A somewhat kindred subject, which has never been exhaustively treated, is the "language of flowers," in its broadest and most philosophical aspect. It is more true of such countries as Persia and India than of England and France, that every indigenous flower has become the symbol of some attribute or idea, and hence it speaks a language to the natives of those countries of which we have not learnt the alphabet. The Hindoo or the Parsee sees a symbol in every object and in every act of his life; our interest in flowers is more sensual; we admire their colour, their form, their odour, and, if these gratify us, we are content. Perhaps we might with profit study the language of flowers in the East, and find something to learn from the Parsee or the Hindoo.
Bring flowers to the shrine where we kneel in prayer, They are nature's offering, their place is there; They speak of hope to the fainting heart; With a voice of promise they come and part; They sleep in dust, through the wintry hours; They break forth in glory—bring flowers, bright flowers!
CHAPTER XX.
FLOWERS OF HISTORY.
SOME little latitude for gossip may perhaps be accorded to us for a final chapter, even if it should not concern itself much with scientific fact. Confessedly, we are proposing to enter the regions of tradition and romance, with no design of illuminating dark pages of history, or giving a new rendering to old myths. Tales of the nursery, and similar juvenile eras, are apt to cling about one, in spite of more serious studies, through many a decade. After a long journey a traveller may be permitted to describe an adventure or two, and narrate some of the legends of the country through which he has passed. It will not be wholly trivial to ascertain, if it can be done, what are the plants which as emblems or myths are associated with old stories. The rose, thistle, and shamrock may be familiar enough in name, but it will be seen that it is not quite so easy to determine which is the thistle and what is the shamrock, as might at first be imagined. Little national predilections are apt to come in the way, so that what reason might be disposed to accept, prejudice is fain to dispute.
Reasonably and loyally we commence with the rose, which old Gerarde says "doth deserve the chiefest and most principal place among all flowers whatsoever, being not only esteemed for his beautie, vertues, and his fragrant and odoriferous smell, but also because it is the honor and ornament of our English scepter, as by the conjunction appeereth in the uniting of those two most royal houses of Lancaster and York."
The emblematic rose of England is not involved in much obscurity, and the period of its first assumption seems to be contained in the following record:— "The roses of England were first publicly assumed as devices by the sons of Edward III. John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, used the red rose for the badge of his family, and his brother Edward, who was created Duke of York in 1385, took a white rose for his device, which the followers of them and their heirs afterwards bore for distinction in that bloody war between the two Houses of York and Lancaster. The two families being happily united by Henry VII., the male heir of the house of Lancaster marrying Princess Elizabeth, the eldest daughter and heiress of Edward IV. of the House of York, 1486, the two roses were united in one, and became the royal badge of England."
- Hugh Clark's "Introduction to Heraldry," 13th ed. (1840), p. 172.
Before the adoption of the rose, the broom was the badge of the House of Plantagenet. Tradition says that the name is derived from this circumstance, Planta and genista being combined. The latter (Genista) was the botanical name for the "broom" before the present one (Sarothamnus) was adopted. The name of "Plantagenet," another account says, was first assumed by Geoffrey, Earl of Anjou, the husband of Matilda, Empress of Germany, who, having placed a sprig of the broom in his helmet on the day of battle, originated the surname, which was bequeathed to his descendants.
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The hawthorn is associated also with the Royal House of England, and was the badge of the Tudors. On the authority of Miss Strickland, this was its origin. When the body of Richard III., who was slain at Redmore Heath, was plundered of its armour and ornaments, the crown was hidden by a soldier in a hawthorn bush. It was soon found and carried back to Lord Stanley, who placed it on the head of his son-in-law, saluting him by the title of Henry VII., whilst the victorious army sang the "Te Deum." In memory of this event it is said that the House of Tudor assumed as a device a crown in a bush of fruiting hawthorn. There is an old proverb:—
Cleave to the crown, though it hang in a bush,
which appears to allude to this tradition.
Stow gives an account of King Henry VIII. and Queen Katherine riding a-Maying from Greenwich to the high ground of Shooter's Hill, accompanied by many lords and ladies, but we doubt if this had any relation to the tradition above quoted. In all the old May-day customs gathering the hawthorn had a prominent place. Brand, in his "Antiquities," gives a long account of the customs in vogue on May-day, and their supposed relationship to the ancient floralia, and subsequent association with Robin Hood and his merry men. The first of May was also called Robin Hood's day, and even Bishop Latimer failed to secure an audience on that day, for all the parish had gone abroad to gather for Robin Hood, so that he "was fain to give place to Robin Hood and his men."
We have been rambling all this night, And almost all this day; And now returned back again, We have brought you a branch of May.
The historical associations of the "forget-me-not" (or Myosotis arvensis) are narrated to the following effect. Miss Strickland, writing of Henry of Lancaster, says, this royal adventurer, the banished and aspiring Lancaster, appears to have been the person who gave to the "forget-me-not" its emblematical and poetical meaning, by uniting it, at the period of his exile, in his collar of SS., with the initial letter of his mot or watchword, "souveigne vous de moy," thus rendering it the symbol of remembrance. Henry is said to have exchanged this token of goodwill and remembrance with his hostess, who was at that time wife of the Duke of Bretagne. If this be a true tradition, then we must bid farewell to the poetical romance of the drowned knight, who being carried by the stream, as he gathered some of these flowers for his lady, made use of the expression since associated as its name.
Many other trees and flowers have from time to time been associated, historically, with events which have transpired in this country; but Boscobel Oak and Glastonbury thorn, and such mementoes must be passed over, as our limits are reached, and we must hasten to the final page.
There has been continued controversy as to the plant with three leaflets which furnished St. Patrick with his familiar illustration of the doctrine of the Trinity. Some have affirmed that this, the Irish shamrock, is the plant we call wood-sorrel, whilst others, with whom most Irishmen agree, maintain that it is the white clover. The visit of the saint to the Emerald Isle is supposed to have taken place about the year 433, whereas the white clover is of comparatively recent introduction into Ireland, so that it could not have been that plant which apparently was so ready at hand to illustrate the saint's discourse. In Morison's history, written at the commencement of the seventeenth century, it is said that "the Irish willingly eat the herb shamrock, being of a sharp taste, which they snatch out of the ditches." This description, however applicable it may be to the wood-sorrel, is not equally so to the white clover. The Irish shamrock was certainly a plant having leaves composed of three leaflets, and as a four-leaved shamrock was supposed to possess magical virtues, it may be assumed that it was not common. This would be true also of the wood-sorrel, but it is not true of the white clover, for a leaf possessed of a supplementary leaflet is by no means uncommon. In fact, if one of these two plants is to be regarded as the veritable shamrock, the evidence is very strongly in favour of the wood-sorrel, notwithstanding the national predilection for the clover.
- Oxalis acetosella.
- Trifolium repens.
- Fynis Morison's "History of the Civil Wars in Ireland, between 1599 and 1603."
The Scotch emblem the thistle, has been the subject of much controversy, both as to its origin and the particular species which is symbolical. The tradition has often been cited which carries its origin back to the time of the Danish invasion. "In a night assault, a bare-footed Dane trod on a thistle, and uttering a cry from the sudden pain, the sleeping Scotch were timeously aroused, and succeeded in defeating the enemy. Henceforth the thistle was elevated to its present distinction." Sir Harris Nicholas traces the badge to James III., for, in an inventory of his jewels, thistles are mentioned as part of the ornaments.
According to Pinkerton, the first authentic mention of the thistle as the badge of Scotland is in Dunbar's poem entitled "The Thrissell and the Rois," written in 1503, on the occasion of the marriage of James IV. with Margaret Tudor. Hamilton of Bargowe expressly states that the plant was the "Monarch's choice," and Sir D. Lindsey in 1537, mentions it as the emblem of James V.
The botanical question, "which is the true Scotch thistle?" was investigated by Dr. G. Johnston, and his conclusions are those now generally accepted. What is denominated by gardeners the "Scotch Thistle" (Onopordum acanthium) is an introduced plant, and not a native, and, though it has had advocates, and is planted round the grave of Burns in Dumfries, it could scarcely have been the traditionary thistle of Scotland. A young chieftain in the Hebrides pointed out another plant (Carduus eriophorus) as the Scotch thistle. At Inverness Sir James Grant said that the Scotch thistle was the only one that drooped (Carduus nutans); and, finally, Sir William Drummond maintained that no particular thistle, but any thistle the poet or painter chose, was the national flower of Scotland. Whether it was a thistle armed with spines or not was contested, and this induced Dr. Johnston to seek a solution by an examination of the figures impressed on the money of the kings of Scotland. "Now, the first who so marked his money was James V., and on the coins of his reign (1514 to 1542) the head or flower of a thistle only is represented. On a coin of James VI., of 1599, there are three thistles grouped and united at the base, whence two leaves spread laterally, and the stalk of the plant is spinous. On later coins, as on one of 1602, there is only a single head, while the leaves and spines are retained, and this figure is the same given on all subsequent coins, the form of the flower itself having suffered no change from its first adoption. This evidence," says Johnston, "seems to me to put Carduus nutans out of court, and the greater number of species, and very much to invalidate the claims of the Onopordum, but greatly to strengthen our belief that Carduus marianus was the chosen emblem of the national pride and character, although it must be admitted that the resemblance between the plant and the picture of the artist is somewhat postulatory. The bold motto, 'nemo me impune lacessit,' was the addition of James VI., and Carduus marianus is almost the only species that would naturally suggest it, or that really deserves it, but I suspect that the reason for the preference of this species as the emblem was the fact of its dedication to the mother of Our Saviour, a drop of whose milk having fallen on the leaves, imprinted the accident in those white veins which so remarkably distinguished them. The period at which the thistle was emblazoned was rife in those religious associations and adoptions." In favour of this view an argument may be derived from the fact of the "Blessed thistle" having been cultivated in the neighbourhood of castles in Scotland, about whose ruins it is now found.