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Thread: Not Guilty!?

  1. #1
    Ecurb Ecurb's Avatar
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    Not Guilty!?

    I recently listened to a audio book entitled "The Daughter of Time" by Josephine Tey. Tey apparently writes mystery novels, and in this one her fictional detective (whose name I can't remember and can't look up because the book is on CDs atthe library) investigates the disappearance of the two Princes which Shakespeare and others suggest resulted from them being murdered by their uncle, Richard III. Tey's sleuth finds this incredible, and thinks Henry VII is the villainous murderer. He digs up a great deal of evidence, most of which I can no longer recall, but it's all persuasive. In addition, he thinks Richard wasn't a humpback, and was in most respects admirable.

    Among the evidence pointing to Henry is the fact that he exiled, murdered or executed everyone he could lay his hands on who had any Plantaginet claim to the throne. He also sent the Prince's mother off to a nunnery, whereas Richard treated her very well. He ascribes the "Richard murdered them" theory to Thomas More, who, he discovers, didn't write the book in which he makes that claim, but merely copied it from the writings of John Morton, archbishop under Henry VII and inventor of the notorious "Morton's Fork" (as tax collector he claimed that those living modestly must be saving money, and could thus pay taxes, and those living extravagantly must be rich, and could do the same). Tey's detective refers to More (sarcastically) as "The Sainted More".

    The book provides a convincing case, but I have no idea how persuasive the opposing argument (if well argued) might be.

  2. #2
    Registered User kev67's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ecurb View Post
    He digs up a great deal of evidence, most of which I can no longer recall, but it's all persuasive. In addition, he thinks Richard wasn't a humpback, and was in most respects admirable.
    Incredibly, his skeleton was found underr a car park in Leicester. He did have curvature of the spine.
    According to Aldous Huxley, D.H. Lawrence once said that Balzac was 'a gigantic dwarf', and in a sense the same is true of Dickens.
    Charles Dickens, by George Orwell

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    Ecurb Ecurb's Avatar
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    I remember reading about that (although I'd forgotten until you mentioned it). Tey (in the person of her detective) thinks Richard was perhaps mildly deformed (especially compared to his handsome brother Edward) but it wasn't so bad. In addition, Tey thinks that Richard had nothing to gain from murdering the Princes (because the Princes had already been declared illegitimate), and that when Henry became King and published all sorts of calumnies against Richard, he would have mentioned the Princes if there was any suspicion that Richard had murdered them.

    After reading the novel, I support a return to Plantaginet rule.

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    Inexplicably Undiscovered
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ecurb View Post
    After reading the novel, I support a return to Plantaginet rule.

    "Is Margaret Plantagenet?"

    "No, Sire. Alas, she's still alive."

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    Well, Shakespeare was not a historian. It wasn't at all his priority. Macbeth, for example, didn't kill Duncan in his sleep. He killed him, but on the field of battle. Dick III may have been as ruthless as they say, but the War of the Roses was hardly the teddy bear's picnic (and Henry Tudor was no Cub Scout). I suppose he was admirable in that he was trying to bring peace to the realm, but that's not saying much. They all wanted to win.
    Last edited by Pompey Bum; 08-27-2019 at 11:43 AM.

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    He was always thinking of his brother's soul, or of the souls of those who differed with him in opinion:

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    ......

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    Registered User prendrelemick's Avatar
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    I don't know, I always think we try to over complicate stuff. The princes were in Richard's care and they disappeared. To lose one prince is unfortunate, to lose two..
    ay up

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    On the road, but not! Danik 2016's Avatar
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    Anyway, such things must be proved. We live in a time where the old truths are with frequency turned upside down. Ok, but where are the evidences?

    Loved the picture of the sheep!
    "I seemed to have sensed also from an early age that some of my experiences as a reader would change me more as a person than would many an event in the world where I sat and read. "
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    Ecurb Ecurb's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by prendrelemick View Post
    I don't know, I always think we try to over complicate stuff. The princes were in Richard's care and they disappeared. To lose one prince is unfortunate, to lose two..
    Tey (who is a mystery writer from 70 years ago, not a historian) proposes that the Princes did NOT disappear under Richard's care. No mention of their disappearance is made until after the Battle of Bosworth, and Richard's known treatment of their mother (and her acceptance of that treatment) argues that the Princes were alive and well until murdered under Henry the VIIth's tender ministrations. (I don't know anything about it, by the way, except what I just absorbed from a novel.)

  11. #11
    On the road, but not! Danik 2016's Avatar
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    "I seemed to have sensed also from an early age that some of my experiences as a reader would change me more as a person than would many an event in the world where I sat and read. "
    Gerald Murnane, Tamarisk Row

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