The War of the Roses

[Geoff Bannister]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "a_svirn" <a_svirn at ...> wrote:

a_svirn:
> Not much. The Duke of York political and financial influence was
> inherited from his maternal Uncle, the Earl of March – together with
> his claim to the crown of England (and France) and his heraldic white
> rose. York's own badge was falcon and fetterlock, not the rose.
> March's estates were mostly in the Welsh March as well as Wales and
> Ireland. When York's eldest son (the future king Edward IV) was
> created the Earl of March he adopted the white rose as his badge. As
> for the red rose, it was a later Tudor invention. The Tudors kind of
> united both houses and came up (for propaganda purposes) with
> the "Tudor Rose" a combination of the white rose of York and the
> almost entirely fictional the red rose of Lancaster. 

Geoff:
Hm. I offer into the court the following evidence....

Excerpts quoted from: www.lancashirevillages.com/redrose

Lancashire's Red Rose is an official variety, known as the Red Rose of 
Lancashire, but it is more accurately named as the Red Rose of Lancaster. 
Extracts from Hilliers Manual of Trees and Shrubs gives "Rosa Gallica 
Officinalis", the "Red Rose of Lancaster" as a small shrub producing 
richly fragrant, semi-double, rosy crimson flowers with prominent 
yellow anthers.

Rosa gallica officinalis,was possibly the first cultivated rose and is the 
first and the most famous of the Gallica roses. Originally a species 
rose, it grew wild in central Asia and was first cultivated by the 
ancient Persians and Egyptians, and later adopted by the Greeks 
and the Romans. The Romans introduced it in Gaul (later to become 
France) where it assumed the named Rosa gallica.

The Red Rose at Lancaster has a long and distinguished history which 
is intertwined with the House of Lancaster, the War of the Roses, the 
Monarchy, the County Palatine of Lancaster and the development of 
the County of Lancashire. It was first adopted as an heraldic device 
by Edmund, First Earl of Lancaster and became the emblem of 
Lancashire, and of England as a whole, following the Battle of 
Bosworth Field in 1485.

And quoted from: www.yorkshirehistory.com/yorkshirerose.htm

A Complete Guide to Heraldry by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies (pp 269)                

"The use of the Rose as a political emblem may be traced to the wars 
between the rival Houses of York and Lancaster, the former of which 
used the device of a white rose, while a red one was the badge of the 
other, and these came to be blazoned occasionally as the Rose of York 
and Lancaster respectively. They are said to have been first assumed 
by John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and his brother Edmund, Duke 
of York. Both these roses were sometimes surrounded with rays, and 
termed en soleil, and later on they were frequently conjoined."

Hardly fictional....