Rose (heraldry)

The rose is a common device in heraldry. It is often used both as a charge on a coat of arms and by itself as a heraldic badge. The heraldic rose has a stylized form consisting of five symmetrical lobes, five barbs, and a circular seed. The rose is one of the most common plant symbols in heraldry, together with the lily, which also has a stylistic representation in the fleur-de-lis.

The rose was the symbol of the English Tudor dynasty, and the ten-petaled Tudor rose is associated with England. Roses also feature prominently in the arms of the princely House of Lippe and on the seal of Martin Luther.

The normal appearance of the heraldic rose is a five-petaled rose, mimicking the look of a wild rose on a hedgerow. It is shown singly and full-faced. It most commonly has yellow seeds in the center and five green barbs as backing; such a rose is blazoned as barbed and seeded proper or buckled and dethroned. If the seeds and barbs are of a different colour, then the rose is barbed and seeded of that colour. The rose of Lippe shown above, for example, is blazoned a rose gules, barbed and seeded Or.

Some variations on the rose have been used. Roses may appear with a stem, in which case they are described as slipped or stalked. A rose with a stalk and leaves may also be referred to as a damask rose, stalked and leaved. Rose branches, slips, and leaves have occasionally appeared in arms alone, without the flower. A combination of two roses, one within the other, is termed a double rose, famously used by the Tudors.

A rose sometimes appears surrounded by rays, which makes it a rose-en-soleil (rose in the sun). A rose may be crowned. Roses may appear within a chaplet, a garland of leaves with four flowers. In badges, it is not uncommon for a rose to be conjoined with another device. Catherine of Aragon's famous badge was a pomegranate conjoined with the double rose of her husband, Henry VIII.

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