The Rose and George

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The Rose, the famous plant otherwise unbeknownst in its role of how America came to be.

America, to this day, exists as a continuation of its predecessor nation, England. This is understood through the rose, and some background history.

Before the Revolutionary War, England was a fractious nation, divided in civil war. Unsurprisingly, America not long after winning over England, devolved into the same: the U.S. Civil War.

The civil war of England is called the War of the Roses. The war marked on one side by a red rose (House of Lancaster), and a white rose on the other (House of York).

The continuation of the themes is understood by one of America to this day, in the city where George Washington made a point to win the war, in Yorktown Virginia. The U.S. continues to pay homage to York via the state today that bears the name, New York.

Before the War of the Roses were the accumulating wars of Europe, most notably the Crusades of the 12th & 13th centuries What seems like ancient history until we realize George Washington himself claimed his family coat of arms dated to the 13th century.

The Crusades were fought, most famously, by Knights organizations formed by the kings and churches of Europe of the time.

Most that paid homage to a Christian martyr from the 4th century named George of Lydda. George of Lydda, a soldier in the army of Roman Emperor Diocletian. George of Lydda, in his objection to the Emperor’s persecution of Christians, paid for his convictions (and conversion) with his life.

A subsequent reign would see a reversal: from times of persecution to times of conversion, including by the very leader of the Roman Empire. 

Emperor Constantine, the first Christian Roman Emperor, later known as Constantine the Great. 

Constantine, prior to becoming Emperor, had consolidated power in a turning point victory in York England. The city at the time located in the western region of the 4-part Tetrarchy empire established by Diocletian. 

In raising a sword in his defense, George became a specific kind of saint. A saint different from others in that he indeed raised a sword. I.e., in opposite manner to how Christianity was understood: as a religion of values opposite to the Roman Empire that killed Jesus Christ. 

Thus over time did George of Lydda’s death present an opportunity, particularly for aspiring kings and empires: to claim the values of Christianity without having to give up the sword.

A saint around whom to raise a sword in the first place. A bit of circular logic, giving us the continued warring state of the world today.

St. George became the figure around whom to fight war, i.e., justify going to war in the first place.

St. George became known by a legend of defeating a dragon. Several cities and nations around the world bear those symbols in their coats of arms, ceremonies, feast days. (England, Russia depicted below).

Lesser known in the legend: of red roses that spilled from the dragon’s body, when pierced by George’s sword. George who then gave one of the roses to a princess saved by his heroic actions.

The rose portion of the legend gives us today the red rose symbol of love, chivalry, and/or heroism.

The house of red rose (Lancaster), as it turns out, was the victor in the War of the Roses. For Lancaster, a symbolism thus achieved. Not only of defeating York, but winning a symbol of Constantine the Great.

The house that carried the same rose color as George had given to the princess, had defeated the house with the white rose.

White, the color presumably signifying purity. With the defeat of the white rose house of York, the Lancasters could signify the red rose as a new symbol of purity instead.

The new symbolism of particular importance to one of the key orchestrators in the war, Lady Margaret Beaufort, born in the 15th century.

Margaret who had married into the House of Lancaster. Her motivation during the war was basic: the survival and victory of her son, the later King Henry VII.

But before he was King (and before Margaret was the King’s mother), Margaret was a child bride. Impregnated at age 12 and gave birth at age 13, history glosses over what would have been an extremely traumatic event.

The symbolism of a red rose however, held the power to transform a traumatic event into a legendary one: the one of a beloved princess. To transform symbolism in color in violation versus purity, as reversed upon the red rose Lancastrian victory over the white rose House of York.

The Constantine symbol was of particular significance to Margaret, as Constantine had a famous mother, Helen.

Helen, who on a trip to the Holy Land, claimed to have discovered the True Cross, the crucifixion cross of Jesus Christ.

The discovery which enabled Helen to become St. Helen, and to secure her son’s power and reign.

St. Helen, mother of the first Christian Roman Emperor Constantine. Symbolically, Helen who “give birth” to a new Christian King. Thus by symbolic implication, herself akin to the Virgin Mary.

Margaret who molded herself not so much as a new Helen, but a new Mary.

After the Lancastrian victory, a new rose symbol was created. The Tudor Rose depicted a combination of the two roses, now as a red rose with a white center.

However did Lady Margaret Beaufort maintain the red rose as her symbol, to make clear the transformed symbol. The red rose is seen in the coat of arms of a college founded by the now victorious Tudor Queen and mother of King Henry VII. The college that is one of the founding colleges of the Cambridge University system, Christ’s College.

In fact, the dynasties achieved, and begotten, in blood, violation, trauma.

Later, some of the English would come to question the wars between the Catholic and Anglican churches, and who set sail for New World shores. There, they settled in the place they would call Virgin-ia.

And establish there a city, Yorktown. In the next century, Yorktown Virginia where George Washington made point, to be the location where he would defeat the English, in the final battle of the Revolutionary War on October 19, 1781.

The Revolutionary War, which no historian seems to point out in its most obvious and plain point, which is that it was a war between two Georges.

In modern America, we hear a phrase like “Crusades of the 12th and 13th century” and we instantly fit into a category akin to fiction.

Yet in England, they are the histories paid homage to, and depicted in full living color. Thus the gates of Christ’s College given a meticulous 4-year restoration (2014-2018) to showcase the same - as it seems, to deepen and enrich the rose to be unmistakeable in color. Not a washed out red, but RED.

By the 15th century founding time of the college, the red color reference to Crusades times would be akin to the U.S. making reference to the Revolutionary War.

The difference is that England’s reference point is regularly refurbished and revamped in order for history not to fade into a distant blur … as tends to happen in the U.S.

George Washington versus King George of England.

The question is, in what capacity St. George? The Christian martyr? The brave hero?

Perhaps. But making such broad strokes would once again overlook, the rose.

A recent U.S. President made the connection, thus designated the rose to be the national flower of the United States.

From the American Rose Society website:

As alluded to in the above, the rose that was chosen to confirm the red rose of St. George.

I.e., the symbol of the chivalrous knight. Presumably Reagan taking on the chivalrous knight symbol, himself.

The U.S. rose symbol has nevertheless still failed to answer the question unanswered since times of Henry the 8th and Lady Margaret Beaufort, not to mention, times of Constantine and his mother Helen.

The question of the essential bond between male and female.

The question attempted to be answered by President George Washington — as Reagan knew, by way of the rose.

George Washington, after winning the war, resigned from his position as Commander of the Continental Army, as he did on 12/23 in 1783.

Washington returned to his estate, Mount Vernon. There where he returned to his endeavors and activities, prior to being plucked for war, including gardening.

The return that some of his peers interpreted as a retreat. However was it a renewal, and more so, laid the foundation for a new chapter of America, and for himself too.

In 1789, George Washington became the first President of a new nation, the United States.

Indeed, George the gardener who became George the victor over King George, then George the first President of the United States.

George whose favorite flower was the rose. The favorite understood by the fact that the President not only grew roses, but bred them. Indeed, George Washington, not only the nation’s first President but also the nation’s first rose breeder.

Rose breeding, the past-time of nobles, kings, queens, and emperors and empresses for thousands of years. George Washington who saw himself no less, despite the war against King George.

George’s most-cherished bred rose, the one he named after his mother: Mary.

The rose that George bred to be a white rose, the color to signify purity. The rose thus, to signify a mother who birthed not only a son and President, but a new kind of King, of a new Christian empire, America.

The unspoken beginnings of America, in the symbols to top the ones of England — and to top the symbols that the English sought to top too: the ones of Helen and Constantine.

I.e., to come as close to the symbols of Jesus Christ and Virgin Mary.

The symbolism understood through the rose of George: the white rose he named Mary.

For a moment we return to the rose symbolism in the War of the Roses, and the colleges founded by Lady Margaret Beaufort and her son King Henry VII.

Here, a crest of Jesus College. Note the 5-pointed symbol resembling a star but in fact is a rose, understood by the interconnected carved botanical motifs in leaves and branches.

By the names Jesus College and Christ’s College, can we see that Cambridge University claims Jesus Christ as a symbol. More so, as an educational institution having some special insight insight into Jesus Christ.

Lesser known about the colleges is the underlying symbol of the Virgin Mary.

Thus the official but lesser-used name of Jesus College is actually The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the glorious Virgin Saint Radegund:

The Virgin Mary, if one were to signify her in a color of rose, would likely choose white. One would likely then also signify white to be the superior colored rose over red.

Lady Margaret however, who signified it opposite: with the red rose as the superior color. Not merely due to the Lancastrian victory. More importantly, because Lady Margaret saw herself as having endured more than did the Virgin Mary.

Red, that signified a reality in flesh and blood … as borne by herself, the female. Thus though Christ was the male who suffered in flesh and blood in Jerusalem — she in England, in that time of history and earth, was the female that had a flesh and blood fate befallen upon her.

Herself, made not a virgin while still a child. A child who conceived a child, yet emerged victorious anyhow. Lady Margaret who saw herself as having conceived a new kind of immaculate, and of her own will. Her son, but also a new nation.

This is understood by her descendants Henry the 8th and Elizabeth, from whom was “begotten” the Anglican Church and the Renaissance of England, the Elizabethan Age. Elizabeth’s successor King James, from whom was “begotten” the King James Bible.

The same King James Bible brought to America by English settlers, through whom was begotten a New World.

The theme of new beginnings — and a new immaculate — is also understood by a made-up coined by England via a Dutchman who studied in London. The made-up word of Latin-esque sound, Incunabula.

Incunabula, of a similar ring to the word “incubate” (like a baby, thus having an immaculate way about it), and is defined as “written before the 15th century”.

Thus in Jesus College exists a special archive section of the library of all materials “pre-15th century” and are called the Incunabula.

I.e., the vague, arcane pre-histories, proto-histories, pre-mythologies Incunabula of a college named Jesus referencing times preceding … Jesus born year 0 A.D.?

Or Lady Margaret Beaufort born in the 15th century.

The red rose of Lady Margaret, thus, that tried answering the question: what is the root bond of male and female?

By dint of an “Incunable” archive section in the Jesus College library, is it suggested that the King and Queen founders of Jesus College and Christ College had the answer, as no one else did.

The answer they conceived — though conveniently obscured in its specifics via the Incunabula — was that the essential, fundamental bond between the male and female was not the one between a monk-like Jesus Christ and immaculate Virgin Mary.

This was not incorrect. However, did Lady Margaret depend on the red rose, and St. George, to suggest her definitive take.

That the essential male-female bond is the one more akin to Adam and Eve, i.e., a marital / reproductive one, as opposed to the male-female one of the famous Jesus and Virgin Mary (son and mother).

Again, Lady Margaret who saw herself as having struggled above and beyond the Virgin Mary. This is understood by the allowing of Jesus College to be officially named with two females, the Virgin Mary and Ste. Radegund. It was the convention otherwise for queens to try align themselves as close as possible to the Virgin Mary. More so was Ste. Radegund from France — the competitor nation to England in the War of the Roses. Why elevate a French female? More so, one that was made a sainte?

Because Lady Margaret Beaufort wished to distinguish herself from Ste. Radegund, suggesting herself superior to Ste. Radegund, and by extension, superior also to the Virgin Mary.

Ste. Radegund who lived in the 6th century was the queen wife of a cruel king from the Merovingian dynasty that ruled France at the time. Radegund was made Sainte for choosing a life of celibate devotion to Christ. Given the celibacy, there were no children.

But Lady Margaret had a son, Henry. Lady Margaret’s results, as she naturally saw it, superior to Radegund. Through her son Henry and generations thereafter, did she consider the path through which Christianity unfold, from England. If Lady Margaret had not had a child, there would have been nothing.

The red rose of St. George, implicitly challenges the notion of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary, as the penultimate male-female bond.

Through Henry VII her son was born a new England. However was her son not possible without her, his mother, and without her suffering.

Her suffering, because she was not “immaculate” nor had a virgin birth. And yet, was not her result, the superior one? The conclusion also made by her grandson Henry VIII who then broke with the Catholic Church, for failing to see things that way too.

Lady Margaret, as her history tells it today, had an affectionate relationship with her husband, the father of Henry VII. We know this is unlikely, given she was only a child at the time. However again, did the red rose help distract from the traumatic reality.

The red rose, both distracting from the truth, while simultaneously alluding to it: the visceral struggle of the female / mother in the story. I.e., the story that is not just about the struggle of the son / male, Jesus Christ.

Lady Margaret, like many of her English predecessors, married not out of love. A previous English queen, 12th century’s Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine originally of France, famously abandoned her French king husband to marry a King of England. To the first husband, Eleanor presumably had to play the Virgin Mary queen role, which Eleanor found both stifling not to mention, non-sensical and unnatural in a marriage.

With Eleanor, the roots of chivalry began — with a female who questioned whether the ideal Christian male had to be a celibate monk, as Christianity has suggested Jesus to be. Thus did the family of Eleanor commission a chivalry legend, with a character named Lancelot. The Knight with whom Queen Guinevere (wife of King Arthur) had an affair, leading to the crisis of Camelot.

From Eleanor’s unhappiness was born the question: can male and female, especially in marriage, have a more normal (happy) kind of relationship than possible by the male-female bond lionized in Christianity, as set forth by Jesus and Virgin Mary?

Thus while Lady Margaret prided in her son’s victory, nonetheless did Lady Margaret she seek a symbol of red rose — the legendary one of St. George and the princess.

Thus do we see how the institution of chivalry, was created out of an an attempt to answer the same: was Jesus really a monk? And is it really possible to be a wife in the mold of Virgin Mary .. and happy?

The question first raised circa Eleanor of Aquitaine (later mother to King Richard II, aka, Richard the Lionheart) that has gone unanswered since that time.

Since that time too, human societies and empires that converged, in the Age of Explortion, the finding of New Worlds, the meeting on new battlefields, and new high seas. Conflict and convergence spurred by the development of transportation and weapons technologies. Wars and chaos ensued, bringing humanity further from the answer.

Instead, came “answers” via other subjects and studies and theories: race, culture, imperialism, anti-imperialism. Contentious subjects that distracted nations and empires from seeing a simpler simpler (but not simplistic) truth beneath: the fundamental / root bond between male and female, as the reproductive / marital one.

The matter so obvious, it has become the least obvious thing in the world. Yet a close reading of the Old Testament reveals the same: the Abrahamic faiths that were born out of a societal need to grapple with the most fundamental dynamic of humans: the one between a male and female.

For this we return again to the rose. The rose of Rosacea, the botanical family under which also grows the apple.

Thus is a new “taxonomy” is called for. One that calls us to look closer at the Garden of Eden for other clues hidden there. I.e., for other plants like the rose, suggested therein. See next section FLORA & FAUNA for more.

Now a basic question: why a rose?

The rose, for this site, was selected for a few practical reasons.

The U.S., where I am a citizen, is the nation that most prominently emerged out of the British Empire. It is also the only one that speaks the same language as in England, as its primary language.

Thus did America fail to truly question its former master, despite the Revolutionary War. The habits and assumption embedded in speech and language, including the text that most influenced the first English settlers: the King James Bible.

But also, in histories passed down from England-based institutions like Cambridge University. To wit, one of Cambridge’s alums (John Harvard) would go on to become the founder of America’s most famous university, Harvard. The surrounding town was even named Cambridge (Massachusetts). How many unquestioned notions have been baked into such education foundations in America? More than can be addressed on this site.

However, I begin with the rose, because it is something everyone knows, and most people like.

The rose, in its most famous use in America, signifies romance, love and/or affection between a male and female. Thus on Valentine’s Day, do we not give apples as gifts, but roses.

The rose, therefore, the appropriate starting point to re-examine the most fundamental dynamic of the human race: between a male and female.

The dynamic that began, in the Western canon, in a Garden.

Thus do the rose, and the Garden of Eden, present an apt and useful framework to examine many more things. These are introduced in FLORA & FAUNA.

The red rose of St. George, and St. George in his own right, enables us to examine matters of war/peace, and human motivations behind Some of these are described in SOLUTIONS.

Now, why I personally chose to begin with a rose. This is described in ABOUT & BLOG (publishing soon). Preview on the rose and a few more important floral symbols are described in FLORA and FAUNA (publishing soon).

For more about St. George, particularly how his sainthood came to shape the geopolitical order, go to https://stohl.org/george-lydda, or click on the link below.

Thus in America, did we not fully appreciate the significance of the rose to England. Nor the importance of the red rose to a young female of England, the one redeemed.

Redeemed not for any wrongdoing as a child, but for triumphing over the white rose symbol of York. As historians have likely concluded, the triumph over a symbol of Constantine.

Historians however who overlooked Lady Margaret, and the triumph in her eyes.

For Lady Margaret, the triumph over Mary — the Virgin Mary. And over the presumed symbol of the Virgin Mary conveyed the House of York, in the white rose, presumably as a sign of purity.

As understood in Lady Margaret’s naming of the aforementioned college, which she named Christ’s College. Concurrently her son Henry VII who founded a college just adjacent to Christ’s (also in the Cambridge University system) which was named Jesus College.

We return again to the rose.

The rose, the plant of the botanical family Rosacea. Surprising to many, Rosacea includes in its botanical family, the apple tree. This is understood through their shared botanical characteristic trait, of 5 petals. The pink is the rose, white is the apple (paintings by Redoute). The plant depictions are otherwise, if going by shapes of flower and leaf, are barely distinguishable.

The apple tree famous from the Garden of Eden of Genesis. There where symbols of purity / violation began, in the Western canon.

Eden, the story of beginnings. Thus no coincidence that the two most famous alums of Christ’s College, John Milton and Charles Darwin, both made it their life work to contemplate beginnings.

Milton who wrote an epic about the expulsion of Adam & Eve from the Garden, and Charles Darwin who upended Genesis via the Theory of Evolution.

The questions of origins had also been examined at length by Lady Margaret’s grandson, King Henry VIII.

Henry VIII who questioned the nature of marriage. In essence, questioned the nature of the original bonded pair, Adam and Eve. The questioning that then caused a rift with the Catholic Church, compelling Henry VIII to create the Anglican Church.

However, not without terrible crisis. As if in repeat of the past, a subconscious replay of generational trauma, Henry went on to behead his wife Anna Boleyn. A presumably extraordinarily traumatizing event to the child, their daughter together, who would later become ruler of England as Queen Elizabeth I.

Elizabeth I the Queen, never ended up marrying, instead cutting herself a figure of particularly pale cast, and calling herself the Virgin Queen. A white rose by way of a red rose princess legend.