Very much additional matter could be inserted respecting the early history of the Rose, and its connection with ancient superstitions. Sufficient, however, has been given to show the esteem in which the Rose was held by the ancient Greeks and Romans.
[CHAPTER XIII.]
THE ROSE IN THE MIDDLE AGES.
In Great Britain, according to Loudon, “one of the earliest notices of the Rose occurs in Chaucer, who wrote early in the 13th century; and in the beginning of the 15th century, there is evidence of the Rose having been cultivated for commercial purposes, and of the water distilled from it being used to give a flavor to a variety of dishes, and to wash the hands at meals—a custom still preserved in some of the colleges, and also in many of the public halls within the city of London.”
In 1402, Sir William Clopton granted to Thomas Smyth a piece of ground called Dokmedwe, in Haustede, for the annual payment of a rose to Sir William and his heirs, in lieu of all services. The demand for roses formerly was so great, that bushels of them were frequently paid by vassals to their lords, both in England and France. The single rose, paid as an acknowledgment, was the diminutive representation of a bushel of roses—as a single peppercorn, which is still a reserved rent, represents a pound of peppercorns—a payment originally of some worth, but descending by degrees to a mere formality. Among the new-year gifts presented to Queen Mary in 1556, was a bottle of rose-water; and in 1570 we find, among the items in the account of a dinner of Lord Leicester, when he was Chancellor of the University of Oxford, three ounces of rose-water. In an account of a grant of a great part of Ely House, Holborne, by the Bishop of Ely, to Christopher Hatton, for twenty-one years, the tenant covenants to pay, on midsummer-day, a red rose for the gate-house and garden, and for the ground (fourteen acres) ten loads of hay and £10 per annum; the Bishop reserving to himself and successors free access through the gate-house, for walking in the gardens and gathering twenty bushels of roses yearly. In 1597, we find Gerard speaking of the Damask rose of Damascus and the Cinnamon rose as common in English gardens. Hakluyt says that the rose of Damascus was brought to England by De Linaker, physician to Henry IX.; and his successor, Sir Richard Weston, who wrote in 1645, says, “We have red roses from France.” In the reign of James I., the keeper of the robes and jewels at Whitehall, among a variety of other offices, had separate salaries allowed him, “for fire to air the hot-houses, 40s. by the year;” and, “for digging and setting of roses, in the spring gardens, 40s. by the year.”
It would seem, by these incidents, that previous to the seventeenth century, roses were far from being abundant, and indeed were so rare, that a bottle of distilled water was a fit present for Royalty, and a few roses an amply sufficient rent for house and land.
In the times of chivalry, the Rose was often an emblem that knights were fond of placing in their helmet or shield, implying that sweetness should always be the companion of courage, and that beauty was the only prize worthy of valor. It was not, however, always taken for such emblems, nor did it always bring to mind pleasant and agreeable images, but was often the signal for bloodshed in a desolating civil war which raged in England for more than thirty years.
The rival factions of the White and the Red Rose arose in 1452, during the reign of Henry VI., between the houses of Lancaster and of York. The Duke of York, a descendant of Edward III., claimed that his house possessed a nearer title to the crown than the reigning branch. He adopted a white rose on his shield, for his device, and the reigning monarch, Henry VI., of the house of Lancaster, carried the red rose. After several furious civil wars, after having flooded the whole kingdom with blood, and after the tragical death of three kings, Henry VII., of the house of Lancaster, re-united, in 1486, the two families by marrying Elizabeth, the heiress of the house of York.
The adoption of the red rose, by the house of Lancaster, was at a period far prior to these civil wars. About 1277, the Count of Egmont, son of the King of England, and who had taken the title of Count of Champagne, was sent by the King of France to Provence, with some troops, to avenge the murder of William Pentecôte, mayor of the city, who had been killed in an insurrection.