_White Roses._--In an old newspaper, _The Weekly Journal, or British
Gazetteer_, of Saturday, June 15, 1723, I find the following paragraph:
"Monday being the anniversary of the White Roses, some persons
who had a mind to boast that they had bid defiance to the
government, put them on early in the morning; but the mob not
liking such doings, gathered about them, and demolished the
wearers; which so terrified the crew, that not one of them
afterwards would touch a white rose."
Can you, or any of your correspondents, explain this curious allusion?
Is it to the emblem of the House of York, or the badge of the Pretender?