to her Grace? A branch of
rosemary given to her Grace, with a supplication by a poor woman about
Fleet Bridge, was seen in her chariot till her Grace came to
Westminster.' The object of the particular floral offering in this case
is not very obvious, unless as an emblematic tribute to the maiden
queen.

Rosemary used to be carried in the hand at weddings, as well as strewed
on the ground and dipped in the cup. Thus Stow narrates of a wedding in
1560, that 'fine flowers and rosemary were strewed for them coming
home'; and Brand cites numerous instances from old plays. In one, 'the
parties enter with rosemary, as if from a wedding'; and in Beaumont and
Fletcher's Scornful Lady, the question is asked about a wedding, 'Were
the rosemary branches dipped?' This dipping, moreover, was in scented
water as well as in the loving-cup, and hence the allusion in Dekker's
Wonderful Year to a bride who had died on her wedding-night:

'Here is a strange alteration; for the rosemary that was washed in sweet
water to set out the bridal is now wet in tears to furnish her burial.'

It is on record that Anne of Cleves wore rosemary at her wedding with
Henry the Eighth; and in an account of some marriage festivities at
Kenilworth, attended by Queen Elizabeth, there is frequent mention of
the plant. An idea of how it was sometimes used is given in a
description of a sixteenth century wedding quoted by the Rev. Hilderic
Friend: 'The bride being attired in a gown of sheep's russet and a
kirtle of fine worsted, attired with abillement of gold' (milliner's
French even then!); 'and her hair, yellow as gold, hanging down behind
her, which was curiously combed and plaited' she was led to church
between two sweet boys, with bride-laces and rosemary tied about her
silken sleeves. There was a fair bride-cup of silver-gilt carried before
her, wherein was a goodly branch of rosemary gilded very fair, and hung
about with silken ribands of all colours.'

Coles says that the garden rosemary was called _Rosmarinus coronarium_,
because the women made crowns and garlands of it. Ben Jonson says that
it was customary for the bridesmaids to present the bridegroom next
morning with a bunch of rosemary. And Brand says that as late as 1698
the custom still prevailed in England of decking the bridal bed with
sprigs of rosemary.

In Jonson's Tale of a Tub, one of the characters assembled to await the
intended bridegroom says: 'Look an' the wenches ha' not found u