The beauty of rosé and roses

What an idyllic setting. We were amidst the joys of high summer in England, with just enough of a breeze to save us from the heat of the sun, and the further help of a swimming pool. Water without, wine within. We were also surrounded by roses, England’s flower, luxuriating in their beauty and innocence. Experts have applauded my friends’ rose-husbandry. It seemed to this non-expert that they have not merely created a good rose garden; they have triumphed with a great one. Yet other thoughts intruded.

Roses makes one think of Henry VIII. I have recently been reading C.J. Sansom: so much better than Hilary Mantel. His Henry is wholly convincing as a study of corruption and evil. That monster-monarch’s emblems were frequently adorned with roses. It seems to have been his favourite flower: the Tudor rose, beloved by England’s cruellest King, the murderer of Queens and many other victims.

While we were drinking to my friends’ roses, I was drawn on from Henry VIII to the White Rose, that association of Bavarian students in the 1940s who included Sophie Scholl: more innocence, more beauty. A child of an older, gentler Germany, she was determined to bear witness that not all Germans were besotted by evil. But in the short run, she and her friends did not stand a chance. It was inevitable that their white roses should be crushed by the tank tracks, the death camps. Yet one could almost say they died in order that their country might live. The inspiration of their martyrdom was part of the moral rebirth of post-war Germany.

These thoughts, though, were untimely. In such a weekend of wine and roses, it was easy to leave the sins of the world to the Agnus Dei.