i6o THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN 



showing that the two opposing forces were now 

 blended, and this rose was called the " York and 

 Lancaster." 



There was, says the tradition, then growing in 

 the garden of a certain monastery in Wiltshire one 

 particular rose-bush, which, during the troubles 

 of the land, had, to the amazement of all, borne 

 at once roses red and white. At the time of the 

 marriage of Henry and Elizabeth, all its flowers 

 blossomed forth with petals of red and white mixed 

 in stripes. People came, as may be imagined, from 

 all over the country to see this wonder, and hailed 

 it as a joyful omen of future peace and harmony. 



But it seems probable that the symbolism con- 

 necting the rose with England has a much earlier 

 date, so remote as to have been mislaid in the dim 

 and shadowy recesses of the past. For we find Pliny 

 doubting whether the name Albion referred to the 

 white cliffs of our Island, or to the white roses which 

 grew there in such abundance. 



Through many centuries the rose has been justly 

 regarded as the queen of all flowers, and symbolical 

 of all that is loveliest, brightest, and best upon the 

 earth. Gerarde, the old herbalist, enumerated a 

 long list of the virtues of the rose, which includes: 

 " Strengtheninge of the hearte, and refreshinge of 

 the spirites," and he declares that the rose gives 

 sleep to the fevered, allays inflammation, and 

 strengthens the inside, that it forms an ingredient 

 in " Alle manner of counterpoysons," that, mixed 

 with honey, it heals wounds and stanches bleeding; 

 and, in short, that it is generally '' profitable for 

 other griefes," including the ague, " and availing 

 the surgeon greatly to carry store thereof "; besides 



