The Rose. 
33 
look in its face, and you ’ll forget them all! It made its appear¬ 
ance during Louis the Eighteenth’s time, and was named Rose 
du Roi, or the King’s Rose, in compliment to him. But when 
Buonaparte came over from Elba and put the King to flight, 
the proprietor, thinking that his new rose with any other name 
would bring in more money, deemed it good policy to re¬ 
christen it Rose d’Empereur, or the Emperor’s Rose. But the 
Hundred Days were a limited number, and the Battle of Wa¬ 
terloo again changed the aspect of political affairs. The rose 
ratted once more, and was re-styled Rose du Roi. It is known 
in England as the Crimson Perpetual; I should have called it 
the Crimson Weathercock.” 
This rose was apparently a time-server and a political rene¬ 
gade; but the next to be spoken of were fierce and faithful to 
the cause which took its name from them. Shakspeare has 
embalmed the legendary history attached to the York and 
Lancaster roses in his play of “ Henry VI.” The story runs 
that various adherents of the rival Yorkist and Lancastrian 
factions were disputing in the Temple Gardens, when Edward 
Mortimer’s nephew and heir, Richard Plantagenet, interrupted 
the conversation by saying, 
“Let him that is a true-born gentleman, 
And stands upon the honour of his birth, 
If he suppose that I have pleaded truth, 
From off this briar pluck a white rose with me.” 
To which the Earl of Suffolk made reply, 
“Let him that is no coward and no flatterer, 
But dare maintain the party of the truth, 
Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me.” 
On their respective followers imitating their example, the Earl 
of Warwick prophesies that the result of this feud 
“ Shall send between the red rose and the white 
A thousand souls to death and deadly night.” 
And history duly records how mournfully his prediction was 
verified by the succeeding Wars of the Roses, as they are 
termed ; but also records how the effusion of blood was at 
last stayed by the union of the two rival families in the mai- 
riage of Henry VII. with the heiress of the house of York, 
