Brief overview:
★★★★✩
The Daughter of Time is a charming and highly readable historical mystery that has the ability to utterly change your worldview on history and truth. A thoroughly fascinating little book that is unique and groundbreaking in its genre, with natural, engaging dialogue between endearing characters, it’s no surprise to me that Tey’s historical reworking is a seminal classic in the crime fiction genre.
New word learnt: Unuxorious
Uxorious, adjective
: excessively fond of or submissive to a wife
Amusing and relatable quote:
“The book did not appear to Grant to be markedly hilarious, but anything about Richard was better than something about anyone else.” (pg. 176)
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I first met old Richard III, like many of us who study literature, on the pages of a play that was written in the late 16th century by William Shakespeare. In The Tragedy of Richard III, I was introduced to Richard the villain, the hunchback, the usurper, the child killer. The man that died at the battle of Bosworth to Henry Tudor crying for a horse. How terrible, you think after hours of reading snivelling, scheming Richard, that a man so lustful for power could murder his own nephews, those sweet little boys: King Edward V and Prince Richard, Duke of York!
It wasn’t until I started reading historical fiction other than Shakespeare's that I saw another side to Richard. In 2018, after the completion of my English degree, I found myself craving something easy and immersive to read after having just read every Shakespeare play (yes, all thirty-eight of them!), to scour and analyse stage directions for my dissertation.
It was then that I started dipping my toes into more recently written historical fiction. Because though I was still fascinated by history, I yearned for something…easy. Not a tome-length biography or a dense war book recounted in a thousand pages, I needed something less demanding. I was burnt out, and found myself reminiscing over those late night reading binges that I had in my youth, the torch under the covers, late into the night type of reading.
I needed a good old fashioned popcorn read. Because like many students of literature, I began studying for the love of reading, but my reading for pleasure dwindled to practically nothing whilst I studied, reading only set texts and having no spare time for my fun-reads.
But that was finally done now: I was a graduate! And what better way to celebrate than to rediscover my love of reading with a juicy medieval romance, or a scandalous regency courtship. Oh, how I longed to be whisked away to some old manor house or castle in the country!
But where to begin?
I had once read The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillipa Gregory as, like many young women interested in English history, I became fascinated with the enigmatic Anne Boleyn, her rise and fall and her mastery of feminine charm. I remember enjoying the story Gregory told through Anne’s sister Mary’s eyes. I found a different perspective of the iconic story rather enjoyable, quite satisfying and the historical exaggerations not just a little titillating.
Therefore, starting with Gregory was the obvious choice. I picked up The White Queen. It’s about Elizabeth Woodville, the gilt-haired widow that Edward IV married in secret. I didn’t know much about her other than what Shakespeare had suggested, which was frankly, not much. So why not get the Woodville perspective? (Side note: I always found it rather strange that Shakespeare never wrote a play on Edward IV, though I now have clearer feelings as to why that is!)
I loved it. I loved meeting the women behind the Wars of the Roses. I devoured all of the Plantagenet novels. Jacquetta! Elizabeth! Margaret Beaufort! Anne Neville! Princess Elizabeth! It was so much fun. More fun than I had had in a long time. Those books rediscovered my love of history, and I fell head over heels for the period…
And a certain Richard III. This romanticised retelling of his story had me captivated, especially after watching the TV show, because who couldn’t resist, when Aneurin Bernard was so perfectly, beautifully cast? When he looked at Anne Neville like that? Gregory had spun a perspective unlike the man from the play I thought I knew. An honorable, loyal, family oriented Richard Plantagenet. I was hooked.
I read everything I possibly could about him. Scoured the internet, read history books, watched documentaries, followed the story of the surprise discovery of his remains. Stumbled upon the Richard III society. It was all very entertaining - especially when I realised: what if, after all, the romanticized version I had become swept away with, was the truth?
Though I was intrigued by this clever, serious man hidden beneath a mask of villainy, I wasn’t entirely convinced. The cynic in me was stubborn. Because I understand why we romanticise things like this, I do it so often myself: it’s easy to do and a lot of fun - and having now seen many sides to Richard told both fictionally and historically, I understood that though yes, he was steadfastly loyal to his brother in his youth, he was still experienced enough by the time he was King to understand the danger of leaving potential heirs in play, the threat that imposed upon his throne.
Sometimes, the most simple solution to a mystery is the obvious one. And frankly, some members of the Richard III society are, in the politest way possible, aggressively delusional. I found their research interesting but there were instances of unkind comments and unnecessary wrath that I must admit, put me off and left me second guessing.
So, I went into Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time with a wealth of context and knowledge about its focal character, and I was still enthralled by the mystery and thoroughly enjoyed every revelation and discovery presented to me in every chapter.
The reader is introduced to Inspector Alan Grant, an injured police detective currently bed bound and confined to his hospital room due to a broken leg. After perusing history books and becoming intrigued by a picture of Richard III’s iconic portrait, he begins an investigation into historical events from the 15th century, the concluding years of the cousins war, and King Richard III’s downfall.
For someone like me, who isn’t the biggest fan of mysteries, murders and whodunnits, I was still able to appreciate and enjoy the unique way that this story was told. It was masterful, and certainly original, especially for such a formulaic genre as crime fiction. I can’t say I’ve ever come across another novel where a grumpy English copper breaks down the facts of a five hundred year old cold case alongside an eccentric American wannabe historian that needs something to do.
It all begins because the Inspector cannot fathom how a face such as Richard’s in his posthumous portrait could possibly be the evil tyrant from the history books. He falls headfirst into a conspiracy that has made the rounds since the fall of the Tudors: that perhaps Richard wasn’t so bad after all.
He is soon introduced to American Brent Carradine, a young man working at the British Museum researching the Peasants Revolt in Richard II’s time (side note: that’s another favorite Richard of mine.) The mystery of Richard III and the princes in the tower is then torn apart and put back together again, through rather charming and engaging conversations between them. The result of this unlikely duo is a chummy partnership to, as Tey wonderfully puts, “pursue their search for the soul of a murderer.” (pg. 94).
Who was Richard III?
They soon fall into a rhythm: Grant tells Carradine what he’d like him to look up, Carradine then returns a few days later with historical facts he has discovered, and then Grant uses his detective skills to uncover the impact and importance of each moment: each person in play, each movement, each precious piece of evidence, until they weave a rather believable alternative history.
That’s the soul of this story, two strangers, bonded by a historical mystery/injustice. They work together to discover an evidenced-based account of what happened to the Princes, and who Richard was.
The fervour that Inspector Grant develops throughout his investigation, and that Carradine eventually evolves too, is rather amusing: the outrage, disbelief and utter contempt towards figures such as Thomas More and John Morton, for their deliberate and purposeful besmirching of the truth of the historical record! Those myriad of emotions that all Ricardians encounter upon their own revelations of the apparent Tudor propaganda: how could such an injustice go uncorrected for so long? I recall my own feelings when discovering the potential truth. It was a shattering of everything I thought I knew. How could I believe any historical event if their outcomes are so easily rewritten?
After discovering a similar incident sent to him by his cousin Laura in a letter, a story ripe with proven historical inaccuracies that continues to go uncorrected, Grant says:
“The point is not that it is a parallel. The point is that every single man who was there knows that the story is nonsense, and yet it has never been contradicted. It will never be overtaken now. It is a completely untrue story grown to legend while the men who knew it to be untrue looked on and said nothing.”
“Yes. That’s very interesting; very. History as it is made.”
“Yes. History.” (pg. 102)
Grant and Carradine learn that Richard does not have a unique experience in being vilified, just as Alexander McCall Smith points out in his introduction, as so many historical figures are praised as heroes when their actions say otherwise. The can of worms has been well and truly opened.
Grant and Carradine decide to streamline their investigation by focusing on historical evidence only, no conjecture by other non-contemporary figures, simply recorded and logged information regarding the players, their movements and locations.
“After all, the truth of anything at all doesn’t lie in someone's account of it. It lies in all the small facts of the time. An advertisement in the paper. The sale of a house. The price of a ring.” (pg 103).
Their discoveries and conclusions are very well written and described, broken down simply to the reader for clarity of understanding. I try to imagine myself as someone with absolutely no prior knowledge of Richard’s history, though - how would I find reading this book then? Would it get confusing? I think it would depend, and fluctuate throughout the novel.
At the beginning of the book, Grant knows practically nothing of Richard and seeks the opinions of those around him that work in the hospital and visit him. He reads both fictional and nonfictional accounts, and his knowledge of the time rapidly increases. When Grant overtakes the reader in his knowledge, I can imagine it could become a little more difficult to contend with, as he references certain incidents and figures without much explanation as he attempts to get Carradine to the point of what he is suggesting. However, because the prose is so readable and the pacing so smooth, it aids the reader in being able to keep up.
I think the impact of this story would hit hardest to those who know only the villain Richard, or those who know nothing of him. On the other hand, I do think that the enjoyment of this book would be slightly higher for Ricardians such as myself - as experiencing somebody else, a detective even, discovering, reacting and giving credence to the very same historical inaccuracies you yourself were shocked by is certainly satisfying.
Grant brings up Richard to anyone that will listen, finds it uncomfortable and a bit distressing to discover that not everyone else cares as much as he does about what he has discovered. It’s a classic example of feeling alienated and disconnected from others around you, when something so monumental in your worldview shifts.
“He wanted to say: “But you of all people should be interested in what happens to royalty; in the frailness of your reputation’s worth. Tomorrow a whisper may destroy you.”” (pg. 110)
Though this book was written over seventy years ago, though Richard lived and died over five hundred years ago, the themes of these stories remain relevant and rather obvious. We cannot possibly know the truth of all that came before us, so how can we be sure to safeguard the truth to the historians of the future? What of legacy?
This story opens up an interesting and fascinating Pandora’s box. Now you know the truth of this particular figure - what of the others? Where does it end? I’m going to give this book to my Grandad, as I inherited my penchant for history from him. I think he will find this novel entertaining and enlightening, and we will certainly have much to discuss when we next go for breakfast together.
I would like to leave this review with a favourite quote from this book. It is about a page long, as Grant, like I myself and many history fans have done, dream of the old England these wars were fought over, an England unscathed by industrialism, where nature is King as much as the men that battled one another to wear the crown were:
“He lay and thought about that England. The England over which the Wars of the Roses had been fought. A green, green England; with not a chimney-stack from Cumberland to Cornwall. An England still unhedged, with great forests alive with game, and wide marshes thick with wild-fowl. An England with the same small group of dwellings repeated every few miles in endless permutation: castle, church, and cottages; monastery, church, and cottages; manor, church, and cottages. The strips of cultivation round the cluster of dwellings, and beyond that the greenness. The unbroken greenness. The deep-rutted lanes that ran from group to group, mired to bog in the winter and white with dust in the summer; decorated with wild roses or red with hawthorn as the seasons came and went.
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. A Montague and Capulet affair; of no great concern to the average Englishman. No one pushed in at your door to demand whether you were York or Lancaster and to hale you off to a concentration camp if your answer proved to be the wrong one for the occasion. It was a small concentrated war; almost a private party. They fought a battle in your lower meadow, and turned your kitchen into a dressing-station, and then moved off somewhere or other to fight a battle somewhere else, and a few weeks later you would hear what had happened at that battle, and you would have a family row about the result because your wife was probably Lancaster and you were perhaps York, and it was all rather like following rival football teams. No one persecuted you for being a Lancastrian or a Yorkist, any more than you would be persecuted for being an Arsenal fan or a Chelsea follower.
He was still thinking of that green England when he fell asleep.
And he was not a whit wiser about the two young Princes and their fate.” (pg. 32-33)
