The Book That Started it All

I can't imagine that it's often that someone can point to one moment or one item that started a life long love of something.  In my case, I can.  I know the book that started my love of Tudor history.  My Gran pulled it off her shelf one day when I was eight or nine and said "here, read this."  At this point, I generally listened when I was handed a book, although I didn't always know if I would like them.  For instance, the book my Gran handed me that day, The Daughter of Time, is one that I love, but she tried to get me to read another one by the same author, Josephine Tey, but I couldn't get into that one at all.

The Daughter of Time centers around a detective, Alan Grant, who has been injured and is bed bound.  He's brought a collection of portraits and paintings and such, and he comes across the face of Richard III, and learns of the mystery of the Princes in the Tower, one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of history.  In 1483, the twelve year old King Edward V and his younger brother, the 9 year old Duke of York, Richard, were placed in the Tower of London by their uncle and Lord Protector, Richard, Duke of Gloucester.  Not long after they were taken to the Tower, Richard deposed Edward and took the throne.  The boys were seen at the Tower at the beginning of the summer but were then seen less and less until they completely disappeared by mid to late summer.  The last reported sighting of the boys was in July of that year.  Many claimed that the boys had been killed by their uncle.

No one truly knows what happened to the Princes, although in different places in the Tower the remains of children have been found.  The 1625 renovations of the Tower discovered the skeletons of two children under a stairwell in the White Tower, and Charles II, the king at the time, believed them to be the bones of the Princes.  They were interred in Westminster Abbey, and only once since in 1933 were the skeletons examined and they were found to be the right ages for the Princes, but no testing has been done or authorized since to confirm their identities.

Perhaps thanks to William Shakespeare's play Richard III, history has long believed that Richard is responsible for the death of the two young boys, but Tey's detective, Grant puzzles out an interesting theory.  Richard had very little to gain from killing his nephews.  He suggests another candidate.  The logical argument he presents, without giving away his chosen suspect, is what got me interested in history, and the Tudors specifically.  The way in which different events and different pieces of evidence can be interpreted is absolutely fascinating.  I try to think outside the box when presente4ed with historical questions, and it is thanks to my Gran and Josephine Tey.

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