rage at hearing her mother and grandmother so insulted that she dealt a magical curse upon Spewney to only be able to write and speak in dirty limericks for the rest of his life!
And whenever she was advised to marry she would respond in an indignant and impatient manner, insisting she would do so when a worthy stallion became known to her and not before.
And this would lead to later problems for Princess Platinum and in turn, for Clover the Clever.

Difficult times but I know they can get over them.

I don't know much about British history but is an amazing read. I didn't the two queens loved each other until the other one died, it's unusually sweet of them. Now I can't wait to read the next

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Well, they'd been through so much and it both changed them in different ways.
Arsenic wasn't easy to love or even understand.
But Platinum found a way.