Queen Elizabeth Rose

Queen Elizabeth Rose
Does this windowpane still exist?

It is said that Queen Elizabeth the first, using a diamond, scratched this message on a windowpane for Sir Walter Raleigh to read.

http://www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/woodstock.htm

The Gatehouse at Woodstock Manor is also where Queen Elizabeth I, then Princess Elizabeth, was confined during her sister Mary’s reign, in 1554, when she was under suspicion of colluding with traitors, under guard of 100 men. The buildings were already in bad shape then, cold, wet, and filthy. Elizabeth was as much in danger of catching and dying from pneumonia as she was of being charged with treason. According to contemporary sources, including Holinshed, Elizabeth engraved the following verse with a diamond on a window in the Gatehouse:

Much suspected by me,
Nothing proved can be,
Quoth Elizabeth prisoner.

She is also reported to have written lines now known as verses on a wall at Woodstock, although Hentzner’s 1598 account speaks of lines written with charcoal on the shutters of her room1. Despite her inauspicious beginning at Woodstock, the manor house was one of Elizabeth’s favored residences once queen.

Queen Elizabeth Rose

Wars of the Roses

The Wars of the Roses were a series of dynastic civil wars for the throne of England fought between supporters of two rival branches of the royal House of Plantagenet: the houses of Lancaster and York  (the “red” and the “white” rose, respectively). They were fought in several sporadic episodes between 1455 and 1485, although there was related fighting both before and after this period. The final victory went to a relatively remote Lancastrian claimant, Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, who married Elizabeth of York, the daughter of the late Yorkist king Edward IV, to reconcile the two factions and found the House of Tudor, which subsequently ruled England and Wales for 117 years.

Henry of Bolingbroke had established the House of Lancaster on the throne in 1399 when he deposed his cousin Richard II and was crowned as Henry IV. Bolingbroke’s son Henry V maintained the family’s hold on the crown, but when Henry V died, his heir was the infant Henry VI. The Lancastrian claim to the throne descended from John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster, the fourth son of Edward III. Henry VI was challenged to his right to the crown by Richard, Duke of York, who could claim descent from Edward’s third and fifth sons, Lionel of Antwerp and Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of York. During the reign of Henry VI, York had held several important offices of state. York quarrelled with prominent Lancastrians at court and with Henry VI’s queen, Margaret of Anjou.

Although armed clashes had occurred previously between supporters of York and Lancaster, the first open fighting broke out in 1455 at the First Battle of St Albans. Several prominent Lancastrians died, but their heirs continued a deadly feud with Richard. Although peace was temporarily restored, the Lancastrians were inspired by Margaret of Anjou to contest York’s influence. Fighting resumed more violently in 1459. York was forced to flee the country, but one of his most prominent supporters, the Earl of Warwick, invaded England from Calais and captured Henry at the Battle of Northampton. York returned to the country and became Protector of England, but was dissuaded from claiming the throne. Margaret and the irreconcilable Lancastrian nobles gathered their forces in the north of England, and when York moved north to suppress them, he and his second son Edmund were killed at the Battle of Wakefield in December 1460. The Lancastrian army advanced south and recaptured Henry at the Second Battle of St Albans, but failed to occupy London, and subsequently retreated to the north. York’s eldest son, Edward, Earl of March, was proclaimed King Edward IV. He gathered the Yorkist armies and won a crushing victory at the Battle of Towton in March 1461.

After minor Lancastrian revolts were suppressed in 1464 and Henry was captured once again, Edward fell out with his chief supporter and advisor, the Earl of Warwick (known as the “Kingmaker”), and also alienated many friends and even family members by favouring the upstart family of his queen, Elizabeth Woodville, whom he had married in secret. Warwick tried first to supplant Edward with his younger brother George, Duke of Clarence, and then to restore Henry VI to the throne. This resulted in two years of rapid changes of fortune, before Edward IV once again won complete victories at Barnet (April 1471), where Warwick was killed, and Tewkesbery (May 1471) where the Lancastrian heir, Edward, Prince of Wales, was executed after the battle, and Henry himself murdered in the Tower of London several days later.

A period of comparative peace followed, but King Edward died unexpectedly in 1483. His surviving brother, Richard of Gloucester, first moved to prevent the unpopular Woodville family of Edward’s widow from participating in the government during the minority of Edward’s son, Edward V, and then seized the throne for himself, based on the suspect legitimacy of Edward IV’s marriage. Henry Tudor, a distant relative of the Lancastrian kings who had inherited their claim, defeated Richard at Bosworth in 1485. He was crowned Henry VII, and married Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV, to unite and reconcile the two houses. Yorkist revolts flared up in 1487, resulting in the last pitched battles. Although most of the surviving descendants of Richard of York were imprisoned, sporadic rebellions continued until 1497, when Perkin Warbeck, who claimed the throne as the younger son of Edward IV, was imprisoned and later executed.

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Should I prune a rosebush before planting?

I got two rosebushes at Walmart for $2 each called Queen Elizabeth and Gold medal. The package says cut the plant to six inches but I can see little grows coming out of the canes, will this hurt the plant or should I just go ahead and cut it?

Most of these are already pruned and are only 6-9″ long anyway. Make sure that when you plant them, you dig a hole twice as big around and twice as deep as the roots. Where you live will determine how deep you plant the roses. If you live in the northern states, you will want to make sure that you plant the graft (where the roots meet and the tops meet – thick portion), a couple inches below ground level. Use good soil (potting soil or regular soil, sand, and peat moss _ equal portions) in the hole. Make a small mound and separate the roots, spreading them over the mound. Cover the roots with more soil and water the plant.

Don’t be surprised if the rose turns out a different color. I have grown these before and part of the time they are different.

ROSE AND THISTLE (NZ) – 1984 Queen Elizabeth Handicap