YORK AND LANCASTER ROS. 59 



It is with a sense of immense relief that we see in the 

 death of Richard III. the end of the sanguinary struggle, 

 and most happily does that tremendous work close with 

 the healing words of Henry VII., when upon Bosworth 

 Field he declares 



" The day is ours, the bloody dog is dead ! " 



and crowns the victory with an act of clemency and an 

 expression of pious hope 



'' Proclaim a pardon to the soldiers fled, 

 That in submission will return to us ; 

 And then, as we have ta'en the sacrament, 

 We will unite the white rose and the red. 

 Smile, Heaven, upon this fair conjunction, 

 That long hath frown'd upon their enmity ! 

 What traitor hears me, and says not Amen ? " 



Returning to our flower, it will be observed that we 

 have wandered far away from it, for the Wars of the Roses 

 were represented by a white rose for Lancaster and a red 

 rose for York. And what may they have been ? In 

 Shakespeare's time there were probably many kinds of 

 roses in the Temple Gardens, but it was not so in the 

 days of the Plantagenets. Then, in all probability, the 

 only roses known in gardens were the wild roses of the 

 woods. Supposing the scene which Shakespeare has so 

 filled with the reality of life to be, not a creation of his 

 own, but a scrap of genuine history, then we can find 

 no other roses for the partisans than those described by 

 Chaucer as 



" The bramble flour that bereth the red hepe ; " 



that is, the dog rose, the " canker of the hedge," which 

 gives in one thicket flowers of the most delicate rosy-pink 

 hue, and in another flowers of the purest white. They 



