Reconstructing Richard
What history got wrong Josephine Tey attempts to
make right in this polemic disguised as a police procedural. Your miles may
vary, but for me this was a tedious read even when I found worthwhile Tey's
arguments regarding the nature of one of Great Britain's most infamous rulers.
Inspector Alan Grant, laid up with a broken leg after pursuing a criminal and stuck staring at the ceiling, kills time by investigating a double murder that occurred nearly 500 years before. Using a number of books at his bedside, as well as the research abilities of an able assistant, he probes the question of Richard III.
Was he really as bad a fellow as history said? What was the real
story of his most famous crime, murdering two boys, his crown's rightful heir Prince Edward and his younger brother Duke Richard, in the Tower of London?
Tey's own take: History is written by the victors. That it's not an especially new idea doesn't seem to stop her from congratulating herself, over and over, for making people uncomfortable as she challenges the official story; namely, in 1951 when The Daughter Of Time was published, that Richard III was a horrible man who murdered two boys in cold blood.
"It's an odd thing but when you tell someone the true facts of a mythical tale they are indignant not with the teller but with you," one of Grant's like-minded friends tell him. "They don't want to have their ideas upset."
The only thing for sure I know about the Princes' murder is I didn't do it. Beyond that, I'm open to suggestions.
Tey actually presents the facts pretty well, albeit assuming knowledge of Richard III on the reader's part going in that might well hang you up. Her case is twofold. The first part, which I had no problem going along with, is that the Princes were likely victims not of Richard but of the man who usurped his throne, Henry VII, who enjoyed a long and markedly ruthless reign even by the sordid standards of that day.
Henry VII was the king who introduced the Star Chamber, a legendarily harsh judiciary body beholden to the king alone, and set about executing various enemies and suspected enemies with abandon. The two princes would have fallen under this latter category, surely. As Henry VII apparently made no mention of their fate immediately after taking control of Great Britain, when such a claim would have done him the most political good, it stands to reason as Tey sees it that he might have not had a case for Richard killing them. This would take time, and the good works of such willing lackeys as the "sainted Thomas More," as Grant often sarcastically calls him, whose version of the Richard III story was the basis of Shakespeare's famous play.
Besides, Tey notes, More was but eight when Richard III fell at the Battle of Bosworth Field. "Everything in that history had been hearsay," she notes.
It's a strong case for dismissing More's version of events. To the point that he interviewed contemporaries of Richard in compiling it, Tey responds through Grant's internal monologue that the More history "has an aroma of back-stair gossip and servants' spying" which renders it more emotional than analytical.
Moreover, the slaying of young Edward and Richard by their uncle made little sense, as Grant and Tey perceive it. England at the time was "lousy with heirs," a number of people who had claims to the throne, none of whom were officially disinherited from ascension as Edward and Richard were thanks to their uncle and his allies.
"It was brought home to him [Grant] for the first time not only what a useless thing the murder of the boys would have been, but what a silly thing," Tey notes.
Of course, this line of thought requires one to put aside the wherefores of Richard III having young Edward's claim to the crown dissolved, and also the possibility, as Shakespeare and More among other aver, that the crown would have rested less comfortably on Richard's head with the boys still alive. Tey makes clear that Richard III never made known the fate of the boys, and so that puts him in the clear as far as she is concerned. Killing the boys would have done Richard III little good if he couldn't make public they weren't around to challenge his rule.
The second half of Tey's case, much more problematic, is that Richard was actually a good king, beloved by his people and tenderhearted to his enemies, to the point at which it became his undoing.
Grant is especially caught up with Richard's face, as presented in his most famous portrait, as being too unlike that of a murderer. It's a strange place to go for making a claim of wronged innocence, but Tey goes there, early and often.
Tey's own take: History is written by the victors. That it's not an especially new idea doesn't seem to stop her from congratulating herself, over and over, for making people uncomfortable as she challenges the official story; namely, in 1951 when The Daughter Of Time was published, that Richard III was a horrible man who murdered two boys in cold blood.
"It's an odd thing but when you tell someone the true facts of a mythical tale they are indignant not with the teller but with you," one of Grant's like-minded friends tell him. "They don't want to have their ideas upset."
The only thing for sure I know about the Princes' murder is I didn't do it. Beyond that, I'm open to suggestions.
Tey actually presents the facts pretty well, albeit assuming knowledge of Richard III on the reader's part going in that might well hang you up. Her case is twofold. The first part, which I had no problem going along with, is that the Princes were likely victims not of Richard but of the man who usurped his throne, Henry VII, who enjoyed a long and markedly ruthless reign even by the sordid standards of that day.
Henry VII was the king who introduced the Star Chamber, a legendarily harsh judiciary body beholden to the king alone, and set about executing various enemies and suspected enemies with abandon. The two princes would have fallen under this latter category, surely. As Henry VII apparently made no mention of their fate immediately after taking control of Great Britain, when such a claim would have done him the most political good, it stands to reason as Tey sees it that he might have not had a case for Richard killing them. This would take time, and the good works of such willing lackeys as the "sainted Thomas More," as Grant often sarcastically calls him, whose version of the Richard III story was the basis of Shakespeare's famous play.
Besides, Tey notes, More was but eight when Richard III fell at the Battle of Bosworth Field. "Everything in that history had been hearsay," she notes.
It's a strong case for dismissing More's version of events. To the point that he interviewed contemporaries of Richard in compiling it, Tey responds through Grant's internal monologue that the More history "has an aroma of back-stair gossip and servants' spying" which renders it more emotional than analytical.
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Richard III as taken from a famous portrait of
him in the National Portrait Gallery. It is a representation of this painting
that sets Alan Grant off on his quest to vindicate the slain monarch in The Daughter Of Time. Image from https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw05304/King-Richard-III
|
"It was brought home to him [Grant] for the first time not only what a useless thing the murder of the boys would have been, but what a silly thing," Tey notes.
Of course, this line of thought requires one to put aside the wherefores of Richard III having young Edward's claim to the crown dissolved, and also the possibility, as Shakespeare and More among other aver, that the crown would have rested less comfortably on Richard's head with the boys still alive. Tey makes clear that Richard III never made known the fate of the boys, and so that puts him in the clear as far as she is concerned. Killing the boys would have done Richard III little good if he couldn't make public they weren't around to challenge his rule.
The second half of Tey's case, much more problematic, is that Richard was actually a good king, beloved by his people and tenderhearted to his enemies, to the point at which it became his undoing.
Grant is especially caught up with Richard's face, as presented in his most famous portrait, as being too unlike that of a murderer. It's a strange place to go for making a claim of wronged innocence, but Tey goes there, early and often.
"When you first look at it you think it a mean, suspicious face," a friend of his observes. "Even cantankerous. But when you look at it a little longer you find that it isn't like that at all. It is quite calm. It is really quite a gentle face."
Reading Richard III's correspondence, Grant comes to the conclusion that he was an unusually wise and judicious monarch of his time, not concerned with retribution. Why, if he killed the two boys, would he then marry their sister?
Tey goes on to challenge the entirety of Richard III's legacy, that of the "original Wicked Uncle" who conspired foully at every turn to make himself king. She questions the "myth" of his hunched back and withered arm, which Shakespeare makes the external basis for his underlying villainy.
"It appears that he had no visible deformity," is how Grant puts it. "At least none that mattered. His left shoulder was lower than his right, that was all."
This is not a conclusion that would stand the test of time. In 2012, excavators in Leicester found a skeleton that turned out to be, following analysis concluded the following February, that of the slain monarch. His left shoulder was lower than his right, but the remains also indicated severe scoliosis of the spine, which would have likely rendered him hunchbacked. None of this proves Richard's culpability in any crimes; if anything it makes his brief rule seem something of a feat against nature. But it shows that there was a factual basis for at least one legendary aspect of Richard's legacy which Tey attacks here.
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| The resting place of Richard III's body at Leichester Cathedral, after being exhumed from a Leichester parking lot. His first resting place, a church, was demolished in the 16th century. Over time, a legend grew his bones had been dumped in a river. Now he has visiting hours. Image from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhumation_and_reburial_of_Richard_III_of_England |
"Where would one have to go to meet a woman who became matey with the murderer of her two boys?" Grant asks an actress friend of his, Marta Hallard.
"Greece, I should think," Marta replies. "Ancient Greece."
That line made me laugh, but it is circumstantial in making Tey's case. Elizabeth Woodville did run away from Richard, yes, but she also went along with Henry VII's usurpation, which put her own daughter off the throne. The record suggests she was making the best of a bad bargain that way, not to mention putting paid to old grudges.
Throughout the book, Tey has Grant denounce the historical record, comfortably and repetitively, with much smug sarcasm. It was a weight that grew on me with every page.
"That is why historians surprise me," he tells Marta. "They seem to have no talent for the likeliness of any situation. They see history like a peep-show; with two-dimensional figures against a distant background."
This is an ironic complaint when one considers the nature of The Daughter Of Time itself. The book is full of single-dimensional figures set against the very distant background of a hospital ward, having a one-way discussion which amounts to praising Richard III by condemning everyone else.
Where The Daughter Of Time falters most for me is in this way, not because of the history but because of the fiction. It's a dull read, spent watching a guy read in bed and make sardonic observations to himself and his friends. Tey's tone throughout is smug and arch, with only views that support hers getting any serious consideration. I had to do some Googling to find that some of her contentions, like the absence of reports on the Princes' disappearance in Richard's lifetime and the gentleness of his reign, ain't necessarily so, but I don't think that matters much.
JFK is a pretty good film, but have you tried Googling it? Director-screenwriter Oliver Stone presents howlers in the guise of truth, but at least he does this in an entertaining, thoroughly dynamic fashion that leaves you spellbound while you take it all in. The Daughter Of Time is not like that at all, unless you find something galvanizing in people having at the official record of a long-ago tale. I needed more, and wasn't getting it here.
About the only drama in the entire book is Grant's contentious relations with the hospital attendants. Alas, my sympathies were all with them. Keeping company with someone while they sigh and titter for chapters at a time is no easy matter; at least I could put the book away and ignore it for a while. It was something I wound up doing here a lot.
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