Warwick, on the part of York, replies:
“I love no colours, and, without all colour
Of base insinuating flattery,
I pluck this white rose with Plantagenet.”
The trailing white dog-rose is commonly considered to have been the one chosen by the House of York. A writer, however, in the Quarterly Review (vol. cxiv.) has shown that the white rose has a very ancient interest for Englishmen, as, long before the brawl in the Temple Gardens, the flower had been connected with one of the most ancient names of our island. The elder Pliny, in discussing the etymology of the word Albion, suggests that the land may have been so named from the white roses which abounded in it. The York and Lancaster rose, with its pale striped flowers, is a variety of the French rose known as Rosa Gallica. It became famous when the two emblematical roses, in the persons of Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York, at last brought peace and happiness to the country which had been so long divided by internal warfare. The canker-rose referred to by Shakespeare is the wild dog-rose, a name occasionally applied to the common red poppy.
Rosemary. This plant was formerly in very high esteem, and was devoted to various uses. It was supposed to strengthen the memory; hence it was regarded as a symbol of remembrance, and on this account was often given to friends. Thus, in “Hamlet” (iv. 5), where Ophelia seems to be addressing Laertes, she says: “There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance.” In the “Winter’s Tale” (iv. 4) rosemary and rue are beautifully put together:
“For you there’s rosemary and rue; these keep
Seeming and savour all the winter long:
Grace and remembrance be to you both,
And welcome to our shearing!”
Besides being used at weddings, it was also in request at funerals, probably for its odor, and as a token of remembrance of the deceased. Thus the Friar, in “Romeo and Juliet” (iv. 5), says:
“Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary
On this fair corse.”
This practice is thus touchingly alluded to by Gay, in his “Pastorals:”
“To shew their love, the neighbours far and near
Followed, with wistful look, the damsel’s bier:
Sprigg’d rosemary the lads and lasses bore,
While dismally the parson walk’d before.”
Rosemary, too, was one of the evergreens with which dishes were anciently garnished during the season of Christmas, an allusion to which occurs in “Pericles” (iv. 6): “Marry, come up, my dish of chastity with rosemary and bays.”