The New Murrey and Blue blog

According to Francis Bacon, Truth is the Daughter of Time. But The Daughter of Time is also the title of a famous book by Josephine Tey which excels in both popularity and standard-bearing for Richard III. Just how many new supporters has it garnered for Richard III since it was first published in 1951? You only have to look on Amazon to see how many reprints, spin-offs etc. there are. (Read more about Tey and the book at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daughter_of_Time).

Tey’s plot concerns police detective Alan Grant, who is in hospital recovering from an injury. He’s bored rigid until a good friend stirs up his interest in Richard III, of whom, of course, Grant mainly knows only the Bard’s monstrous caricature, which the world somehow takes for historical fact!

By managing to call on the help of friends he discovers other records which call into question the usual version of Richard. It isn’t long before Grant begins to doubt all the usual accounts, realising they’re nothing but Tudor propaganda.

Henry Tudor (Henry VII) may have won at Bosworth in 1485 (with the help of turncoats who switched sides and literally stabbed poor Richard in the back on the battlefield) but he’s aware of needing far more to keep his usurping backside on the throne. Conquering Richard by treachery on the battlefield isn’t enough, his so-called blood claim has to have at least some substance. Enter his famous publicity agents, stage left…. Their mission? To demolish Richard’s honour and tear his reputation to shreds.

And a very good job they made of it….until the 20th century, when Alan Grant in his hospital bed sees More, Shakespeare & Co for the Tudor propagandists extraordinaires they really are. His modern-day investigation complete, he concludes in Richard’s favour, clearing him of murdering his little nephews and so on. So, after all these centuries, Truth really is the Daughter of Time.

Tey’s book has been reprinted heaven knows how many times, and has never been out of print. Now it has the accolade of being turned into a play.

The play of the book is to be performed at the Knutsford Little Theatre between Wednesday 23 April 2025 and Saturday, 3 May 2025, with various dates in between. To read how to see it (dates, times and prices), go to this link: https://shorturl.at/aZBuz

by viscountessw