226 WILD FLOWERS. 



Bristol, of the noble family of Lovell, which passed, 

 through the marriage of an heiress, to Sir Thomas 

 Wake; her son, espousing the cause of Richard 

 III., at the battle of Bosworth, having been at- 

 tainted, and his land seized by Henry VII., who 

 granted his forfeited manor of Clevedon, to four of 

 his own friends, to hold on service of a red rose, 

 payable yearly, at the feast of the nativity of St. 

 John the Baptist. Sir Richard Wake, however, was 

 afterwards pardoned, and his manor restored to him. 

 A similar grant was formerly made of one of the 

 Hastings' castles, by a widow of that family, to her 

 steward, but as she afterwards married him, this 

 "rent" may rather perhaps be regarded as a sort 

 of love- token. 



A custom also formerly prevailed in France, of 

 wearing chaplets of roses upon Fridays, in com- 

 memoration of our Saviour's crown of thorns ; the 

 choice being of course originally made on account of 

 their being thorny plants. The custom, however, 

 seems a curious exemplification of the religion of 

 outward observance, when we find St. Louis sending 

 a chaplet of roses, " or of any other flower/' to each 

 of his daughters, every Friday. The most remark- 

 able of these bygone usages is, however, that which, 

 in the fourteenth century, was one of the services 

 connected with the Parliament of Paris.* Three 



. * See " Tristant Le Voyageur" The term Parliament, as 

 applied to the French Assembly, in the early ages, signified a 

 congress of nobles, who came together to discuss such affairs 

 as more immediately affected their own interests. These 

 meetings were simply held at the pleasure of the lords them- 



