Tudor rose - Misplaced Pages

(Redirected from Union of the Roses) Heraldic emblem of England This article is about the heraldic element. For other uses, see Tudor rose (disambiguation).

The Tudor rose (sometimes called the Union rose) is the traditional floral heraldic emblem of England and takes its name and origins from the House of Tudor, which united the House of Lancaster and the House of York. The Tudor rose consists of five white inner petals, representing the House of York, and five red outer petals to represent the House of Lancaster.

Origins

The white rose of the House of York

The red rose of the House of Lancaster

Tudor double rose royally crowned.

Tudor double rose slipped and crowned.

In the Battle of Bosworth Field (1485), Henry VII, of the House of Lancaster, took the crown of England from Richard III, of the House of York. He thus brought to an end the retrospectively dubbed "Wars of the Roses". Kings of the House of Lancaster had sometimes used a red or gold rose as a badge; and the House of York had used a white rose as a badge. Henry's father was Edmund Tudor, and his mother was Margaret Beaufort from the House of Lancaster; in January 1486 he married Elizabeth of York to bring the two factions together. (In battle, Richard III fought under the banner of the boar, and Henry under the banner of the dragon of his native Wales.) The white rose versus red rose juxtaposition was mostly Henry's invention, created to exploit his appeal as a 'peacemaker king'. The historian Thomas Penn writes:

The "Lancastrian" red rose was an emblem that barely existed before Henry VII. Lancastrian kings used the rose sporadically, but when they did it was often gold rather than red; Henry VI, the king who presided over the country's descent into civil war, preferred his badge of the antelope. Contemparies certainly did not refer to the traumatic civil conflict of the 15th century as the "Wars of the Roses". For the best part of a quarter-century, from 1461 to 1485, there was only one royal rose, and it was white: the badge of Edward IV. The roses were actually created after the war by Henry VII.

On his marriage, Henry VII adopted the Tudor rose badge conjoining the White Rose of York and the Red Rose of Lancaster. The Tudor rose is occasionally seen divided in quarters (heraldically as "quartered") and vertically (in heraldic terms per pale) red and white. More often, the Tudor rose is depicted as a double rose, white on red and is always described, heraldically, as "proper" (that is, naturally-coloured, despite not actually existing in nature).

Tudor rose dimidiated with the Spanish pomegranate.

Tudor rose, dimidiated with the thistle, crowned.

Tudor rose (upper left) *slipped and crowned* from the *Pelican Portrait* of Elizabeth I.

Historical uses

Henry VII was reserved in his usage of the Tudor rose. He regularly used the Lancastrian rose by itself, being the house to which he descended. His successor Henry VIII, descended from the House of York as well through his mother, would use the rose more often.

When Arthur, Prince of Wales, died in 1502, his tomb in Worcester Cathedral used both roses; thereby asserting his royal descent from both the houses of Lancaster and York.

During his reign, Henry VIII had the legendary "Round Table" at Winchester Castle – then believed to be genuine – repainted. The new paint scheme included a Tudor rose in the centre. Previous to this, his father Henry VII had built the Henry VII Chapel at Westminster Abbey (it was later used for the site of his tomb) and it was decorated principally with the Tudor rose and the Beaufort portcullis – as a form of propaganda to define his claim to the throne.

The Tudor rose badge may appear slipped and crowned: shown as a cutting with a stem and leaves beneath a crown; this badge appears in Nicholas Hilliard's "Pelican Portrait" of Elizabeth I and since an Order in Council (dated 5 November 1800), has served as the royal floral emblem of England.

The Tudor rose may also appear dimidiated (cut in half and combined with half another emblem) to form a compound badge. The Westminster Tournament Roll includes a badge of Henry and his first wife Catherine of Aragon with a slipped Tudor rose conjoined with Catherine's personal badge, the Spanish pomegranate; their daughter Mary I bore the same badge. Following his ascent to the English throne, James VI of Scotland and I of England used a badge consisting of a Tudor rose dimidiated with a Scottish thistle and surmounted by a royal crown.

Contemporary uses

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The crowned and slipped Tudor rose is used as the plant badge of England, as Scotland uses the thistle, Wales uses the leek, and Ireland uses the shamrock (Northern Ireland sometimes using flax instead). As such, it is seen on the dress uniforms of the Yeomen Warders at the Tower of London, and of the Yeomen of the Guard. It features in the design of the 20-pence coin minted between 1982 and 2008, and in the royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom. It also features on the coat of arms of Canada.

As part of the badge of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, the Tudor rose represents England alongside the floral badges of the other constituent parts of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The heraldic badge of the Royal Navy's current flagship aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth uses a Tudor rose with colours divided vertically (per pale), inheriting the heraldry of the early twentieth century super-dreadnought oil-fired fast battleship HMS Queen Elizabeth. The Tudor rose makes up part of the cap badge of the Intelligence Corps of the British Army. The Tudor rose is used as the emblem of The Nautical Training Corps, a uniformed youth organisation founded in Brighton in 1944 with 20 units in South East England. The corps badge has the Tudor Rose on the shank of an anchor with the motto "For God, Queen and Country". It is also used as part of the Corps' cap badge.

The Tudor rose is also prominent in a number of towns and cities. The Royal Town of Sutton Coldfield, uses the emblem frequently, due to the town being given Royal Town status by Henry VIII. The Tudor rose appears on the coat of arms of Oxford. It is also notably used (albeit in a monochromatic form) as the symbol of VisitEngland, England's tourist board. A half-and-half design was used as the "Border Rose" in some parts of Todmorden, a conurbation that was historically bisected by the Yorkshire-Lancashire border.

The borough and county of Queens in New York City uses a Tudor rose on its flag and seal. The flag and seal of Annapolis, Maryland, features a Tudor rose and a thistle surmounted with a crown. The city of York, South Carolina is nicknamed "The White Rose City", and the nearby city of Lancaster, South Carolina is nicknamed "The Red Rose City". York, Pennsylvania and Lancaster, Pennsylvania are similarly nicknamed, using stylized white and red roses in their emblems, respectively.

There are ten tudor roses present on the crest of the England national football team.

The Tudor rose used on the chain in the portrait of Sir Thomas More by Hans Holbein the Younger
Tudor rose divided per pale as the ship's badge of HMS Queen Elizabeth
Contemporary badge of the Yeomen of the Guard
Simplified Supreme Court badge used in the building's upholstery, designed by pop artist Sir Peter Blake.

Notes

"boar". concise.britannica.com. Archived from the original on 14 October 2007. Retrieved 21 June 2007. In Europe the boar is one of the four heraldic beasts of the chase and was the distinguishing mark of Richard III, king of England.
^ Penn, Thomas. "How Henry VII branded the Tudors", The Guardian, 2 March 2012
Wise, p. 22
Fox-Davies, The Complete Guide to Heraldry, p. 270
^ Ryrie, Alec (2017). The Age of Reformation: the Tudor and Stewart Realms, 1485-1603. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. p. 47.
Starkey, p. 41
Fox-Davies (1909), p. 276
Boutell, p. 229
Fox-Davies (1907), p. 117.
rradmin (26 March 2018). "Home". VisitEngland. Retrieved 19 January 2020.
Himelfield, Dave (11 June 2022). "Small town 'stuck in the middle' between Yorkshire and Lancashire". YorkshireLive.
Levine, Alexandra S. (14 June 2017). "New York Today: Decoding Our Borough Flags". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 18 April 2019.

References

Boutell, Charles; A.C. Fox-Davies; R B Utting (1914). The Handbook to English Heraldry (11th ed.). London: Reeves and Turner. OCLC 2034334 – via Project Gutenberg.
Fox-Davies, A.C. (1904). The Art of Heraldry: An Encyclopædia of Armory. London and Edinburgh: T C and E C Jack – via Internet Archive.
Fox-Davies, A.C. (1907). Heraldic Badges. London: John Lane. OCLC 4897294 – via Internet Archive.
Fox-Davies, A.C. (1909). A Complete Guide to Heraldry. London and Edinburgh: T C and E C Jack. OCLC 474004850 – via Internet Archive.
Starkey, David (2008). Henry – Virtuous Prince. London: Harper. ISBN 978-0-00-729263-9.
Wise, Terence; Richard Hook; William Walker (1980). Medieval Heraldry. Osprey. ISBN 0-85045-348-8.

External links

Tudor Rose in SF Presidio, CH+D Magazine

v t e Royal heraldry in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom	Royal coat of arms Royal Standard Cadency labels of the Royal Family Imperial State Crown The Lion and the Unicorn The Queen's Beasts
England	Royal arms Standards Honi soit qui mal y pense Dieu et mon droit St Edward's Crown Tudor Crown Badges (Tudor rose) Supporters College of Arms
Scotland	Royal arms Royal Banner Nemo me impune lacessit In My Defens God Me Defend Crown of Scotland Honours of Scotland Heraldic Thistle Order of the Thistle Unicorn Supporters Court of the Lord Lyon
Wales	Royal Badge Coat of arms of the Prince of Wales Prince of Wales's feathers Welsh Dragon
Monarchy of the United Kingdom Heraldry

v t e Kingdom of England
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Wars of the Roses

Key figures

Monarchs	Henry VI Edward IV Edward V Richard III Henry VII
Lancaster Tudor	Margaret of Anjou, Queen of England Elizabeth Woodville, Queen of England Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset Edmund Beaufort, 4th Duke of Somerset John Beaumont, Viscount Beaumont Henry Beaufort, Duke of Somerset John Sutton, 1st Baron Dudley James Butler, Earl of Ormond John Butler, Earl of Ormond John Clifford, Baron Clifford John Courtenay, Earl of Devon Henry Holland, Duke of Exeter John Neville, Baron Neville John Neville, Marquess of Montagu Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick Thomas Neville, Bastard of Fauconberg Henry Percy, 2nd Earl of Northumberland Henry Percy, 3rd Earl of Northumberland Thomas Ros, Baron Ros Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham Humphrey Stafford, Duke of Buckingham Thomas Stanley, Earl of Derby George Stanley, Baron Strange William Stanley George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury Andrew Trollope Thomas Clifford, 8th Baron Clifford James Tuchet, Baron Audley Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke Margaret Beaufort Owen Tudor Edward Woodville, Lord Scales
York	Anne Neville, Queen of England John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln Thomas FitzGerald, Earl of Desmond William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke William Hastings, Baron Hastings John Howard, Duke of Norfolk Francis Lovell, Viscount Lovell John Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury Sir Thomas Neville William Neville, Earl of Kent Sir Richard Herbert Edmund Plantagenet, Earl of Rutland George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence Humphrey Stafford, Earl of Devon Margaret of York Richard of York

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