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ROSES IN HISTORY, LEGENDRY, AND HERALDRY - Part 3

"Adorn me then with a new charm," said the spirit of the rose-bush.

The red single rose with its five petals was chosen to repre­sent the five wounds of Christ, and the white rose the virginity of Mary.

The red rose is said to denote love; the white rose, innocence; the pink rose, beauty or youth; the yellow rose, silence or jealousy; a dark crimson rose, mourning.

Aphrodite embalmed Hector's body with oil of roses.

Rosiere tells of a custom in France, dating from about a.d. 520, where each year the most deserving young girl is re­warded, amidst great festivity, with a crown of roses and a sum of money. It is said that the Duke of Guise, despite his prowess as a soldier, would faint at the sight of a rose, that Bacon would become infuriated, and Marie de Medici, Queen of France in the early part of the seventeenth century, would not tolerate roses, even in pictures. These are but a few of countless tales that have grown up round the rose, giving it an unparalleled position amongst all flowers.

When we turn to heraldry, architecture, and art we can feel a little more realistic. The rose has been adopted as the floral emblem of England. About 1277 the first Earl of Lan­caster, second son of Richard III, who had acquired, with his wife, the Province of Champagne, was sent by the King of France to Provins to avenge the murder of the mayor of the city. On his return to England he took for his device the red rose of Provins. This was probably the damask rose, and later became famous as the Red Rose of Lancaster. Henry III and the Duke of Guise, who had such an aversion to roses, were bitter enemies.

The rose figures prominently in English heraldic arms. Four types are recognized:

1. The most usual is a five-petalled (that is, single) rose with a seeded centre, five short, sharp-pointed, leaf-like sepals projecting slightly between the petals; the parts being em­blazoned in any of the five heraldic colours, the term "seeded" being used in the centre, and "barbed" if the sepals are dif­ferently tinctured (that is, coloured) from the petals.

2. The Tudor Rose is always double, usually with a white inner and a red outer row of petals, a heraldic device for uniting the emblems of York and Lancaster.

3. The Rose-en-Soleil is a white single or double rose dis­played in the centre of a golden-rayed sun. In its single form it was first used by Edward IV after the Yorkist victory at Mortimer's Cross. In its double form it appears on the regi­mental colours of the 5th Company of the Grenadier Guards.

4. The Slipped Rose, when surmounted by an Imperial Crown, forms the Badge of England.

In heraldic terminology the "conventional" rose has five dis­played petals. A rose when "slipped" has only a stalk added. There is usually at least one leaf as well, and it is then said to be "slipped and leaved". "Stalked and leaved" implies that it has a longer stalk and several leaves. A "chaplet of roses" is composed of four roses at equal distances round a circle of leaves, or it may consist entirely of roses; in the days of chivalry it was granted to gallant knights for acts of courtesy.

Marks of cadency distinguish the arms of a son from those of his father. A seventh son bears his father's arms with a small conventional rose in the chief centre point. Many other forms of differentiation by means of the rose are used in Royal Heraldry. It is by far the most commonly used flower, the thistle ranking next.