Part I, of King Henry VI : —

" RICHARD PLANTAGENET :
Let him that is a true born gentleman
And stands upon the honour of his birth,
If he suppose that I have pleaded truth,
From off this brier pluck a white Rose with me.
SOMERSET :
Let him that is no coward and no flatterer, But dare maintain the party of the truth, Pluck a red Rose from off this thorn with me.
WARWICK :
I love no colours : and without all colour
Of base insinuating flattery
I pluck this white Rose with Plantagenet.
SUFFOLK :
I pluck this red Rose with young Somerset."
Emblem of the Rose in English History 323
Then came, as Shakespeare wrote : -
"The brawl to-day
Grown to this faction in the Temple Garden Shall send, between the red Rose and the white, A thousand souls to death and deadly night."
By some the red Rose is assigned originally to Eleanor of Provence, the queen of Henry III. The tomb of her second son, Edward, Lord of Lancaster, was covered with red Roses. Edward's son was the first Duke of Lancaster, and had on his seal a branch of Roses, and bequeathed to St. Paul's Cathedral his bed, " powdered with roses," which must have been fine indeed — but I wonder where and to what use it was put in the cathedral.
Edward IV placed the white Rose en soleil to commemorate his victory at the battle of Morti- mer's Cross, where the sun appeared to him
,, T, i j j Rose en Soleii; emblem of
like three suns and sud- Edward IV of England.
denly joyned altogether
into one," — a singular meteorological phenome- non which is believed to have actually occurred at that time and place.
Another Elizabethan dramatist, Drayton, wrote in his play, The Miseries of Queen Margarite, of this strange example of unusual physical forces: —
324 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
" Three suns were seen that instant to appear Which soon againe shut up themselves in one. So that thereby encouraging his men Once more he sets the white Rose up again."
The Rose en soleil appears on the Irish groats of this King Edward. An ancient initial with the de- sign of the Rose en soleil opens the chapter entitled The Rosicrucians. Edward's favorite badge was a gold collar of suns and Roses with the white Lion of March hanging from it, which must have been a seemly and a pleasing decoration. Edward IV was often called " the Rose of Rouen," he having been born in that town in 1441-42. He presented him- self in London when nineteen years old and claimed the English crown. Perhaps the fact that he was " the beautifullest prince of his time " helped his welcome. Agnes Strickland gives one of his coro- nation songs, which begins thus : —
"Now is the Rose of Rouen grown to great honour; Therefore sing wee everyone y-blessed be that flower. I warn ye everyone that ye shall onderstand There sprung a Rose in Rouen that opened in England. Had not the Rose of Rouen been, all England had been dour; Y-blessed be the time God ever spread that flower."
In Edward's reign was produced a beautiful new coin called the rose-noble. He issued this coin in honor of a famous victory by sea, thus referred to in an old ballad : —
" But King Edward made a Seige Royall And won the Town, and in speciall The Sea was kept, and thereof he was Lord. Thus made he Nobles coined of Record."
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Emblem of the Rose in English History 325
He was a distinct believer in magic arts, in alchemy in particular.
Either on this coin, or in one of the reign of Edward I, hangs a tale of magic. Both were ex- quisitely fine and beautiful, and so much gold was used in the whole coinage that the word quickly spread that it had been produced by the aid of magic. Camden says of the earlier coin : -
" Our alchemists doe affirm as an unwritten verity that the gold thereof was made by multiplication or projection alchemicall of Raymond Lully in the Tower of London.
A rose-noble was held to be a sort of amulet ; that the possession of one hindered the theft of a purse containing it.
The antiquary Ashmole gives a circumstantial account of the coming of Lully to England with Cremer, Archbishop of Canterbury, and of a con- tract with King Edward I to supply him with this coin for which the king pledged war against the Turks. The suspicious king " clapt him up ' in the Tower, where the coinage was finally carried out. I have told at some length the story of Lully and King Edward I in my chapter on the Rosicrucians.
By the time of Henry IV so strong was the belief in alchemy that laws were enacted limiting its employment. A serious message exists to a well- known coiner and alchemist, John French, in regard to IC p'ctising a true and p'f'table conclusion on cun- nyge of transmutacyon of metalls to own p'f't and pleasure." The said French was not to be " letted troubled or vexed of his labour for own p'f't."
326 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
Four of the rose-nobles of Edward IV weighed one ounce ; there were also double rose-nobles and half rose-nobles. Some of the smaller pieces bore the motto, Rosa sine spina. The gold coin of Henry VIII which bore the design of the Tudor Rose with the motto of the rose-noble is, I think, the most beautiful of all English coins. King James had several exquisite coins also, with a Thistie on
one side and a Rose on the other.
Richard III used the badge of a Rose en solei/, or a Rose with a Sun ; also a falcon with a maid- en's head here shown. Sometimes this falcon
Emblem of Richard III of England.
held a Rose. Another
favorite cognizance of the king was a boar, called coarsely by the king's haters a hog. Referring to this badge, a piece of doggerel rhyme was written which caused the beheading of its seditious author: —
" The Ratte, the Catte, and Lovell our Dogge Rule all England under the Hogge."
The king clung boldly and persistently to his badge ; for his second coronation he ordered and distributed thirteen thousand cognizances of fustian decorated with boars. He wore it till he died, bear- ing his standard with a boar — died with "both his legs cut him from " ; and then, when dead, was carried "like a hog-calf" hanging across his horse.
Emblem of the Rose in English History 327
Then all the boars speedily disappeared ; from standard or sign-board they were pulled down all over the kingdom. A few old inns afterward re- instated the " Blue Boar " or the " White Boar."
With the house of Tudor came in the Tudor Rose : —
" The rose of snow
Twined with her blushing foe,"
also a " Hawthorne bush fruited and ensigned with the royal crown proper between the letters H. R." This badge is shown on this page, and the device was chosen to commemorate the hiding of Richard's crown in a Hawthorn bush. It was found while he was being carried off " like a hog-calf," and thrust on his successor's head ; this on Crown Hill, which bears the name to this day. Truly those " blended Roses were bought dear."
The two Roses, the white and the red of the Tudor Rose, were worn in many ways, — sometimes per pale, sometimes quarterly, usually a white Rose charged on a red one ; often they were crowned or en soleil. On the marriage of Henry VII Fuller called it " that sweet posie wherein white and red Roses were first tied together."
Henry VIII added a cock, the badge of Wales, to the Rose, and had many other badges and devices. His first wife, Katherine of Aragon, had as a badge a pomegranate open, disclosing the Tudor Rose.
Emblem of
Henry VII of
England.
328 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
Emblem of Katherine of Aragon, first Queen of Henry VIII of England.
King Henry thus kept Christmas in the eighth year of his reign in honor of Katherine : there was set in the hall of his manor at Greenwich a " garden-artificie" called the " Garden of Esperance." Tow- ered at every corner, and railed with rails of gilt, the banks set with flowers of gold and silver with green satin leaves, this gar- den centred around a pillar of gold set with precious stones. " And at the top of the six-square pillar was an arch embowered around with gold within which stood a bush of roses red and white, all of silk and gold, and a bush of pome- granates of like stuff."
Anne Boleyn had a com- plicated device, shown on this page, — a combination of a stump of a tree, a silver falcon with a royal crown and sceptre. From the tree stump came a stiff spray of red and white roses. Her motto was, " To me and mine." No pageant was too extravagant, no honor too great, for King Henry VIII to display at her coronation. Katherine's Emblem of Anne Boleyn, garden-artifice seems but a
second Queen of Henry VIII D , •
of England. Poor thing m comparison.
Emblem of the Rose in English History 329
Descriptions by eye-witnesses tell of a glory of
color and music. There was " a costly and marvel-
lously cunning pageant " on the
water. Everywhere was seen
the queen's device ; on foists,
which were lightly built ships,
were " mounts bearing a white
faulcon crowned upon a roote
of golde environed with white
roses and red, which was the
queen's device, about which
mount sat virgins singing and
playing melodiously." These
foists were strung with streamers,
flags, and banners, edged with
little " lasserrers," or cords,
" hanged with innumerable little
bells at the end which made a goodly noyse, and was
a goodly sight wavering in the wind." The next day
the queen saw a similar exhibition: —
u A. goodly pageant with a tippe and heavenly Rose and under the tippe was a goodly roote of gold, set on a little Mountain environed with Red Roses and White, out of the tippe came down a faulcon all white, and set upon the roote ; and incontinently came down an angel with great melodic, and set a close crown of gold on the faulcon's head ; and in the same sat St. Ann, with all her issue ; and under Mary Cleophe sate her four children, of the which children one made a goodly ovation to the Queen."
Emblem of Jane Sey- mour, third Queen of Henry VIII of Eng- land.
Fountains of wine and conduits of sweet water ran everywhere ; cupboards of silver, displays of gems ;
330 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
angels and graces vied in singing praises ; hippocras and wafers were significantly partaken. All the clergy glorified her, all the duchesses and count- esses bowed before her, and there was not one who knew of that other terrible decrowning so soon to follow.
Poor Anne of Cleves had a fresh device, and the fatuous inscription on her wedding-ring was, " God
send me wel to kepe." Kath- erine Howard and Katherine Parr both had augmentation of arms, and an ugly device of a woman's head crowned, sur- mounting a segment of a triple Rose, which is here shown. Jane Seymour's motto was, "Bound to obey and serve," and a singular device of a castle, tree, phoenix, and Tudor Rose. It is shown on page 329.
Henry VIII's son Edward did not use the Rose in his cognizance, but Queen Mary had a singular badge, shown on page 331, composed from those of her parents. In it appeared the Tudor Rose, a sheaf of arrows, and a crown. Queen Elizabeth had for her badge a Rose crowned, for England ; a Fleur de Lis crowned, for France ; a harp ensigned with a crown, for Ireland. Many of the coins of her reign bore the figure of a Rose. " Bright-red Rose with- out a Thorn " is on some of her coins. I suppose no queen ever lived who more fancied complicated
Emblem of Katherine Parr, sixth Queen of Henry VIII of England.
Emblem of the Rose in English History 331
allegories, emblems, symbols, and devices ; they were an unconscious revelation, an evidence of the slyness of her nature.
James I had as a motto, " Blessed are the peaceful." With him the Scotch Thistle entered the royal badge ever to remain; and its representation on page 332 proves his badge a very pretty one.
On the coins struck for the coronation of Charles I, 1633, was a great Thistle with the motto : " Here grow our Roses." Oueen Anne had on her seal a Rose and Thistle springing from the same stem, and the motto, Concordes. The pres- ent royal badges were settled in 1 801, and that of England is a white Rose within the red Rose. Thus has the Rose felt the very heart- beat of English history.
May we not, then, in the recollection of all this allied Rose history, glow with the pleasure of retrospection allied to present gratification in the sight of a beau- tiful York and Lancaster Rose ? This storied Rose has been pushed aside for many years by the hybrid perpetual Roses ; but now that the love for old- fashioned flowers has risen with such force, it is again offered for sale, and promises to have much popularity. It is a brave creature, having a clean- cut, bold striping, and mingling of pure white and bright red. It is sturdy, too, in growth, not a cling-
Emblem of Queen Mary of England.
Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
ing, gentle flower, but one fit to be associated with
the history of wars.
The Rose we here call York and Lancaster was called Rose versicolor by Parkinson in his Paradius in Sole, Paradisus Terr e sir is — A Garden of all Sorts of Pleasant Flowers. Mrs. Ewing founded a Parkinson Society to promote a love of old-fashioned flowers ; but Parkinson's book is too rare to be of influence here. When I inquired throughout our public libraries in 1901, not a copy Emblem of was to ^e founcj m America. For-
James I of England. , T , r , ,
tunately 1 secured for my daugh- ter's collection of old herbals and flower-books, begun when she was a little girl, a copy of Parkin- son's Paradisus in Sole in the first edition, and the constant reference to it and Gerarde's Herball (the second edition) have been an infinite pleasure to me. I would I could quote Parkinson's words in full upon the York and Lancaster Rose !