Tag Archives: Richard III

The Daughter of Time

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The Daughter of Time, written by Josephine Tey, is Tey’s explanation of how to do history and historical research, as well as the problems faced by historians. The protagonist, Alan, endeavors to solve the mystery of Richard III’s death and the murder of his two nephews. Throughout the book Tey utilizes Alan’s profession as a policeman at Scotland Yard to illustrate the process of historical research through the lens of a detective’s investigative process. Initially Alan acquires a portrait of Richard III and it was interesting to read the characters variety of actions and perceptions of the man in the portrait prior to their knowledge of it being Richard III. The characters would describe the figure as being afflicted by “poliomyelitis” or a liver condition but upon learning it was Richard III they would describe the painting as a “portrait of a murderer”. Relating to our discussion of how to do history, it is interesting to see how preconceived notions can affect a person’s opinion or retelling of a historical event.

Initially Alan consults high school textbooks and contemporary accounts concerning Richard III and his nephews. One of the books was written by John Morton, a “trusted” historian of Richard’s life, who declared Richard was a calculating murderer whose sole concern was his throne. After learning more about John Morton, Alan discovers Morton was Henry VII’s(the ruler who succeeded Richard) Archbishop of Canterbury and an enemy of Richard III’s who had plotted an uprising against him. Morton also stood to gain through propagating the story in order to help legitimize Henry VII as the new ruler, and therefore increase his own chances of social mobility. Therefore Alan discovers that while doing history it is important to consider who the writer is and the possible biases which could affect their narration of events.

As Alan progresses in his research he rejects all “accounts” of the events written during the reign of Henry VII and the writings of any historians of the time given the bias he had already encountered with his prior sources. Alan moves on to primary sources from the time of Richard III which included personal letters and Parliamentary reports. From the new sources he encountered, which were less likely to have politically motivated bias, Alan sees a kinder and more caring side of Richard III, as well as the fallacies within the “history” of the murders of the two princes by the orders of Richard III.

Tey: History is Made By Those Who Follow

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Tey attempts to portray Richard III in a positive light, I am a befuddled as to her avenue of approach. She uses the novel as a format from which she can critique prior histories of Richard without actually establishing a solid thesis. By not establishing a thesis, Tey is able to use a train of thoughts in an attempt to demonstrate Richard as he truly was. While this works wonderfully for an attempt at solving out a “conspiracy theory”, this does nothing to create an actual fact-based historical argument.

Tey does do a solid job, however, on the explanation on how history is shaped and why it is shaped in the ways that we see today. If Richard III was as benevolent as Tey establishes, the Tudor’s depiction of Richard as a murderous tyrant reverberates across a common thread in history: people are what those who follow portray them as. While children for the past hundred years or so have learned that George Washington was an excellent general or  Abraham Lincoln believed in the need for equality between white men and enslaved blacks, it is only because we who have followed in the footsteps of these men have painted them to be that way.

I must admit, having read the various pieces of historical fiction lying around in AHEC’s gift shop, that Tey presents her take on history in an interesting way. By using the detective figure, she can use police methodology to create an interesting chain of thought to “solve” what truly happened. But by using this, Tey also creates her biggest fault; deductive reasoning. With Grant trying to solve history as if it were a crime, his method of reasoning goes against even the basic historical principles. By creating history based on what he thinks must have happened in the missing spaces rather than using the documents to prove what happened in the spaces, Tey through Grant takes what may or may not have been a possible position on Richard III and ruins all of her credibility. But as a historical novel? Tey manages to deliver a solid reading experience sure to intrigue even those with no interest in Medieval England.

The Usual Suspect

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Carl Becker would be rather proud of Detective Grant—rather than a bespectacled academic pondering a weighty tome, the historian hero of Daughter of Time is a gruff, battered, longtime veteran of Scotland Yard who by his own admission gave little and less thought to history after his schooling. However, he finds himself unraveling a mystery of a rather different sort when a portrait of Richard III makes him question everything he thought he knew about the key.

Grant’s attempts to discover the truth behind Richard are quite interesting, demonstrating many historian’s techniques and thought processes, all from his hospital bed, with the aid of his American friend Brent. So too does he demonstrate the pitfalls of historical accounts relying on one another, with the case of More’s inaccurate portrayal of Richard being used by everyone else after him and thus tainting the truth of the man.

And another [case of Tonypandy] bites the dust

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How does a bedridden cop crack one of the biggest mysteries in English history? Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time illuminates what it means to “do” history. When the protagonist Detective Grant becomes intrigued with a portrait of Richard III and the horrendous crime the medieval monarch is supposed to have committed, he sets out to uncover what really happened.

From http://www.guardian.co.uk.

Grant soon finds that modern sources are unable to adequately explain how or why Richard III might’ve murdered his two young nephews. In fact, while they portray a sinister and calculating king they also acknowledge his many admirable qualities and achievements; it is this apparent contradiction that spurs Grant to dig deeper.

The detective is scandalized to find out that Sir Thomas More’s History of King Richard III, a contemporary account and the definitive history of the period, is nothing but a regurgitation of another’s story; More was only a boy during Richard’s reign. Interrogating sources is an important part of a historian’s work. We must seek to contextualize documents and not simply take them at face value. The questions we are currently asking in our archive assignment are a good guide: Who created the document and when? Who is the intended audience? What is the intended purpose of the document? Etc.

Grant is finally able to get his hands on some primary sources with the help of his sidekick-researcher Brent Carradine. Little by little, he pieces together the puzzle of the past. In some cases, what sources don’t say is as important as what they do say: in Henry Tudor’s Bill of Attainder against Richard, the new monarch makes no mention whatsoever of his predecessor’s crime.

Another notable aspect of Grant’s historical journey is that he talks with his companions and colleagues, much like a historian might dialogue with her peers. He shows us the importance of reasoning out loud and bouncing your ideas off of others.

In the end, Grant outlines the evidence he has amassed and builds his case. The driving question guiding the detective’s research: who had the profile and the motives to dispose of the princes? Was it the long-accused Richard III or his successor the usurping Henry VII who killed Edward’s two sons? For Grant, the facts just didn’t stack up against Richard. He is widely-reported as having been a level-headed, just, and merciful king. Henry, on the other hand, was power hungry and crafty. We can almost never know exactly how history happened, but we can make informed theories about the past based on the evidence we have. Using the evidence and his knowledge of human nature, Grant busts the case of how a malicious rumor came to be accepted as truth.