David de Rosier Blanc

PERSONAE

David de Rosier-Blanc, b. 1492, d. unknown (I'll let you know, or somebody else will, when I finally kick off, but in the mean time, you're just going to have to put up with me and hope that I don't make too much of a fool of myself in the meantime).

Family History
The house de Rosier-Blanc originated in 1440 with my grandfather Joseph de Rosier-Blanc. Born to unknown parents he was brought to the monks of a North-western French monastery, The Abbaye de Rhuysa, when he was found wandering in the woods by nearby farmers. It was presumed that he must have luckily survived a flux which destroyed the rest of his family leaving him orphaned. The monks took him in and over the late years of the 100 Years war taught the boy and found him an apt learner, and very talented in the garden. His early childhood he spent hours helping tend the crops of the monastery, but in his spare time he became a pupil of Père Laurent who’s special interest was the relatively new art of hybridizing roses through seeds. Joseph learned quickly and by the time he was a young teen he too was creating new and beautiful varieties of rose bushes. He was especially fond of white roses. As reached his teen years, it became increasingly clear that Joseph would not be able to live a chaste and pious life, and knew that soon, it would be time for him to seek his fortunes as a lay elsewhere. And in his 14th year, it was decided that as he had created the whitest of his roses yet, a single alba rose, that he should have a surname that suited his clear calling in life – creator of white roses – de Rosier-Blanc.

In the final year of the war as the English were being decisively driven from France, Richard, Duke of York happened to stay in the town just near the monastery, and in the inn that evening he heard tell of the talents of Joseph and was struck by the beauty of the white roses growing abundantly around the inn’s garden. As the white rose was key device of the York household, Richard decided to bring back this youth to continue his work on his estates in York.

Joseph was thrilled with his new lord and quickly went to work creating a garden full of the newest hybrid he had created, “Alba Maxima,” a great quartered white rose that would befit the house of York. Within 6 years, he’d been granted a small holding and went back to France briefly to marry a young maiden he had fallen in love with in the town near the monastery where he had grown up. And soon, they had a son whom they named Benjamin. Like his father, Benjamin spent all his days in the garden and he too showed amazing skill at creating new beautiful varietals. His favorite though, were not the wonderful white roses that had been the founding of the family name, was the red rose. As he became more proficient in his early teens, in the midst of the years of the War of the Roses, it became more and more an embarrassment to the house of York that red rose bushes, the emblem of their enemy house Lancaster, kept appearing in the gardens of the York family rosier. To keep Benjamin safe, Joseph requests that Père Laurent who originally taught him to take in Benjamin and teach him in exchange for help for the now aged monk. The request is honored and a 12 year old Benjamin is sent back to Brittany to l’Abbaye de Rhuys. He remains in the tutelage of the Père Laurent until he was 17.

During this time, Benjamin struck up a friendship with one Henry Tudor, who was living in exile in Brittany. Finally, after one failed attempt, in 1485, Henry Tudor finally ended the War of the Roses by usurping the crown and becoming King Henry VII of England. Early in 1486, he took Elizabeth of York to be his bride and through marriage unified the two previously warring houses and this was symbolized by the newly created heraldic Tudor Rose, a white rose at the center surrounded by a red rose. It was shortly after this that Benjamin received an invitation from his friend Henry to come and join his court as royal rosier. Henry was generous and honored Benjamin with his choice of courtesans to choose as a wife, and a section of land on which he could work on his latest task, to create a real rose that matched the heraldic emblem.

David de Rosier-Blanc is Born
Benjamin soon married and in 1492 the same year his father Joseph died, he and his wife had their first son David. Blessed again with the green thumb and formidable interest in roses, like his fathers before him, David grew up in the rose gardens his father created. He too took up the task laid upon his father and even after the throne was handed off to Henry VIII in 1509, the family remained strongly favored by the throne.

Early in Henry VIII’s reign when he granted Cardinal Woolsey the area of land where Hampton Court, as a 22nd birthday present to David, he was granted an adjoining area in which to continue the work of hybridizing a “Tudor rose”. Despite endless attempts, Benjamin and David continued to produce hundreds of varietals, pink roses, white roses with red tips, roses that were red on the top and white underneath, even some roses that were sports, having red and white striped petals, but were never able to create the perfect Tudor Rose.

It was during the period of time while Cardinal Woolsey was in favor with Henry that David met a young Scottish lady Jennet MacLaughlan and they were married in 1514. It is now some 14 years later, and though the couple's relationship is strong, the declining favor of Henry towards Woolsey is creating some worries in their lives given their close proximity to Hampton Court Palace. Should Woolsey fall from grace, and the palace be placed in the wrong hands, all of the David's work might be in jeopardy...