Based on the story The Daughter of Time, Josephine Tey displays how history can be misinterpreted through a simple twisted reinterpretation from the person that holds the power at the time. This book as well as The Historian’s Craft by Marc Bloch are readings that bring awareness to possibilities that require a bit of research before deeming anything true. The simple research process forced me to rethink the way I intake historical interpretations. While Tey’s book is fiction, it still creates an outline for ways to research facts for verification. Also, the book shows what happens when you don’t research information at all or correctly. Whenever a fact is presented, we all search for ways to tailor it into our own present beliefs. In an ideal world, if that new fact does not fit into what we already think we know, and we cannot find any reason to believe it is not really true, then eventually (to a certain extent) we alter our beliefs and the true story ends up untold.
Aversely, Alan Grant thinks there’s no real relation to anything in my opinion. Grant never really incorporates up-to-date evidence into his hypothesis unlike the way The Historian’s Crafts is detailed. However, he somehow incorporates his ideas into the new evidence he finds. Every detail happens to be explained in light of Grant’s presumptions. Whatever Grant has in mind is a requirement for the picture he envisions, even if he has to make the visions up in his head. It seemed to be a lot easier when Grant let the untimely images go unseen in his mind. Hearsay can certainly be converted into common perception, not really being accurate knowledge altogether.
In The Daughter of Time Josephine argues that all the many history school books couldn’t possibly be wrong, but soon after goes on saying that the conventional opinion of Richard III was fabrication made credible by Thomas More and given validity by William Shakespeare. Josephine Tey’s guidelines of historical inquiry develop as an inspector by the name of Alan Grant takes a look into a murder that involved the princes in the tower one day because he was bored due to an extensive hospital stay. Josephine Tey used Alan Grant to examine how History was brought to the public. Grant was also used to show how historians try to form truths to exhibit the argument they accept as true from their own understanding.
The inspector started investigating Richard III who was supposed to be responsible for the murder of his two nephews, the sons of his brother, Edward IV. He started collecting history books that he believed would provide understanding for Richard III’s horrible crime. The very first history book he got his hands on was said to have “bared the same relation to history as stories from the Bible bears to Holy Writ.” The book supposedly explained the story of the princes in the tower using small paragraphs and full pictures that taught a vital lesson but didn’t add any understanding to the actual story of Richard III. The second book he used during his investigation was a school history book. He realized that this book was just like all the other history school books which seemed to separate the stories of history into easily broken down sections connected by different reigns of power that do not cross or overlap. Bringing attention and focus to The Historian’s Craft where Bloch argues that history is an entire entity, where no topic or period of time can possibly be understood except in relation to other topics and periods of time. Also proving to make discoveries the duty of a true historian as in the book as well.
Grant soon realized that Richard III must’ve developed an exceeding personality to have become “one of the best-known rulers” in English history in a matter of only two years. Following his first day of investigation he discovered that “he was not a whit wiser about the two young Princes and their fate (J.Tey P.43) .”
Another display of the tools used from the historian toolbox would be when Grant became a bit more interested in the story about the princes. He started to be more anxious to get information about the King and both his nephews that he started asking around to get more historical books. Not only were the text that were found discoveries for such an investigator, but each piece forced him to do his own interpretation. One of his coworkers by the name of Sargent Williams brought him Tanner’s Constitutional History book. At first, he didn’t believe the book would be beneficial, but based on his own analysis, the book eventually brought him insight on Edward IV and his little brothers Richard and George. Grant also eventually explored a document titled The Rose of Raby, which was a historical story about Richard III’s mother during his discovery. All of which he used as evidence towards building his case.
Throughout the story Grant was continuously told that the most respected and accurate historical document on Richard III was Thomas More’s. He receives the text and it quickly angers him because he realizes Thomas More, had actually only been five years old at the time of the dramatic murders at the Tower of London and that everything in his history had been no more than rumor. This part of the reading was considered a part of the discovery process for me. He stated that “More was writing down in a Tudor England what someone had told him about events that happened in a Plantagenet England (J. Tey P. 88).” More’s account was not a contemporary account at all and this revelation both disgusts and inspires Grant. Even more of a discovery was for Grant to explore the reasoning behind what made Thomas More “Tick”, due to the fact that he was described as such an admirable person up until the moment of his brother’s death.
Grant finds out that Thomas More got all his information on Richard from Henry VII’s Arch bishop of Canterbury, John Morton, who was Richard’s nastiest rival, and the books about Richard that came along were all based on that. This demonstrated the use of analysis for Grand because he took the information and built his idea of the situation. Grant said Cuthbert writes off the concept that Richard had a hunchback, saying he only had a low left shoulder. Carradine thought the material from Thomas More’s reading came from some manuscript that might have been composed by Mr. John Morton. Grant then learns that Henry VII kept a Bill of Attainder against Richard prior to Parliament, holding Richard of tyranny & cruelty, but not saying anything about murder.
Carradine and Grant did another analysis where they compared the familiar belief of the slain nephews to the Boston Massacre and the believed gunned down of attackers by military troops in Wales where both were of course exaggerated gossips used for political advantage. They utilize the term Tonypandy (J. Tay P106) to describe the incidents where he expresses as facts: “The rougher section of the Rhondda valley crowd had got quite out of hand…,(J.Tey P.107).” As he resumes his investigation on the murders, Grant gives his thoughts on historians and their intentions which I noticed commonly used from The Historian’s Toolkit. He claims that historians tell us what people were thinking while “research workers stick to what they did.” This was pertaining to the explanation of Edward the IV’s death. Like a historian, Grant wanted more information on the crowd’s reaction to what happened since it would help in knowing how everyone reacted verses what everyone thought. Once again showing how everyone’s interpretation of the way things went was/is important.
Looking over lists of heirs to the thrown, Carradine conducts an analysis on her own where she learns the destinies of all of them, excluding the point that Grant questions historians and think they have no flair for the good of any situation. It wasn’t likely that Elizabeth Woodville would’ve acted like she did if both princes weren’t still living by the time she left, and it wasn’t very likely that if they were dead, Henry wouldn’t have been able to create a shocking topic from the outcome. Mr. Grant had a valid dispute when it came to who presented factual evidence based on philosophies documented by others, instead of considering the real data and accurate evidence.
In Conclusion, Grant eventually sums up the reasoning behind Henry’s shame over what happened with Richard III, not just by their distinct actions, but their personalities, Richard’s being fair, and Henry’s being heartless. Carradine believes Henry’s unexplained disappearing of the princes’ death verifies the entire case was based on no one truly knowing what occurred. Based on the Historian’s Craft I have concluded that exploring the guidelines of history through the research process encourages the way we critically think. Grant’s investigation reveals a lot about historical inquiry and the jobs of historians and researchers, and why true historians always stick to the facts while utilizing the tools of the toolkit. Grant felt there was too much trust on the ideas of historians. He accused them of depending on written books that could never be confirmed and have been widely accepted as certainty without any logical explanation. Grant investigated crime as if it happened that day and refused to just accept what had been ruled a definite historical fact which manipulated the way he consumed historical interpretations. Overall, everyone will continue to tailor facts into our own present beliefs like the evidence attained in the case, so the guidelines created previously in the handy Historian’s Toolkit would always be a go-to when it comes to historical inquiry.
Sources Cited
- Dominic Mancini,. Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing Limited, The Usurpation of Richard III in Richard III A Source Book, Keith Dockray (1997)
- Sir Thomas More, Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing Limited, The History of King Richard III in Richard III A Source Book, Keith Dockray (1997)
- Josephine Tey, New York: Simon & Schuster The Daughter of Time (1995)
