There are many that say that the emblems of the Red Lancastrian and the White Yorkist roses are a Shakespearean invention. Others disagree.
This is a depiction of the Houses of York and Lancaster selecting their
rival red and white roses from Shakespeare.
HENRY VI PT. 1 Act II Scene IV – London. The Temple Garden
Plantagenet: Since you are tongue tied, and so loath to speak,
In dumb significants proclaim your thoughts:
Let him who is a true-born gentleman,
And stands upon the honour of his birth,
If he believe that I have pleaded truth,
From this briar pluck a white rose with me.
Somerset: Let him that is no coward nor no flatterer,
But dare maintain the party of the truth,
Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me.
In the context of the novel, the Yorkshire based Bolling family were Lancastrian supporters, and it is interesting to note how the red rose symbol occurs in one of their historical documents.
31 Henry VIII., June 20.
Rosamund Tempest, relict of Sir Rich. Tempest, Kt., gives to Edward Bollyng, of Chellowe, one messuage, with buildings and appurtenances, in Wylsden ; and lands, &c., called Mytham, in the township of Allerton, abutting on Hardyng Becke or Harden Broke on the south and the north, on Cottingley Park on the east, and on the high road leading from Bradford to Keighley on the west. To pay one red rose in the time of roses should it be demanded.
Witnesses – THOS. BOLLYNGE
RANOLPH WILMAN
LAURENCE ROYDS
This was Rosamund Tempest (nee Bolling) granting land to her half-brother Edward, for the payment of one red rose, in the time of roses, should it be demanded. In other words, gratis. This was before Shakespeare penned Henry VI (Part 1). So why a red rose and not any other colour? I believe this shows their Lancastrian sympathies and that the red and white roses were in common currency at that time.
These days, the red and white roses are now iconic and much mystery surrounds them.
It is ironic that Yorkshire is known as the White Rose County and yet this was by far the biggest of the Lancastrian recruiting grounds.
There is a story, or legend, about the Towton Rose - a wild bloom that has its white petals tinged with red, to depict the blood spilled there on that Palm Sunday of 1461.
The legend has been strengthened by the fact that these roses will not survive if transplanted elsewhere.
The symbolism of the white rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster coming together in battle evokes a very stirring image.
A poem was written about this phenomenon by Edmund Bogg in 1902.
“Oh, the red and white rose, upon Towton Moor it grows,
And red and white it blows upon that swarthe for evermore,
In memorial of the slaughter, when the red blood ran like water,
And the victors gave no quarter in the flight from Towton Moor.
“When the banners gay were beaming, and the steel cuirasses gleaming,
And the martial music streaming o’er the wide and lonely heath;
And many a heart was beating that dreamed not of retreating,
Which, ere the sun was setting, lay still and cold in death.
When the snow that fell at morning lay as a type and warning,
All stained and streaked with crimson, like the roses white and red,
And filled each thirsty furrow with its token of the sorrow
That wailed for many a morrow through the mansions of the dead.
Now for twice two hundred years, when the month of March appears,
All unchecked by plough or shears spring the roses red and white;
Nor can the hand of mortal close the subterranean portal
That gives to life immortal these emblems of the fight.
“And as if they were enchanted, not a flower may be transplanted
From those fatal precincts haunted by the spirits of the slain
For howe’er the root you cherish, it shall fade away and perish,
When removed beyond the marish of Towton’s gory plain.”
So, the uniting of the two roses, a strong Tudor piece of propaganda, attributed to Henry VII’s marriage to Elizabeth of York, may already have been eclipsed by Mother Nature.