HERBS USED IN DECORATIONS, ETC. 1 1 1 



go into the history of this most interesting flower, 

 beloved by Rousseau and endowed by the French with 

 magic power. One of their names for it is, Violette de 

 border. I will only say that the Italians call it the 

 " Flower of the Dead," and place it on graves ; and to 

 the Germans it is the " Flower of Immortality." In 

 England it was much used in garlands, and it was with 

 Periwinkle that Simon Fraser was crowned in mockery, 

 when in 1 306 (after he had been taken prisoner, fighting 

 for Bruce), he rode, heavily ironed, through London to 

 the place of execution. 



Clove gillyflowers were admitted, till lately, into 

 the herb- garden, so I may mention that among 

 several cases of nominal rent, land being held on 

 the payment of certain flowers or other trifles, " three 

 clove gillyflowers to be rendered on the occasion of 

 the King's Coronation," was once the condition of 

 holding the "lands and tenements of Ham in Surrey." 

 Roses were the flowers most often chosen for such a 

 purpose, and roses and gillyflowers together were paid 

 as rent by St Andrew's Monastery in Northampton 

 at the time of its dissolution under Oliver Cromwell. 

 Blount^ mentions that Bartholomaus Peyttevyn, of 

 Stony-Aston in Somerset, held his lands on the payment 

 of a " sextary " of Gillyflower wine annually, at 

 Christmastide. A "sextary" contained about a pint and 

 a half, sometimes more. "A still more whimsical tenure 

 was that of a farm at Brookhouse, Penistone, York, for 

 which, yearly, a payment was to be made of a red rose at 

 Christmas and a snowball at mid-summer. Unless the 

 flower of the Viburnum or Guelder-rose, sometimes 

 called Snowball, was meant, the payment bill had been 

 almost impossible in those days when ice-cellars were 

 unknown." ^ 



Clove gillyflowers found their way into Heraldry, 



1 "Jocular Tenures." ^ " History of Signboards.'' 



