Henry A. (Harry) Payne: Choosing the Red and White Roses in
the Temple Garden, 1910
Of all the incidents that are associated with particular
places, none stands out more vividly than the scene told by Shakespeare, of the
first beginning to the Wars of the Roses in the Temple Garden. Richard
Plantagenet, with the Earls of Somerset, Suffolk, and Warwick, Vernon, and a
lawyer, enter the Temple Garden ("Henry VI." Pt. I. Act 2, sc. iv.).
Suffolk. Within the Temple Hall we were too loud; The garden here is more
convenient. Plantagenet. Then say at once if I maintained the truth, Or else
was wrangling Somerset in the error? The direct answer being evaded,
Plantagenet continues- Since you are tongue-tied and so loath to speak, In dumb
significants proclaim your thoughts; 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 brier pluck a white rose with me. Somerset. Let him that is no
coward nor no flatterer, But dare maintain the party of the truth, Pluck a red
rose from off this thorn with me. Warwick. I pluck this white rose with
Plantagenet. Suffolk. I pluck this red rose with young Somerset. Vernon. I
pluck this pale and maiden blossom here, Giving my verdict on the white rose
side. Lawyer (to Somerset) ... The argument you held was wrong in you, In sign
whereof I pluck a white rose too. Plan. Now, Somerset, where is your argument? Som.
Here, in my scabbard, meditating that Shall dye your white rose in a bloody
red. Plan. Hath not thy rose a canker, Somerset? Som. Hath not thy rose a
thorn, Plantagenet? Plan. Ay, sharp and piercing to maintain his truth; Whiles
thy consuming canker eats his falsehood. Som. Well, I'll find friends to wear
my bleeding roses, That shall maintain what I have said is true. Warwick. And
here I prophesy this brawl to-day, Grown to this faction in the Temple-garden,
Shall send between the red rose and the white A thousand souls to death and
deadly night.
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Since Shakespeare’s day, popular perception of the Wars of
the Roses has been confused by the propaganda of partisan supporters of the
White or the Red, or by those who see the whole affair as a minor dynastic
squabble. It is true that their significance in the history of the art or
practice of warfare is small. And while the Wars were not the general bloodbath
Shakespeare described for the Elizabethan stage, the royal house of Plantagenet
was wiped out...along with other noble dynasties beside. Modern historical
research, however, has shown that the era was no better nor worse than those
that came before and after.
