CHAPTER V 



THE ROSE GARDEN 



' * THE great varietie of Roses is much to be ad- 

 mired, beeing more then is to bee scene in any 

 other shrubby plant that I knowe, both for colour, 

 forme and smell. I haue, to furnish this garden, 

 thirty sorts at the least, euery one notably different 

 from the other, and all fit to be heare entertained : 

 for there are some other that being wilde and of 

 no beautie or smell, we forbeare, and leaue to 

 their wild habitations." So wrote John Parkinson 

 in 1629, and it is not without curiosity that we 

 scan the list which he has left to us. We find in 

 it, first of all, by the specific name of anglica, the 

 red and white roses of the rival Houses of Lan- 

 caster and York, those " most ancient and known 

 Roses to our Country, whether natural or no I 

 knowe not, but assumed by our precedent Kings 

 of all others to bee cognisances of their dignitie." 

 A tradition, probably authentic, tells of the red 

 rose of Provins having been taken as a badge 

 during a French campaign by an English prince 

 some three centuries or more before Parkinson 

 wrote, so there is ample witness that these so-called 

 English roses were amongst the earliest, not in- 

 digenous, that found their way into our British 



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