These roses from the 16th Century are worthy rivals of any rose bred since. We continue to grow them for their form, their colour, their scent, their good health, their ease of maintenance, their historic associations, but - above all - for their beauty. a Demi-rose Gules, impaled with a demi-roundel parted palewise Argent and Vert, charged with a bundle of arrows Argent, garnished Or (also for his first wife) In the Battle of Bosworth Field (1485), Henry VII, of the House of Lancaster, took the crown of England from Richard III, of the House of York. He thus brought to an end the retrospectively dubbed " Wars of the Roses". Kings of the House of Lancaster had sometimes used a red or gold rose as a badge; and the House of York had used a white rose as a badge. Henry's father was Edmund Tudor, and his mother was Margaret Beaufort from the House of Lancaster; in January 1486 he married Elizabeth of York to bring the two factions together. (In battle, Richard III fought under the banner of the boar, [1] and Henry under the banner of the dragon of his native Wales.) The white rose versus red rose juxtaposition was mostly Henry's invention, created to exploit his appeal as a 'peacemaker king'. [2] The historian Thomas Penn writes:

It’s used in perfumes, it symbolises love and is a very popular girl’s name. The rose is also the defining symbol of some of the bloodiest civil wars in English history. Yorkists – Around 9,000 men led by Richard Duke of York, supported by Edmund, Earl of Rutland and Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury. And it lived up to its name. Its effects were so coveted by people at the time that ‘opium dens’ sprung up all over London and beyond, full of people looking for their next hit, creating an epidemic. But its medicinal properties were and are remarkable, too. For example, it’s used to soothe the pain of some cancer patients, as well as those having undergone serious surgery. When King Edward III died in 1377, he was succeeded by his grandson, Richard II. Although the beginning of his reign had been marked by hope and prosperity, Richard grew increasingly unpopular. In 1399 he was deposed by his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, who ruled as Henry IV. The new King was the son of John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster and the third son of the late King Edward.Red Dragon: This badge was not originally, as now, shown passant upon a green mount. The mount, no doubt, originated from the fact that the red dragon was used upon a standard of the livery colours (Tudor), white and green. Woodward refers to another standard, in which the red dragon is inflamed and the field seme of flames. The dragon, according to early Welsh tradition, was of "ruddy gold," and is to be found both red and gold Maiden’s Blush' – another alba, and therefore easy and rewarding. Typical grey-green alba foliage, delicate blush pink flowers, refined perfume, it grows to about 1.8mx1.5m. Those with limited space can buy 'Maiden’s Blush, Small', (120x90cm) with all the same attributes but on a smaller scale. Henry Tudor became King Henry VII founding the Tudor dynasty. As promised he married Elizabeth of York uniting the two rival houses and ending the Wars of the Roses. The Tudor Rose is an amalgam of the red rose of Lancaster and the white rose of York.

If all this seems the act of a nouveau royal family desperate to create an impression, this is precisely what it was. The "Lancastrian" red rose was an emblem that barely existed before Henry VII. Lancastrian kings used the rose sporadically, but when they did it was often gold rather than red; Henry VI, the king who presided over the country's descent into civil war, preferred his badge of the antelope. Contemporaries certainly did not refer to the traumatic civil conflict of the 15th century as the "wars of the roses". For the best part of a quarter-century, from 1461 to 1485, there was only one royal rose, and it was white: the badge of Edward IV. Edward's rose was ubiquitous, blooming on royal seals, on coins and in the bulky manuscripts that he began to acquire consistently from the 1470s onwards. But Edward's death, and the usurpation of his teenage sons by their uncle Richard III, presented an opportunity to the man who would become Henry VII: the exiled Henry, Earl of Richmond, a focus for disaffected Yorkists and Lancastrians alike. a Rose Gules or a Rose Gules en soleil (referring to his marriage with Elizabeth Woodville, of the Lancastrian party) Richard, as Protector, also wanted control of the king and intercepted the Woodville party as they rode south. Initially, Richard kept up a pretence of friendliness towards them, but then had members of the Woodville family arrested and placed in captivity. He took Edward to London and placed him in the Tower of London to await his coronation which was scheduled for 22nd June. Nevertheless, the Beauforts remained closely allied with Gaunt's descendants from his first marriage, the House of Lancaster, during the civil wars known as the Wars of the Roses. However the descent from the Beauforts did not necessarily render Henry Tudor (Henry VII) heir to the throne, nor did the fact that his paternal grandmother, Catherine of Valois, had been Queen of England due to her first marriage to Henry V (although, this did make Henry VII a nephew of Henry VI).a b c Peter Bartrum. "Marchudd 13". Prosiect Bartrum/Bartrum Project. Aberystwyth University. [ dead link] The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), film starring Bette Davis, Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland The poppy has more recently been attributed a symbolic meaning. When WW1 broke out in the summer of 1914, trenches started to be dug and soldiers started to walk across fields and farmland in their thousands, trampling anything living underfoot. This desecrated many landscapes across Europe, but particular conditions in 1915 led to something beautiful appearing from the wastelands. a Hart Argent (to reinforce his succession from Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March the heir of Richard II)

Tudor rose, dimidiated with the thistle, crowned. Tudor rose (upper left) slipped and crowned from the Pelican Portrait of Elizabeth I. Historical uses [ edit ]

Of all the flowers on this list, the poppy probably presents the biggest paradox: it’s done so much good whilst simultaneously caused unspeakable harm. a Rose Gules, with a rose Argent superimposed, a thistle in its Proper colours, growing from the same stalk, crowned (for Great Britain, after the Acts of Union) The first was the Rebellion of the Stafford brothers and Viscount Lovell of 1486, which collapsed without fighting. [37] A Man for All Seasons, a play by Robert Bolt produced for radio, television and stage which premiered in 1960