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54 \ ^be ifraorant IRote Booft 



traitor to each. Did Bolingbroke's Lancastrians choose a 

 red rose to cheer them on to war, so instantly chose York a 

 white rose to prove its cause stainless and to make the 

 War of the Roses a royal one. Did a gentleman of Henry's 

 Court present a white rose to one of the fair ladies, to whom 

 of course it was a badge of enmity, he must soften it by some 

 such flattering message as history hands down, where the 

 gallant wished that ^^J Vy^^' , 



Y 



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" If this fair rose offend thy sight 

 It in thy bosom wear; 

 Twill blush to find itself less white, 

 And turn Lancastrian there." 



> But if, as it is said, "Hard words break no bones, " s 

 sweet nothings cure no wars, and Rose did not cease to fight 

 Rose until Henry Richmond of the Lancastrian "Red" 

 married EUzabeth Mortimer of the York "While" and so 

 peace perched at last on the Tudor banner and compromised 

 the colour scheme by joining both roses in the royal standard 

 of the new dynasty as we see them carved in enduring stone 

 in Henry's chapel at Westminster, 



" Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say 

 Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday? 

 Alas that Spring should vanish with the Rose 

 That Youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close! 



The Nightingale that in the branches sang 

 Ah, whence and whither flown again, who knows! " 



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