So, did it happen?
Shakespeare says so. In Henry V, Act 1, the supporters of Richard, Duke of York and the Duke of Somerset dramatically pluck red and white roses from bushes as a way of showing their support for either of the two quarreling dukes. Sir Walter Scott says so. In his 1829 novel Anne of Geierstein, which is set during the time period, the term Wars of the Roses appears for the first time. Nevertheless, the fact remains Shakespeare was a playwright who was working under the reign of Henry VII's great-granddaughter Elizabeth I and later, great-grandson James I. Sir Walter Scott is often credited as one of the earliest historical novel writers. I.e., both of them wrote fiction for a living. No. Victorian historians were quick to pick up the handy phrase and we've been stuck with it ever since.
Well? Did it happen? Not quite.
First, a word about heraldry. Without getting too complicated, families were identified by their coats of arms. The Kings of England used the royal arms. Various families descended from various kings, such as the Dukes of York and Lancaster, would have used variations of the royal arms with various marks or differences, which is a term of art in heraldry. Individual lords, ladies, clerics, knights, towns and guilds had another more personal identifier called a badge. Badges were emblems which could either be based on some aspect of the coat of arms or could be some symbol with personal meaning to the individual involved. For example, Edward I was King of England entitled to use the royal arms. His personal emblem or badge was a golden rose. Members of Edward's personal household staff would have worn his badge on their livery to tell whom they served. Badges were used much the same way as company logos on caps and t-shirts. They can be part of an employee uniform, or they can be a means of branding. Thus, badges could be elaborate jeweled objects of art meant to be worn on a chain of office or presented to a high-ranking retainer. Or, it could be an embroidered or painted patch worn on a cloak or tabard. Servants, men-at-arms and retainers of a given royal or lord wore their master's badge as a mark of employment. Anyone loyal to a particular lord, whether he was in the lord's employ or not, could also wear the badge as a mark of their loyalty.
Things got further complicated when the same individual used a different badge during different periods of their life. When Edward IV was a young man and titled as Earl of March, he used a sun in splendor emblem. This created a bit of havoc at the Battle of Barnet, when followers of Edward's sun badge mistook it for a similar star badge of Earl of Oxford, fighting on the opposite side of the battle and vice versa, creating cross-fighting between the two groups. Later, as Duke of York, Edward used the York emblem of the falcon and fetterlock. Thus, throughout most of the War, each royal or noble personage used his or her own personal emblem, and those loyal to him or her followed suit. The same held true at Bosworth, where Richard's men fought under his symbol, a white boar, versus Henry Tudor's red dragon. However, the Wars of the White Boar and Red Dragon just doesn't have the same ring unless it's a karate movie.So, what about those roses? The white rose of York was the personal emblem of the first Duke of York, Edmund of Langley, but was not in use by either of the next three Dukes of York, Edward, Richard and his son, Edward IV. The last two used the falcon and fetterlock. Meanwhile, the red rose was not a Lancastrian emblem at all. It was a later Tudor invention, brought about by the union of Elizabeth of York with Henry Tudor. A joint badge of a white rose on a red rose became the Tudor badge used on Tudor livery, sewn onto cloaks and tabards, carved into palace walls, embroidered on tapestries, draped from chains of office and, over time, an emblem of England in general.
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