If you have access to a British history school text (which I don’t), would you please look up Richard III and let me know in comments whether it reports him as the murderer of the Princes in The Tower. In The Daughter of Time Josephine Tey – or rather one of the characters – claims that 40 million school books can’t be wrong but then goes on to argue that the traditional view of Richard III as a power-hungry, blood-thirsty hunchback is an utter fiction made credible by Thomas More and given the stamp of authenticity by William Shakespeare. What to believe? Let’s come back to that.
Alan Grant, an inspector from Scotland Yard, is confined to his hospital bed with a broken back. He is firmly of the belief that you can tell a lot about a man from his face. His friend brings him a series of portraits to keep him occupied and he is particularly fascinated by one of Richard III but he can’t reconcile the picture with the man’s reputation. Aided by his nurses, his doctors and finally, an American research student, Grant delves into the historical evidence with increasing sympathy for Richard and less and less for “the sainted More” before finally adjudging him innocence of the heinous murder of his nephews. He decides that Richard’s successor Henry VII is the guilty one.
It’s a fascinating read but I feel that it’s on the back of the Richard III enigma that Tey’s novel was ranked by the Mystery Writers of America as fourth in a poll of the hundred best mystery tales ever written. With Grant in the hospital and all the research happening off page so-to-speak, the telling is somewhat static – actually clumsy and plodding in parts. All telling, no showing. No denying, however, it’s a good mystery.
And Tey makes a persuasive case. BUT and it’s a big one. The story of Richard III is not the only revisionist history in these pages. Tey develops a theme – tonypandy – about historical events that are well-accepted but not reported accurately. Such as the events in 1910 in Tonypandy, South Wales.
‘If you go to South Wales you will hear that, in 1910, the Government used troops to shoot down Welsh miners who were striking for their rights. You’ll probably hear that Winston Churchill, who was Home Secretary at the time, was responsible. South Wales, you will be told, will never forget Tonypandy!
Tey disputes that the troops ever opened fire. Similarly with the Scottish Convenanters, who it is claimed did not die for their faith but for acts of terrorism. Particularly controversial is the claim that the Martyrs of Wigtown did not die at all. Now had Tey not been Scottish I would had dismissed these claims out of hand because there are memorials to the Covenanters all over the place in this area of Scotland, including the 800 years old Covenanter’s Oak, the oldest living organism in North Lanarkshire. Is it truly a case of
the final irony, you know, that a group whose name was anathema to the rest of Scotland in their own time should have been elevated into the position of saints and martyrs.
Now the seeds of doubt are sown, so when I come to the end of Tey’s novel, I want to double-check what contemporary British historians are saying about Richard III. How to reconcile Alan Grant’s final character analysis
Excellent record in public service, and good reputation in private life. Salient characteristic as indicated by his actions: good sense.
with Simon Schama’s in The History of Britain Vol I:
a godly fanatic, devoted to wiping out the unworthy, beginning with Edward IV’s in-laws, and his own inconvenient nephews, so that he might institute the reign of piety and justice in England.
And lest we forget, the US Court of Justice declared Richard III not guilty in a mock trial in 1997. More research is obviously called for, beginning with the website of the Richard III society and Alison Weir’s The Princes in The Tower. In the meantime, however, let’s have a little fun. Please vote in the following poll. I’d love to know the prevailing view of Lizzy’s Literary Life readers.
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Lizzy's Literary Life (Volume One) 
You’re right that this book’s fame rests entirely on the fascinating mystery of Richard III. There’s nothing in the way of action or even traditional detection. But I was totally fascinated by the questions it raises about how we know what we know about the past.
When I went to the Tower of London a couple of years ago, they had an exhibit on the Princes in the Tower and allowed visitors to vote on who they thought did it. If I recall correctly, it was a dead heat between Richard III and Henry VI.
Great review — I tried to read this book a long time ago and found it daunting because it seemed so overly cerebral. Your additional historical information was a nice touch!
I like how you tackled this review and the poll especially. Not sure if I’ll read the book but thanks for the review.
What I think is interesting about “The Daughter of Time,” and the reason why it is so highly regarded, is Tey’s application of mystery-story-solving techniques to a historical mystery. In the final chapter of the book, she acknowledges that the debate over whether Richard or Henry VI was responsible for the murders of the princes has been raging since the time of the Stuart kings – as she puts it, “As soon as the Tudors were gone and it was safe to talk.”
As you and other of your commenters have pointed out, this is very definitely a cerebral mystery – there’s not much action. Personally, I enjoyed the book, but I think your review is quite fair.
I loved this book, and reading around the subject for my review last year, was surprised to find that it was Sir Thomas More’s hatchet job of Dick3 that inspired Shakespeare, and even More wasn’t a contemporary. Apparently Weir is a firm believer that he did murder the princes, but a well-thought of book I read by Audrey Williamson called ‘The Mystery of the Princes’ was much more balanced and reckoned he probably didn’t!
Weir wrote the introduction to the Folio Society edition of The Daughter in Time . She reveals that Tey’s novel, which she discovered in her teens, influenced her thinking for many years. It wasn’t until she examined the evidence that she discovered how selective Tey’s evidence and how suspect her assertions are. I’ve put Weir’s The Princes in the Tower which I read many moons ago on the to-be-reread pile.
I loved this book too, although it made me take a far dimmer view of St. Thomas More than I had previously. I can see how you might not enjoy it that much, though, as you’re right in saying it’s a lot of exposition. I’m about to start reading my second Josephine Tey novel, so I’ll have a better idea in a few days of whether she’s a really good writer. 🙂
This book is on my TBR list. I had no idea that it had anything to do with The Covenanters and as one of my ancestors was a Covenanter I’m intrigued by your review. I think it could be that Scottish Catholic/Protestant stuff rearing its ugly head. I don’t know if Tey was a Catholic but I’ve certainly never known a Josephine who wasn’t, although she was really Elizabeth. As she came from Inverness maybe she was a bit of a Jacobite. Maybe she was doing a bit of rewriting of history. The Covenanters were certainly a majority in Scotland.
Hi Katrina
Covenanter history is touched upon only as another example of “tonypandy” – history that has been twisted. So Tey is offering a revisionist view.
It’s one I’d like to follow up on – so if anyone can recommend a good history of the Covenanters, please do so!
What an interesting sounding book! I’m not much of a mystery reader but a mystery based on a historical happening is intriguing. I have heard Richard III killed his nephews and I have heard that he didn’t. Perhaps we will never know the truth for certain.
I loved this book when I read it last year because I love the study of history, as well as a good classic cozy mystery. So this combined those two in a marvelous way for me and is one of my top favourite mysteries, but I can see how it might not be of interest to everyone. I was curious to know if she was right about Richard III afterwards, but I also found it fascinating that she could take something that seems to be common knowledge and turn it on its head.
I did not understand why this was called the daughter of time. what does the title refer to?
It is a quote from an old proverb: “Truth is the daughter of time.”
I read this book for the first time many years ago, and have read it once or twice since then; it is, as stated in the review, a little on the clunky side as far as writing goes but fascinating in its subject matter. While Tey was, as Alison Weir claimed, undoubtedly biased, that doesn’t necessarily make her wrong. And since Alison Weir has made the majority of her fame and money from writing about the Tudor dynasty…well, let she who doesn’t write with an agenda throw the first stone.