by Josephine Tey
Simon and Schuster
206 pages
On August 22, 1485, King Richard III of England was killed by Henry Tudor's followers at the Battle of Bosworth Field. From that day forward, his name was a dirty word. Thanks to Tudor "historians," like William Shakespeare and Sir Thomas More, the picture of Richard III as a hunchbacked, murdering villain was the only one known to historians and students for hundreds of years. But with the publication of Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time in 1952, people began to revisit the traditional image of Richard III and challenge the supposed "facts" of his story.
Detective Alan Grant is in the hospital recovering from a broken leg and suffering from boredom. Knowing that Grant has always had a passion for faces, his friend Marta brings him a pile of portraits to keep him busy. The subjects of these portraits -- Lucrezia Borgia, Robert Dudley, and Richard III -- have always had some mystery surrounding them. Grant becomes fascinated with Richard III's portrait, wondering how such a pensive, troubled-looking man could be the famed Wicked Uncle of history. Though Richard has long been held responsible for the murder of his nephews, the two Princes in the Tower, Grant cannot believe that such a kind face could hide such an evil man.
With the help of his doctors, nurses, and a young American scholar, Grant reads through primary and secondary sources to form his own opinions. He considers the case the way he would a present-day one at Scotland Yard, trying to identify each suspect's motive and opportunity for murdering the young princes. In the end, he exonerates Richard and lays the blame on Henry Tudor instead.
Though there is no way we can know who really killed young Edward and Richard (if they were killed -- it is possible that they died of natural causes), Tey uses her novel to cleverly refute many traditionalist, anti-Richard arguments. Well-written and highly readable, The Daughter of Time is a classic from the Golden Age of mysteries. By putting forward her own ideas without insisting that they are fact, Josephine Tey encourages readers to do their own research and draw their own conclusions. Above all, she emphasizes that we will never learn the truth if we do not challenge the "facts" of history.
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For more about Richard III and the many mysteries surrounding him, visit the Richard III Society website. There you will find an online library of information and primary sources, as well as a suggested reading list.
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