Getting Over the Hump

"For thirty years, over this green uncrowded land, The Wars of the Roses had been fought. But it had been more of a blood feud than a war. ... It was a small concentrated war; almost a private party."

(page 44)

Book review, Title The Daughter Of Time, Author Josephine Tey, Rating 3.5, Getting Over the Hump

The Daughter Of Time Josephine Tey Book review

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My mother read Josephine Tey novels when I was growing up, but I was not tempted to follow in her stead. Her mystery novels held little interest, but recently I noted that one of them, The Daughter of Time, was an historical novel probing the old accusation that Richard III had murdered his young nephews, and so, curiosity piqued, I determined to read it. I found the tone a little too arch, but her historiographical approach was both edifiying and revealing.

Edifying via the skepticism applied to the motivation of historians and even to the chroniclers, those original sources: Tudor historians could scarcely be trusted to provide an unbiased account of the Plantagenet man from whom they seized the throne. Her approach to the evidence was to speculate about the likely motivations of the main actors, be they Lancaster, York or Tudor, and point out the unlikely conclusions historians have made based on said motivations.

Revealing in that her overall conclusions seem as skewed as Shakespeare’s was. Shakespeare, who’s famous portrait of Richard III was drawn from Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and Thomas More’s History of Richard III, depicted a usurper, a monster both in physical form and in the ruthless actions he performed to reach the throne illegitimately, killing the rightful heirs, his young nephews. Of course each of these wrote under Tudor reign. Tey’s portrait was of a good and capable man who legitimately ascended the throne, was falsely accused of murdering the disputed heirs to the throne, and was betrayed by those around him, rivals who ironically engineered the usurpation of his legitimate reign and destroyed his reputation to cover up their own foul deeds.

The truth lies between. Richard was a capable leader who did what the kings of England did: seek power by means fair and foul. Did he kill his nephews, the next in line for the throne? There remains no clear evidence of the cause of their deaths. But Richard did have others killed in his quest for power, just as many of his predecessors did in their time, and which his successor Henry VII did in his own grasp for power, including of course, Richard himself. Tey argues that Richard himself did not usurp, but that his nephews had been demonstrated to be illegitimate, thus putting him in line for the throne. Certainly that is what Richard presented to Parliament, who were persuaded to issue a law making Richard the heir. Tey asserts that Richard’s Parliamentary case for legitimacy was justified; most historians disagree. Yet on this point rests Tey’s main argument.

There seems little doubt that Richard was not the monster he is described in most histories; he was ruthless in his pursuit of power, but no more so than others, including his usurper Henry Tudor. Henry Tudor, himself far from the direct line for the throne, killed the sitting king, then worked assiduously and largely successfully to sully the historical reputation of Richard III.