<P> The Tudor rose (sometimes called the Union rose) is the traditional floral heraldic emblem of England and takes its name and origins from the House of Tudor, which united the House of York and House of Lancaster . </P> <P> When Henry VII took the crown of England from Richard III in battle (1485), he brought the end of the retrospectively dubbed "Wars of the Roses" between the House of Lancaster (one monarch of which had sometimes used the badge of a red or gold rose) and the House of York (which had lately used a white - rose badge). Henry's father was Edmund Tudor from the House of Richmond (maternally), and his mother was Margaret Beaufort from the House of Lancaster; in January 1486 he married Elizabeth of York to bring all factions together . (In battle, Richard III fought under the banner of the boar, and Henry under the banner of the dragon of his native Wales .) The white rose versus red rose juxtaposition was Henry's invention . The historian Thomas Penn writes: </P> <P> The "Lancastrian" red rose was an emblem that barely existed before Henry VII . Lancastrian kings used the rose sporadically, but when they did it was often gold rather than red; Henry VI, the king who presided over the country's descent into civil war, preferred his badge of the antelope . Contemporaries certainly did not refer to the traumatic civil conflict of the 15th century as the "Wars of the Roses". For the best part of a quarter - century, from 1461 to 1485, there was only one royal rose, and it was white: the badge of Edward IV . The roses were actually created after the war by Henry VII . </P>

Why is the tudor rose red and white
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