War of the Roses

“ The White Rose became celebrated in English history as the badge of the house of York, in the War of the Roses. Among the ancients, who considered the Rose as the queen of flowers, it was the custom to crown new-married persons with a chaplet of Red and White Roses ”

“ A story beguiled us into interest when our History lesson had seemed an arid futility in Fourth Form days, and our magisterial enemies began to show themselves human after all when they bade us read The Last of the Barons as we were painfully plodding in the Plantagenet period, and found the War of the Roses a very thorny waste. ”

“ A gallant little company was following in their track, and with cries of "An Edward, an Edward, a Prince of Wales!" smote down the rival warriors with a fury which for the moment nothing could withstand. There is surely something magnetic in a war cry or in a patriotic song, for it inspires those who use it with an ardour and a strength which for the moment seem invincible.
To Paul and the prince it seemed as if the day were all but won. Wherever they turned they dealt death and destruction. ”

“ This Enveloping Action of the whole play, the War of the Roses, is marked with special clearness: two personages are introduced for the sole purpose of giving it prominence. ii. ii. 80.The Duchess of York is by her years and 112position the representative of the whole house; the factions who in the play successively triumph and fall are all descended from herself; she says ”

“ Tell my mother that such a death is better than an inglorious life of exile, and bid her not weep for me. There is yet another world than this in which we shall meet, where the strife of war is not heard and the malice of foes pursues us not. Let her look forward to our meeting there. It were a better prospect, in all truth, than an earthly crown, which methinks sits heavy on the head of him that wears it."
Paul said nothing, for he could not trust himself to speak, and indeed the brief respite was at an end. ”

“ Something was roused within me, uplifting itself against that desolation, growing and growing until it towered above all anxiety and fear—a new self-consciousness together with a new strength. Thus I commenced to fight the battle that each woman is called upon to fight once at least, and which is more formidable than all the battles of war that have ever been fought by man. ”

“ That the Romans knew the secret of flower breeding is certain. And it appears that perhaps in even more remote time the Japanese and Chinese gardeners were crossing varieties and producing hybrid species. The trade in attar of roses has been hard hit by the war, and many are the hands that once labored to delight the world with the bottled fragrance of the rose, but which now work to produce the death-dealing thunderbolts. It requires ten tons of rose petals to make a pound of the attar—20,000 pounds concentrated into one! ”

“ Origin of the Wars of the Roses. instead of committing the administration of the realm to ministers chosen for him by, or at least approved by, his parliament, he persisted in retaining in office persons like Suffolk and Somerset, who had forfeited the confidence of the people by their many failures in war and diplomacy, and were suspected of something worse than incapacity. They might not be so personally odious as the favourites of Edward II. or of Henry III., but they were even more dangerous to the state, because they were not foreign adventurers but great English peers. ”

“ The quarrel of the Roses was a faction fight—no political principle was involved, as was the case in the great Civil War. It is no doubt true that the country at large concerned itself with the quarrel as little as circumstances permitted. ”

“ The river of life is shut out from view by the fog of war; but it will be there when the fog is lifted. The buried seed will spring up again, if not with the crocus and the violet, then, a little later, with the roses that fling themselves in their glory over the cottage walls. The primal realities endure. ”

“ Might she pause to pray a prayer over him as once hers—that all might be well with him, for she knew that in this unhappy war important captives were not treated as Frenchmen would have been as prisoners of war, but executed as traitors to their King. ”

“ Therefore it is that I feel all roses to have some secret power about them; even their names may mean something in connexion with themselves, in which they differ from nearly all the sons of men. But the rose itself is royal and dangerous; long as it has remained in the rich house of civilization, it has never laid off its armour. A rose always looks like a mediaeval gentleman of Italy, with a cloak of crimson and a sword: for the thorn is the sword of the rose. ”

“ After the long struggle of the Wars of the Roses, which had, a hundred years before, exhausted the country, the people were losing the feeling of uncertainty and anxiety that had possessed them for so many years, and were eager to see the world and to make new paths in many directions. ”

“ It might have been well for us never to have disturbed again the peace of this realm; but having summoned to our banner the loyal adherents of the Red Rose, it is not for us to fly to safety, and leave them to the wrath and cruelty of Edward. No; one battle--one defeat--does not lose us our cause. My father lives; shall we leave him to linger out his days in hopeless captivity? I live; have I not the right to strike a blow for the crown to which I was born?
"Courage, sweet mother. You are a king's daughter. You have led men to victory before. Say not--think not--that all is lost. ”

“ Have we not a history of which we can hardly think without becoming insolent in our just pride of it? Can we dare, without passing every limit of courtesy to other nations, to say how much more we have to be proud of in our ancestors than they? Among our ancient monarchs, great crimes stand out as monstrous and strange. But their valor, and, according to their understanding, their benevolence, are constant. The Wars of the Roses, which are as a fearful crimson shadow on our land, represent the normal condition of other nations ”

“ On that calm Sabbath morning, in the midst of paradisal beauty, twenty thousand men girded on the implements of hellish war to maim and destroy each other—to sully the green grass and fragrant flowers with human blood! ”

“ Belle Harbour is a town that whittles in the sunshine. It is a sleepy, good-natured, courteous old town with a picturesque past and a dubious future.
I would much rather not venture upon exact dates, but Belle Harbour was something of a place when the British marched on Washington, and a house that does not lay claim to [27] having served as a Hessian barracks, a British hospital, or a general’s residence, is so indecently modern that good citizens view it askance. Belle Harbour dozed quietly until the Civil War disturbed it. ”

“ I am no fool; I know thee. Where hast thou hidden the stranger woman?’
Therewith he drew forth his sword and hove it aloft as if to hew down Face-of-god, who spake not nor flinched nor raised a hand from his side. But the Bride threw herself in front of Gold-mane, while there arose an angry cry of ‘The Peace of the Holy Thing! Peace-breaking, peace-breaking!’ and some cried, ‘For the War-leader, the War-leader!’ and as men could for the press they drew forth their swords, and there was tumult and noise all over the Thing-stead. ”

“ A virgin clothed in man's attire, with the body of a maid, at God's behest goes forth to raise the downcast King, who bears the lilies, and to drive out his accursed enemies, even those who now beleaguer the city of Orléans and strike terror into the hearts of its inhabitants. And if the people will take heart and go out to battle, the treacherous English shall be struck down by death, at the hand of the God of battles who fights for the Maid, and the French shall cause them to fall, and then shall there be an end of the war ”

“ Few men had suffered in the Wars of the Roses as he had. To-day in prison, and to-morrow in sanctuary; forsaken by his own soldiers, reduced to beg his bread barefooted until the Duke of Burgundy took compassion upon him, robbed of every penny of his inheritance by the woman who had sworn in God's presence to love and cherish him—all these painful memories were less to Exeter than the cruel separation from his only child. ”

“ And then that boy was called by his country and soon he was dead—he was in the happy peace of glory and she was facing the empty years of agony. Then they ask what a woman knows about war!... The very flower of a country perishes in a war, leaving the maimed and diseased to father the children of future generations. ”

“ Let her breathe in her fragrance of the far times when millions in a strange and busy age now forgotten thronged rose-garlanded to the temples; when, bearing roses, they gathered to wild worship at the Feast of the New Moon, under shady groves or in picturesque high places among the ancient rocks. Rose-breathing, rose-perfumed, amid sweetest music and black Assyrian eyes, in the gliding dance under thousands of brazen serpent lamps, or far in dusky fragrant forests, they adored the Rose Queen—the very visible spirit and incarnation of nature in her loveliest form. ”

“ And the slogan of battle from beauty's fond arms
Roused the war-crested chieftain, his country to save;
The sunbeam that rose on our mountain-clad warriors,
And reflected their shields in the green rippling wave,
In its course saw the slain on the fields of their fathers,
And shed its last ray on their cold bloody graves.
O'er those green beds of honour our war-song prepare,
And the red sword of vengeance triumphantly wave,
While the ghosts of the slain cry aloud—Do not spare,
Lead to victory and freedom, or die with the brave ”

“ Vain is thy taunt, Destroyer: Spring once more
Thy mad and ruthless ruin shall restore.
Following is the poem "Ashes of Roses," written 25 years ago by Mrs. Helen N. Packard:
Ashes of Roses.
What though the flowers we have gathered in youth,
Culled from the gardens of freshness and truth,
Fade in our clasp, as the long day closes?
Still there remains to us, ashes of roses.
When in life's west fades forever the light,
And o'er our pathway hushed falls the night,
Still subtle in fragrance as the day closes
All that remains behind, ashes of roses. ”

“ Thus for nearly the whole of that Sabbath day the battle raged, the huge struggling mass of humanity fighting like demons, and many times during that fatal day did the fortune of war waver in the balance: sometimes the White Rose trembling and then the Red, while men fought each other as if they were contending for the Gate of Paradise! ”

“ A gentle, fragile, soft-eyed woman, what could such a delicate flower do against the "thunder-storm of battle"? What DID she do? Poured her own great heart and own high spirit into the patriot's heart and soul, and so did all. Now as she goes to fro and in her daily life, soft-eyed still and serene, she seems to me no longer a beautiful girl, but a saint wrapped around already with the radiance of immortality.
Under God, the only question, as to whether war shall be conducted to a shameful or an honorable close, is not of men or money or material resource. ”

“ Vain earthly love may never stir thy breast, Nor passion's sinful glow be kindled there. Ne'er with the bride-wreath shall thy locks be dressed, Nor on thy bosom bloom an infant fair; But war's triumphant glory shall be thine; Thy martial fame all women's shall outshine. "For when in fight the stoutest hearts despair, When direful ruin threatens France, forlorn, Then thou aloft my oriflamme shalt bear, And swiftly as the reaper mows the corn, Thou shalt lay low the haughty conqueror ”

“ The cries of the women for the loss of their relations are mournful in the extreme, and at night the wailings of these unhappy heathens fill the air with a melancholy sound, while not far from them, the victorious warriors chant their wild war-song, and dance their savage dance in demoniac glee around the blazing watch-fires. ”

“ It pictured this pure and dainty white rose as growing up out of the rude soil of war and looking abroad out of its tender eyes upon the horrid machinery of death, and then—note this conceit—it blushes for the sinful nature of man, and turns red in a single night. Becomes a red rose, you see—a rose that was white before. ”

“ I have known a rose, even a rose who had but one little short life of a summer day to live through and to lose, perish glad and triumphant in its prime because it died on a woman's breast and of a woman's kiss. You see there are roses as weak as men are. ”

“ What flower may live i' the snows! No bloom shall last under heels of wrong, If the heart-blood be not deathless strong, As the dark little Rose. Sing hers the culture sweeter than rain That healed old Europe's woes; Older than bowers of Lille and Louvain Grew by the Rhine and the towns of Spain From the dark little Rose. Leagues in the sunlight never shall fail While the broad, round ocean flows; Though never a fleet goes up Kinsale, See, all the world is within the pale Of the dark little Rose. ”

“ At the height of their wealth, when luxury in food and dress was at its zenith and the poor were down-trodden and miserable, the heads of many great houses in England hurled themselves into a conflict, known as the Wars of the Roses, from which they never again rose to their ancient pride and splendour. ”

“ Many follow her as an inspired being sent from heaven to lead them to victory; and the foes, as they hear the war shout of her followers, and see her approaching, fly, terror-stricken before her. The fire of revenge for her slaughtered love still burns unquenched within her bosom. Death—death alone can ever extinguish its consuming flame. ”