Within an arbour, shadow’d by a vine
Mix’d with Rosemary and Eglantine.
Br. Pastorals, book i.
ROSEMARY
Rosemary was one of the chief funeral herbs. Herrick says:—
Grow it for two ends, it matters not at all,
Be’t for my bridall or my buriall.
Sprigs of it were distributed to the mourners before they left the house, which they carried to the churchyard and threw on the coffin when it had been lowered into the grave. In Romeo and Juliet Friar Laurence says:—
Dry up your tears and stick your Rosemary
On this fair corse
Brand quotes passages from Gay, Dekker, Cartwright, Shirley, Misson, Coles, “The British Apollo” and “The Wit’s Interpreter,” which connect Rosemary with burials; and it was also planted on graves.
Coles says it was used with other evergreens to decorate churches at Christmas-time, and Folkard that, “In place of more costly incense, the ancients often employed Rosemary in their religious ceremonies. An old French name for it was Incensier. It was conspicuous on a very remarkable occasion in history. In “A Perfect Journall, etc., of that memorable Parliament begun at Westminster, Nov. 3, 1640,” is the following passage, “Nov. 28. That afternoon Master Prin and Master Burton came in to London, being met and accompanied with many thousands of horse and foot, and rode with rosemary and bayes in their hands and hats; which is generally esteemed the greatest affront that ever was given to the courts of justice in England.” The “affront” lay in the general rejoicing that attended this overthrowing of the sentence passed by the Star Chamber, and the causes which led to this enthusiasm were these: “Some years before,” Prynne, Burton, and Bastwick had written against the Government and the Bishops, and for this offence had been sentenced to pay a fine of £5000 each, to have their ears cut off, to stand in the pillory and to be imprisoned for life. “All of which,” says Clarendon, “was executed with rigour and severity enough.” “After being first imprisoned in England, Mr Pyrnne was sent to a castle in the island of Jersey, Dr Bastwick to Scilly, and Mr Burton to Guernsey.” Bastwick’s wife seized the first moment that the Commons were assembled (in Nov. 1640) to present a petition, with the result that on the fourth day after Parliament met, orders for their release were sent to the Governors of the respective castles. Clarendon, who, of course, had no sympathy, but much dislike for them, admits: “When they came near London, multitudes of people of several conditions, some on horseback, others on foot, met them some miles from the town; very many having been a day’s journey; and they were brought about two of the clocke in the afternoon in at Charing Cross, and carried into the city by above ten thousand persons with boughs and flowers in their hands, the common people strewing flowers and herbs in the ways as they passed, making great noise and expressions of joy for their deliverance and return; and in those acclamations, mingling loud and virulent exclamations against the bishops, “who had so cruelly persecuted such godly men.” An appendix,[76] devoted to this incident, further describes their entry, “The two branded persons riding first, side by side, with branches of rosemary in their hands, and two or three hundred horse closely following them, and multitudes of foot on either side of them, walking by them, every man on horseback or on foot having bays or rosemary in their hats or hands, and the people on either side of the street strewing the way as they passed with herbs, and such other greens as the season afforded, and expressing great joy for their return.” This splendid reception must have revealed very plainly to the Government the mind and temper of the people. Nowadays the exuberance of the mob in greeting popular heroes is much what it seems to have been then, only they do not generally express it in such a pretty way as strewing rosemary and bays.