Maggie Pugh asked Sharon Kay Penman:

Sharon-my guess is that you've read Josephine Tey's Daughter of Time and wonder what your thoughts are. Do you agree with her conclusion?

Sharon Kay Penman Hi, Maggie. Yes, I have indeed read Daughter of Time and have often recommended it over the years. She did Richard a huge service with that novel, for she changed a lot of minds. But I do not agree with her Scotland Yard detective's conclusion. As readers of Sunne know, I believe the boys were killed in the summer of 1483 at the orders of the Duke of Buckingham. As I mentioned in the Sunne Author's Note, Richard had opportunity but no longer any motive and Henry Tudor had the motive but no opportunity. Only Buckingham had both. If Richard had concluded that the boys were a genuine threat to the peace of the realm and would have been able to order the death of his brother's sons (which I highly doubt, given what we know of the two men), he would never have gone about it in the way that would have done him the greatest possible damage. Even Richard's most bitter enemies never accused him of being an idiot! The disappearance of the boys gave him the worst of both worlds---he could not prove they were dead but neither could he prove that he'd had no part in their deaths. He would have arranged it the way Edward disposed of poor Henry VI, announcing that he'd died of "melancholy." No one believed it, of course, but neither could they prove otherwise; the same was true with the murders of Richard II and Edward II. Many believe that the boys survived and some are convinced that Perkin Warbeck was the younger prince, Richard. I do not. Nor do I think Henry Tudor was the guilty one. I have no doubt that they'd have died after Bosworth if they'd still been alive, for as soon as he legitimized Elizabeth of York, that act legitimized her brothers, too. I don't think he was ever able to find out what had happened to them. But it is very unlikely that we will ever know the truth, so it is impossible to say that any of these theories are wrong.

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