The Daughter Of Time

Williams returns after lunch with the books Grant asked him to get. He couldn’t find a biography of Richard but has brought a biography of the king’s mother. He also brings the best history of England that the bookseller had in stock.

Grant starts reading the history book, which he finds slow going:

“He turned the pages and marveled how dull information is deprived of personality. The sorrows of humanity are no one’s sorrows […] A thousand people drowned in floods in China are news: a solitary child drowned in a pond is a tragedy” (52).

The only personal bit of information he can glean is that Edward visited his younger brothers every day. Grant speculates that Richard’s lifelong loyalty to his older brother, and future king, may have developed during this time in his childhood.

When Grant’s landlady, Mrs. Tinker, arrives for a visit, he asks her opinion of Richard. She tells him that Richard personally smothered his nephews. Rather than contradict her knowledge of the facts, he asks her to get a message to Marta requesting that she find a copy of Sir Thomas More’s History of Richard III. He hopes that More can shed some light on Richard’s character.