The war about The War of the Roses

[Carol]

Potioncat wrote:
> Carol is going to be sooooooo upset that she missed this! I hope her 
> computer is fixed soon.
> 
> I'd jump in...in support of her, even though I tend to be
Lancaterian while she is steadfast Yorkist. But more importantly,
everything I know about roses, red or white, I learned from historical
fiction, and  have long since forgot.

Carol responds:
I might as well join in, better late than never, even though I tend to
agree with a_svirn's position on the historical use of the white rose
(the Lancastrians didn't use the red rose during the Wars of the Roses
and neither side spoke of their struggle for the crown as a war of
anything. It was mostly factional squabbles among the various
Plantagenets and their retainers. Henry Tudor wasn't even a
Plantagenet, being descended on his mother's side from the
illegitimate children of John of Gaunt, later legitimized and given
the name Beaufort but still barred from inheriting the crown, and on
his father's side from a Welsh minstrel and the French wife of Henry V
(who also, of course, had no claim to the English throne).

As for Catlady's original question, I don't know of a mnemonic to help
her keep the red (ostensibly) Lancastrian rose straight from the white
rose of York. It's easier just to know the names of the Yorkist kings
(Edward IV and Richard III--I don't count the uncrowned boy king
Edward V) and the one Lancastrian king involved in the so-called Wars
of the Roses, Henry VI. White is associated with York: Richard's
symbol was a white boar for Eboracum, the Latin name for York (a pun
on "bor"/"boar"); Edward IV's the sunne in splendour/(white) rose en
soleil already explained by a-svirn.

If you're interested, the Richard III Society has all sorts of
material on the heraldry involved.

As for remembering which is red and which is white, I always associate
the Red Queen in "Alice's Adventures through the Looking Glass" with
Henry VI's militant French queen, Marguerite d'Anjou--but that won't
help if you're not familiar with her (or if you favor the Lancastrians
over the Yorkists).  
 
> Potioncat:
> And at this point Carol would encourage everyone to read "The Sun in
Splendor" (although the spelling might be different) about this point
in history. I will encourage you too. Except I have to admit becoming
quite fond of the characters and realizing about 1/3 of the way into
the book how it was all going to turn out for them, and so had to stop
reading.

Carol:
Right. That's Sharon Kay Penman's "The Sunne in Splendour," which
sounds like it's about Edward IV but is really mostly about his
youngest brother, Richard (aka Dickon), who becomes Richard III. I'd
recommend reading it all the way through even though it ends
tragically for most of the main characters. It's a well-researched
historical novel, obviously from the Yorkist perspective, and
well-written if you don't mind "we be" and a few other odd attempts at
making the language sound late medieval. BTW, I'd love to find a novel
favorably depicting Richard's sister Margaret of Burgundy, who
supported the claim of Perkin Warbeck to the throne of England after
Richard's death rather than support the Tydder (Henry Tudor).

Carol, who probably didn't help catlady at all!