The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1894-10-26
The NATIONAL FLOWER.
How the Rose of Sharon Became the
Rose of England.

Rose of England.
That the rose is the national flower
of England. and was accepted as Such
at the conclusion of the wars of the
roses. when the red rose of Lancaster
and the white rose of York We're united
bv the marriage of the representatives
of the two warning houses, most read
ers of history know. How this Hover
came to be the badge of either house,
not many people even guess. The few
students who suppose they know Its
history say that the white rose came
to the house of York through the fam
ilv of Clifford. whose device IT had long
been. and beyond whom 1t cannot be
traced. The red rose. II Is supposed,
dates back to Eleanor of Provence.
queen of Henry Ill, and was her per
sonal device. assumed for love OF the
beautiful Provence roses of her native
duchy and transmitted to her descend
ants of Lancaster.
But in the recently published life of
Dean Stanley. a devoted student of
historic traditions, new and pic
turesque origin is assigned to the ma
tional flower. He gathered the story
while visiting in a chateau in the little
town of Provins, France, and believed
red rose of England was never
Provence rose, but instead was a rose
of Provins.
The chateau of Provins belonged
centuries ago to the counts of Cham
pagne. and in the time of the Fourth
Crusade one of these counts, called
Thibaut the Troubadour, became
crusader and visited the Holy Land.
On his return he brought to his wife
a rose-bush with a splendid bright
crimson fiower-the rose of Sharon
and this was planted in the castle gar
den. where il grew and flourished.
Soon it spread to neighboring gar
dens and the town became famous for
roses. Wrcaths for the great church
festivals were made from these roses
from the Holy Land; they were used to
grace all gala occasions. and the good
French housewives even turned them
to more practical account. They made
such an appetiZing delicacy from rose
leaves. put up with sugar or sirup, that
its fame spread far beyond the immc
diate neighborhood, and il commanded
ready sale throughout the entire re-
gion under the name of Conserves de
Roses de Provins
\ generation later the prosperity of
the town received a sad shock. and the
preserving industry no doubt suffered
with the other industries of its citizens.
Provins had a mayor of such OppreS-
Sive views on the labor question that
he ventured to ring the great curfew
bell, which ended the working day, an
hour later than had been customary.
This the work-people would not en-
dure. They mobbed the unpopular
magistrate, and killed him in his own
house. They did not stop to consider
the possible consequence of such an
act. The line of the counts of Cham
pagne had become extinct, but blanche.
the widow of the last one. had married
Edmund CrOuchback, first earl of Ian
caster, who promptly undertook to
punish the unruly inhabitants.
lie made such havoc that the town
never recovered from it, and had even
to submit to having a new bell made
and named GuillOnette, in honor of the
murdered mayor, Guillaume. This
bell. after six centuries, still rings the
curfew in Provins every night. When
Edmund went back to England. lcav-
ing misery, poverty and terrified quiet
behind him, he carried home, says
De n Stanley, two relics.
"One was the yard measure which,
for many years, was in France peculiar
to Provins; the other was the crimson
rose, which through him became the
rose of Lancaster"
The hcraldic rose of England is still
of blended red and white. significant
of the union of the two great houses:
but as Lancaster was victorious in bat
tie. so also is the red rose the victor in
popular favor. and it is of that. not of
the stiff parti-colored rosette of the
British coat-of-arms, that we think as
the emblem and flower of the nation.
The old French crusaders holy rose.
the rose of Sharon, the rose of Provins,
has become the rose of England.