How Did The Rose Become The National Flower Of England?

With Valentine’s Day on the horizon, many people are looking to prepare beautiful garlands and bouquets of roses ready to deliver to the ones they love, and given the timeless beauty and rich symbolism of the flower, it is not difficult to see why.

Roses are so often connected with romantic love, but they are such a captivating flower that they have signified multiple types of love and affection at once. 

However, a rose can have so many meanings wrapped within its petals, to the point that Umberto Eco claimed that the title of his bestselling novel The Name of the Rose was chosen because it is so rich in meanings that it is difficult to know what it truly represents at times.

The rose is the national flower of England, but the symbolic meaning that the Tudor Rose represents is very different to the one found in most bouquets.

Much of this comes from the Wars of the Roses, a conflict between the House of Lancaster and the House of York for the throne of England between 1455 and 1485.

The name of the war itself comes from the famous Temple Garden scene in the William Shakespeare play Henry VI, Part One, which featured English nobles picking white or red roses symbolically.

Curiously, there is evidence to suggest that the white and red roses were not worn during the Wars of the Roses; the red rose of Lancaster was only introduced after the final Battle of Bosworth Field, even if the white rose of York had been used since the 14th century.

Combatants in the war did not wear the roses, however; instead, they wore the livery that was connected to their immediate lords. This meant that Henry Tudor (later King Henry VII) and his men fought under the Welsh Dragon, whilst Richard III’s army fought under the symbol of the white boar.

However, King Henry VII was the man to combine the two flower symbols to create the Tudor Rose, a symbol of England still seen today as a distinct symbol of England.