THE SYMBOLISM OF FLOWERS. 



rel in the Temple gardens, and there adopted the 

 red and white rose as their respective badges. 

 Shakespeare well depicts the episode in his fine 

 historical dream of Henry VI : 



Plan. — ^Let him that is a true-born gentlemafl, 



And stands upon the honor of his birth, 

 If he suppose that I have pleaded truth, 

 From off this briar pluck a white rose with me. 

 Som. — Let him that is no coward, nor no flatterer. 

 But dare maintain the party of the truth. 

 Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me. 

 IVar. — I love no colors ; and without all color 

 Of base insinuating flattery, 

 I pluck this white rose »vith Plantagenet, 

 Stiff.— \ pluck this fed rose, with young Somerset, 

 And say withal, I think he held the right. 



mond to the Princess Elizabeth, daughter and 

 heiress of Edward IV, and known popularly as the 

 " White Rose of York." 



The thistle appears to have been adopted as the 

 symbol of "Caledonia stern and wild,'' at a very 

 early period of the middle ages. The following is 

 the traditional account of the cause of its having 

 been selected: "At a remote date the Danish 

 'vikings,' or sea rovers, were in the habit of mak- 

 ing descents upon the coast of North Britain — as, 

 indeed they appear to have done everywhere else — 

 and ravaging far and wide. One dark night a party 

 of them were marching to assail the encampment of 



And so the quarrel is well initiated, and the com- 

 pany declare their partisanship. Well might War- 

 wick exclaim before the party dissolves : 



" And here I prophesy — This brawl to-day. 

 Grown to this faction, in the Temple garden, 

 Shall send, between the red roses and the white, 

 A thousand souls to death and deadly night." 



The prediction was amply fulfilled, for the san- 

 guinary war of the roses not only deluged England 

 with gore, but well nigh exterminated the territorial 

 aristocracy of the land. It is easy then to under- 

 stand why the "Tudor Rose " should have been a 

 favorite emblem of Henry VII. It signified the 

 union of the red roses and the white, with the con- 

 comitant bles.sing of peace to devastated England. 

 This union of the red and white roses was brought 

 about by the marriage of the whilom Earl of Rich- 



a band of patriotic Scots who were in arms to de- 

 fend their native land. The invaders marched 

 swiftly and silently and had nearly reached the spot 

 where the devoted Scots were slumbering, when 

 one of the bare-footed Danes trod heavily on a large 

 and especially spiny member of the thistle family. 

 The northern pirate could have endured death in 

 battle with the stern silent stoicism of a red Indian, 

 but he could not stand the prickling tickling of this 

 ferocious plant, and set up a howl of agony. Here- 

 upon the Scots awoke, sprung to arms, extermina- 

 ted the Danes, and in gratitude to the thistle made 

 it the national emblem of the 'Land o' Lakes.' '' 

 Some Latin scholar of subsequent days added the 

 very appropriate motto of Nemo impimc laccssit,"' 

 ("nobody injures me unscathed") which, as every- 



