" The place is called Towton Dale or Tartingdale, and a road runs between two stone quarries, which are said to be, with no ostensible improbability, the scene of slaughter. ........... It is reported that the soldiers were buried in large mounds on the field of battle, and that the Yorkists, either in affection or in triumph, planted some rose-trees on the tombs of their fallen countrymen. These mounds through the lapse of four centuries have worn nearly down to the level surface of the soil; but you may yet see a kind of circles in the field, above the quarry which I have mentioned; and these circles are covered with patches and clusters of rose-trees. The rose is white, and now and then on the appearance of a pink spot on the flower, the rustic, happy in his legendary lore traces the blood of Lancaster. I brought away some few slips of the roses, in testimony of the truth of the tradition, and any lady or gentleman is welcome to take them, in remembrance of this anniversary".

"Another most beautiful and fanciful notion is, that the dwarf rose, which grows abundantly in a grass field, that formed part of the battle ground, flourishes profusely here, and will not grow elsewhere; and that Providence has caused it to spring from the blended blood of the victims of the red and white rose factions, which are typified in its white petals slightly tinged with red, and in the dull bloody hue of the leaves of the older wood. This pleasing piece of superstition has caused many of those diminutive shrubs to be removed from their native soil and carried far away to other places".

"Patches and clusters of these rose trees in full blow [bloom] may be seen every year; and it appears very difficult to eradicate the plant, for whilst the least portion of the root remains in the soil, it will, in due time, shoot forth a plant".

"The battle of Towton was fought on the spot now occupied by the large meadow and valley ... (on the west side of the road), the depression called Towton Dale, the fields extending a considerable distance to the eastward of the road, and the ground in the neighbourhood of the stone quarry".

"The large meadow is remarkable for producing rich rank grass, and also for three or four extensive irregularly shaped patches of very small wild dwarf rose-bushes, which I was told, were both red and white; it forms the west end of Towton Dale. The meadow is not unfrequently called the Bloody Meadow, and was, according to tradition, a scene of great slaughter, and it is said that considerable numbers of the dead were buried there. The distance across the fields, from the public road at that spot to the turnpike road leading from Ferrybridge, is about a mile, and the whole tract of ground between them is enclosed and cultivated".

"But the most touching instance of this application of the rose is yet to be seen on the battle-field of Towton ... On that field ...... the roses which were planted by the survivors on their sepulchral mounds still grow and bloom, breathing out, untended and unheeded, silent lessons never yet taught by the blazoned shields and marble trophies which mark the conqueror's tomb. We might almost fancy that the well-known "York and Lancaster" rose, the old fashioned rose of our childhood, whose red and white petals bear, peacefully commingled, the colours of the contending parties, might have sprung from this ungenial soil, and drawn its beauties from the field of civil fight to exhibit an undying reproof to ages yet unborn".

"And heaped in many a lofty mound,

By pitying victors then,

That battle-field gave burial ground

To forty thousand men;

And on those mounds the Roses twain

Of civil strife, were set,

To mark the parties of the slain,

With symbols of regret.

Almost four centuries have fled

Since that disastrous day,

Each proud Plantagenet is dead,

Their race has passed away.

Scarce can the characters be read

Which edge Lord Dacre's tomb,

Yet still the roses, White and Red,

On Towton's ridges bloom.

And thence a wandering Cymo's hand

These tiny cuttings sent,

Which may, perchance, yet live to stand

Their poet's monument!"

"Palm Sunday chimes were chiming

All gladsome thro' the air,

And village churls and maidens

Knelt in the church at pray'r;

When the Red Rose and the White Rose

In furious battle reel'd;

And yeomen fought like barons,

And barons died ere yield.

When mingling with the snow-storm,

The storm of arrows flew;

And York against proud Lancaster

His ranks of spearmen threw.

When thunder-like the uproar

Outshook from either side,

As hand to hand they battled

From morn to eventide.

When the river ran all gory,

And in hillocks lay the dead,

And seven and thirty thousand

Fell for the White and Red.

When o'er the Bar of Micklegate

They changed each ghastly head,

Set Lancaster upon the spikes

Where York had bleached and bled.

There still wild roses growing,

Frail tokens of the fray -

And the hedgerow green bear witness

Of Towton field that day."

"In the summer of 1858, being, with my son-in-law, Mr. Whelan, on a visit to Lord Londesborough, at Grimston Park, near Tadcaster, Yorkshire, I was present at a grand entertainment given by his lordship to his principal tenantry in that county. It was a day fete, the company assembling about noon. There was a sumptuous dejeuner, or early dinner, in the riding-house, and a large marquee erected for dancing in the park, on the confines of which is a field called Battle Acre, being the place, according to tradition, where the Lancastrians made their last ineffectual stand against the forces of the rival house of York in the decisive conflict of Towton Field. During the dancing, I strolled down into "the Acre" which is celebrated for a singular natural curiosity. A quantity of wild white roses annually spring up and blossom in a particular portion of it, and all attempts to destroy them by the farmers of the land had failed up to that period. The general opinion appeared to be that they had been originally planted by the victorious party in commemoration of the triumph of the White Rose, and probably on a spot where a pile of their slain had been buried. Lord Londesborough had used his endeavours to prevent their extirpation after he became possessed of the property, and at the time I speak of they still continued to make their annual appearance. The following verses, suggested by this interesting fact, were strung together on the spot, and a copy of them given to Lady Londesborough the next morning at breakfast. As they have never been printed, the singularity of the subject will render excusable their introduction here".

"There is a patch of wild white roses that bloom on a battle-field,

Where the rival rose of Lancaster blush'd redder still to yield;

Four hundred years have o'er them shed their sunshine and their snow,

But in spite of plough and harrow, every summer there they blow;

Though rudely up to root them with hand profane you toil,

The faithful flowers still fondly cluster round the sacred soil;

Though tenderly transplanted to the nearest garden gay,

Nor cost, nor care, can tempt them there to live a single day!

I ponder'd o'er their blossoms, and anon my busy brain

With banner'd hosts and steel-clad knights repeopled all the plain.

I seem'd to hear the lusty cheer of the bowmen bold of York,

As they mark'd how well their cloth-yard shafts had done their bloody work;

And steeds with empty saddles came rushing wildly by,

And wounded warriors stagger'd past, or only turn'd to die,

And the little sparkling river was cumbered as of yore

With ghastly corse of man and horse, and ran down red with gore.

I started as I ponder'd, for loudly on mine ear

Rose indeed a shout like thunder, a true old English cheer;

And the sound of drum and trumpet came swelling up the vale,

And blazon'd banners proudly flung their glories to the gale;

But not, oh! not to battle did those banners beckon now -

A baron stood beneath them, but not with helmed brow,

And Yorkshire yeomen round him throng'd, but not with bow and lance,

And the trumpet only bade them to the banquet and the dance.

Again my brain was busy: from out those flow'rets fair,

A breath arose like incense-a voice of praise and prayer!

A silver voice that said, " Rejoice! and bless the God above,

Who hath given thee these days to see of peace, and joy, and love;

Oh, never more by English hands may English blood be shed,

Oh, never more be strife between the roses white and red.

The blessed words the shepherds heard may we remember still,

Throughout the world be peace on earth, and towards man goodwill."

"When, or by what hand, planted, or how they came, is not known, but in the field where the bones of the brave thus repose, white and red roses grow in great abundance. They are the small wild Scotch rose. The owner of the field has repeatedly tried to get rid of them by burning and mowing, but in vain; they still spring up again. According to popular belief, these roses will not bear transplanting, but refuse to grow on any soil except that consecrated by the remains of those valiant men, who there fell the victims of a senseless national quarrel".

"Oh, the red and the white Rose, upon Towton Moor it grows,

And red and white it blows upon that swarthe for evermore -

In memorial of the slaughter when the red blood ran like water,

And the victors gave no quarter in the flight from Towton Moor:

When the banners gay were beaming, and the steel cuirasses gleaming,

And the martial music streaming o'er that wide and lonely heath;

And many a heart was beating that dreamed not of retreating,

Which, ere the sun was setting, lay still and cold in death:

When the snow that fell at morning lay as a type and warning,

All stained and streaked with crimson, like the roses white and red

And filled each thirsty furrow with its token of the sorrow

That wailed for many a morrow through the mansions of the dead.

Now for twice two hundred years, when the month of March appears,

All unchecked by plough or shears spring the roses red and white;

Nor can the hand of mortal close the subterranean portal

That gives to life immortal these emblems of the fight.

And as if they were enchanted, not a flower may be transplanted

From those fatal precincts, haunted by the spirits of the slain;

For howe'er the root you cherish, it shall fade away and perish

When removed beyond the marish of Towton's gory plain".

"... the battle was fought in a large meadow, through which the little river Cock winds. Grass grows in rich luxuriance there; and at this day groups of wild dwarf rose-bushes are seen, traditionally said to have been planted on the mounds under which the slain were buried ... The people in the neighbourhood firmly believe that these rose-bushes will alone grow in the "Bloody Meadow," and that attempts to plant them elsewhere have always been unsuccessful".

"On a part of the field where the final death-struggle and rout of the Lancastrians took place grow many small rose bushes, which, tradition says, sprung from the mingled blood of the rival rose-bearers shed on this fatal field. They grow on this soil only, says the legend, and if transplanted to any other place they quickly wither and die. When in bloom the petals are a mingled red and white, and when the leaves become old they are of a dull red hue on the under side. These bushes grow in the only grass field between Towton and Saxton, which slopes down to the valley of the brook Cock, and has apparently never been under the plough, This pleasing piece of superstition has caused many of those diminutive shrubs to be removed from their native sod, and carried far away to other places, and the report of the villagers is that they have much decreased in number of late years. The plant is the Rosa spinossissima [spinosissima] or burnt [burnet] rose, which only attains to about a foot in height. It certainly grows in many other places besides Towton Field, but its favourite habitat in the inland parts of Yorkshire is the magnesian limestone".

"The principal growth of these roses is near a place where great numbers of the dead have been buried, in the narrow dry valley down which the Lancastrians rushed to escape the pursuit of their pitiless enemies, soon to be engulfed in the marshes by the sides of the small, crooked, slow-flowing river Cock".

"This rose, whose petals are variegated with mingled white and red, is said to have sprung up where the blood of York and Lancaster was so plentifully mingled. The bush (so it is said) refuses to grow elsewhere. If transplanted to other soil, it either fades away or the flowers revert to a single colour - white or red".

"I cannot conclude this story of Towton Field, without an allusion to the little dwarf bushes peculiar to the 'Field of the White Rose and the Red.' They are said to have been plentiful at the commencement of this century, but visitors have taken them away in such numbers that they have become rare. Such vandalism is simply shameful, for the plants are said to be unique, and unable to exist in any other soil. The little roses are white, with a red spot on the centre of each of their petals; and as they grow old, the under surface becomes a dull red colour".

" I have no doubt that this is Rosa spinosissima. I have seen it all along on the Permian limestone about Towton".

 

"Much has been made of a local belief, that a certain dwarf rose-bush, once plentiful on the Field of Towton, has produced roses white and red ever since the great battle. There are people foolish enough, even in our own days, to believe in a miracle, which, had it originated in the Middle Ages, might be excused, but as it is wholly a modern invention, the notion of this floral oddity must be discountenanced in the light of scientific fact. These bushes, no doubt, grew about Towton long before the White and Red fight between King Edward and King Henry, and produced the same kind of roses then as they do now. The plant is the little Scotch Burnet Rose (Rosa spinosissima) which grows not only at Towton, but all over the great belt of magnesian limestone which divides our county in half, from north to south. I have found it in many places just the same as at Towton. The plant is common to this formation, and its blossoms vary, like all roses, according to age, soil, and situation, from pure white to flesh-colour, that is, with more or less pink or red in the bud or open flower".

"The run on these roses at Towton has been tremendous, especially within living memory, and a man at Saxton once told me that he had got as much as 2s. 6d. a root for them within the last ten years! Very few now remain; nearly all having been stubbed up; more the pity, for there is nothing in the least peculiar about these Towton roses, and no botanists, before the 19th century, have commented upon them. Furthermore, we have been told in prose and poetry that the "blooms do fade and the tree doth wither and die" when removed from its native heath! Exactly; so will most flowering bushes when removed at the wrong time of the year or planted in uncongenial soil. In Saxton gardens the plants may be seen thriving vigorously, but it is useless attempting to grow them in Leeds, Manchester or Bradford. Scores of songs and poems and magazine articles have been written on this aspect of the Towton blooms; but the following beautiful verse must suffice as a fair example of this popular fallacy".

"No monument marks the site of battle, yet there is one beautiful memorial on the field which the villagers tell us cannot be effaced above where the warrior sleeps, white and red roses bloom, emblems of the fatal feud. How they came thus is not known, but they do not grow well on other soil than that on which was poured out old England's noblest blood".

"The peculiar variety of wild white rose, tinged (not streaked) with red, formerly plentiful on the battlefield, has been cut and uprooted until now it is very scarce. There was formerly a large bed in the field known as Towtondale, or bloody vale; here a farmer told the writer that he netted the bed of some thirty yards square, and made it into a sheepfold, which was the means of destroying the plants. The country people attribute the rich red tinge of the roses to the soil being impregnated with blood at that fatal fight. Botanically speaking, Dr. Arnold Lees informs me this cannot be the case. The 'field,' being glacial drift over limestone, is rich in species of wild flowers, four different kinds of roses growing there. The white York rose, a spiny neat-leaved plant, is always creamy-hued. The common dog-rose, the Lancastrian, is a blush pink, more or less deep. The field rose is also white, not very prickly, and easily destroyed; it has been found with the petals streaked with pink probably from hybridization but very rarely".

"First there are the roses, white of York, excessively spiny, forming impassable thickets in places, a low branching bush with profuse creamy blossoms, never a tinge of Lancasterian red on their velvety petals a rose whose motto might well have been that of its County-men: "Touch me not " (Nemo me impune lacessit). It is abundant at Towton, although also found in many other parts: it is no calcifuge [lime-hating] as is the foxglove (quite a rare flower in Elmete), for it will grow and spread on seashore sand, but it clearly has a preference for the dry soil that mostly prevails above limestone rock. Still, in Elmete, the downy red rose of Lancaster (scientifically Rosa tomentosa) is not unfrequent, with the paler open-blowing and pink-flushed dog-rose, and all three sorts grow on Towton Field; but the folk-lore conception that the mingled blood of the combatants is typified in the mingled hues of the rose-bloom is, of course, botanically a fable".

"One of the first things I can remember was a story told by my grandfather of the Red and White Roses that were to be found growing on Towton battlefield, which was about eight or nine miles from our home. He related how he had tried to transplant some of the trees in his garden, but that they had refused to grow, as others who had tried the experiment had found, away from their native heath. The Roses were white streaked with crimson".

"I have visited Towton field many times since. There are wild Roses still growing there, low branching bushes sometimes forming a thicket, almost impassable on account of their abundant spines, and crowned with creamy white blossoms in June. This is the Rose of York. Here and there the Rose of Lancaster (Rosa tomentosa) is found with its downy red flowers, and the common Dog Rose grows in plenty. Occasionally a creamy white bloom is tinged with red or pink - the result of cross-fertilisation by insects - and it is quite reasonable to suppose that some variations have been streaked in colouring. I have met and talked with natives of the district, contemporary with my grandfather, and they refuse to accept any theory other than the legendary one".

1) collecting by souvenir hunters who preferentially collected plants of Rosa spinosissima that displayed red on the petals – this may have left a population of the rose in which the normal white flowered forms predominated before that too was destroyed.;

2) the concerted efforts of farmers to destroy the roses because they were considered to 'infest' their land, lower the value as grazing land, create practical difficulties for hay-making on other meadows and the value of hay gathered;

3) ploughing of land during the 2nd World War when every available piece of land was brought into arable production.

"… we were plagued with battle roses. They were small wild roses, red and white, and they grew all over the battleground. The roses became a nuisance as in summer people invaded the field to dig up the bushes and every time someone left the gate open and the cattle got out. In the end we had a blitz on the roses and dug them all up. I haven't seen one now for over twenty years. It is a funny thing, scores were dug up by visitors but, as far as I know, they would never grow away from Towton".

"He was the former village butcher who had been Assistant Lord Mayor of Leeds in 1977/78. He was also a keen local historian. He had l6 of the rose bushes and had been given them by his father's cousin. They had been in his family for over a hundred years and had been moved several times. He believed they were the only ones left and was firmly convinced they were the 'Towton Rose'. They flowered freely for about a month at the end of June and the beginning of July. He said they would grow in other parts if cultivated properly. But a lot had been taken from the area when they were flowering without permission. As it was the wrong time to transplant they died perpetuating the myth they would only grow in the Towton area. Mr Hood said he had tried to re-establish them near the battlefield but people took the bushes. They had even stolen them from Saxton churchyard. Mr Hood believed that any Towton rose bushes in the area would have come from his stock".

"He gave the Bishop of York, who preached at the 500th memorial service to the battle in 1961, two bushes. One went into the gardens of Bishopsthorpe Palace in York, I understand, and the other went with him when he became Archbishop of Canterbury shortly afterwards".

"In 1992 I was asked to do a piece on the Towton Rose by a paper and I spoke to Mrs Florence Middleton of, would you believe, Rose Cottage, Saxton. She had lived in the village for 67 years and said she had never seen the rose growing wild. But "a gentleman who had it in his garden used to bring me a bunch every summer. If I wasn't in he would tie them to the door handle. But he died a few years ago and I don't know where it can be seen now" she said".