Going Through the Wars

The Wars of the Roses (the name of which is Walter Scott’s coinage) tore through England during the 15th century and inspired some of Shakespeare’s history plays. To give a potted history of the conclusion of the conflict, Henry VII gained his crown at Bosworth Field and kept it on his head in the Battle of Stoke Field. Here the era of medieval warlordism proper ended and the seeds of a new age where the pen and the sword could be used in tandem to maintain power were sown.

But something else came into existence after the bloodshed ended, the Tudor rose. This merging of the red Lancaster rose, and white York rose served as a powerful symbol of the union of the two houses through the marriage of Henry VII a Lancaster, and Elizabeth of York a Yorkist. The then new undivided house of Tudor went on to stand for 118 years.

Strangely enough, there is a great deal more evidence for the use of the York rose by Yorkist kings, than there is for Lancaster kings using the Lancaster rose as an emblem before Henry VII. There is a whisper of a suggestion about Margaret Beaufort, the formidable mother of Henry VII, using the red rose as an emblem but nothing particularly conclusive. The Tudors were not above using propaganda to tinker with public opinion. If there were no clear symbol of the red rose, then it would be expedient to create such an emblem because without it there could be no Tudor rose.

But what type of rose were the Yorks, Lancasters, and Tudors attempting to depict? Many roses depicted in heraldry are stylised versions of wild roses. So, perhaps next time you see a wild rose you will think of England and the Wars of the Roses.