YORKSHIRE; RED & WHITE

Early depiction of the Tudor Rose from a 1487 manuscript

One such recurrent subject, as we have just seen, is that of the county of Yorkshire in England. Nearly half of the sites we have examined imply some specific link to this region though their surrounding toponymy — and, of course, all can relate, at least tangentially to Yorkshire (as can virtually everything else in Toronto) by way of this city's former title of York. Here, then, would seem as good a spot as any to begin our synthesis of the data by investigating the significance of that place to this.

In doing so, however, let us first note that, officially, Toronto was not named directly for York the place, but rather for Prince Frederick Augustus, Duke of York and Albany. With that being said, one still might expect this initial tribute to account for the abundance of Yorkshire-inspired toponyms now found throughout the area. Yet, while such reasoning may stand for certain locations and features (re)named during the founding of York under Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe — principally the Don, the Humber, and Scarborough — it would not necessarily account for such later toponyms as Todmorden, Beaumont, Milne, Thackeray, and so forth. Correspondingly, if Simcoe's names were merely intended to honour the titles of Frederick, would one not expect more — or even any — local references to the Dukedom of Albany in northern Scotland as well? Highland Creek aside (which, as previously discussed, likely has no relation to the Scottish Highlands...nor to Simcoe, for that matter), Yorkshire alone seems to have been singled out. Seeing as neither the Duke, nor the Lieutenant, were Yorkshiremen themselves, there would seem little sentimental impetus behind such nomenclature. And while settlers from the region, and their descendents, may certainly have played a role in much of the subsequent York-based toponymy, we still must ask why so many of these names are now linked to the strange artifacts we've been encountering.

As previously observed, Yorkshire holds important ties to the Celts, Saxons, Romans, and Norse — Druids, Pagans, and Christians alike. And all of these peoples — or, at least, elements thereof — would, in turn, seem to hold various ties to our ruins, as well. Such a successions of overlapping and displacing cultures, however, has also left in its wake a rich heritage of ruination in and of itself. Indeed, even by the time of William I's harrying, nearly one thousand years ago, Yorkshire was already noted for its numerous stations of abandonment and decay. Almost half of this county's land, in fact, was recorded in the Domesday Book as un-taxable "waste" — vacant properties ravaged by centuries of previous violence and neglect (William's own handiwork not withstanding). Yorkshire, then, continued in this matter, through medieval and later times, creating ruins of such renown as Fountains Abbey, Scarborough Castle, and the aforementioned Pontefract. But, perhaps, this region most distinguishes itself in sites of prehistoric consequence. Counting those already detailed, first among these would be the Mesolithic settlement of Star Carr, just south of Scarborough, where one finds artifacts dating as far back as 11,000 BC, including the remains of a house that is possibly the oldest structure in all of Britain (set intriguingly alongside the ritually altered skulls of numerous red deer stags). Then, just a little further south in the East Riding of Yorkshire (and a little further ahead in archaeological periods) one finds the Rudston Monolith, a Neolithic menhir which, at some 25 feet, is the tallest standing stone within the British Isles. Additional to these is a triad of circular Bronze Age earthworks known as the Thornborough Henges which, together, rank amongst the largest prehistoric formations in the whole of the United Kingdom. All this then said, could it be that Yorkshire's most appreciable connection to Toronto's ruins is simply found in its own extensive history of the same?

The ruined keep of Pontefract Castle, c.1878 (above);
an altered stag skull from Star Carr (below)
Before contemplating the ramifications of such a "ruins for ruins' sake" analysis, let us first engage with that other aspect of Yorkshire's symbolic relevance: namely its heraldic association with the white rose — or, more particular to our interests, the colour white itself; and then, by extention, its contrasting connection to the colour red. One cannot have failed to notice that both of these colours recur frequently throughout our investigations; albeit red rather more so, and often with respect to some yet unknown "red king." "Whiteness" as such, however, is duly bolstered if we deign to include all of the numerous references to things described as being "bright" or "shinning" — the prime attributes of any visible, or "white light" (recalling, now, the Lucifer/Leucippus cognacy) — and still further if, from here, we add to this luminous list all references with some solar, lunar, or stellar relation. Then, in looking back to the original white rose of York, we might add yet another recurring element to the mix, noting that this emblem was initially a symbol of the Virgin Mary (with both the colour and the flower representing her purity), and only later adopted as a heraldic device to signify its bearer's faith (with the Mortimer family, in the Yorkist case, likely being the originators).

Meanwhile, despite the amount of redness alluded to throughout our various sites, references to the red rose lands of Lancashire come in not at all the same supply as those of our familiar York. Indeed, aside from the boarder town of Todmorden (which, by today's boundaries, lies entirely within the riding of West Yorkshire) there really are none to speak of. It is perhaps, then, relevant to observe that the red rose was not, by many accounts, a symbol in contemporary usage by the House of Lancaster during the so-call "Wars of the Roses" (this very name, in fact, owes more to Shakespeare and Walter Scott than any actual history). Only after the two houses were united through the marriage of Henry Tudor and Elizabeth of York do we find the red rose, together with the white, in the form of the Tudor Rose. But while the rose, as a symbol, may have been a later fabrication, red was by no means an arbitrary choice, having been associated with the Lancastrian line since the founding of this dynasty. It is also, perhaps, more than mere coincidence that both red and white were already well recognized as English colours, being flown on the banner of St. George; an emblem popularized in Britain, and across Europe, since the days of the Crusades (though not an official sign of England, it should be said, until some time after Henry's reign).

Pursuant to this trajectory, it is interesting to note that the marriage of a "red king" to a "white queen" is, as previously discussed, also a common motif within alchemy, being often symbolized by the union of a red and white rose, as well. Both the rubedo (reddening) and the albedo (whitening) are included among the four traditional colour-coded stages of the alchemical Magnum Opus (the others being the nigredo/blackening and the citrinitas/yellowing), with the rubedo being the final step in this process of achieving the elusive "philosopher's stone" (to be interpreted as literally, or figuratively, as one may wish). However, as we read in the Turba Philosophorum, one of the oldest known texts on this subject: "Know, all ye seekers after this Art, that unless ye whiten, ye cannot make red, because the two natures are nothing other than red and white. Whiten, therefore, the red, and redden the white!" Exactly what is involved in such cryptic procedures is obscure, and differs from source to source. Nonetheless, these two colours remain constantly bound, complementary and interdependent.

Meeting of the White Queen and Red King from the Splendor Solis,
a 16th century German alchemical text

With that said, however, we'll also note that these colours, as many times as not, are found, beyond the scope of alchemy, to be at odds with one another: besides the Wars of the Roses, we might recall the red and white dragons of ancient Britain, the red and white crowns of ancient Egypt, and so forth. Yet, why red and white should either conflict with, or accompany each other so frequently is not at all readily apparent. To the modern mind's eye, black is generally seen as the counterpart of white; while blue, or perhaps green, is the most typical chromatic foil for red.

In order to better understand this dichotomy we might remember that the alchemical "red king" was, among other things, symbolic of the sun, while the alchemical "white queen" was, likewise, symbolic of the moon. Here, then, we appear to have that most fundamental duality of day and night — and, as elaborated through a customary stock of metaphors, such others as life and death, order and chaos, the masculine and the feminine, the waking world and that of the dream, etc. Still, though, a question seems to remain. That the moon should be viewed as white is, of course, not surprising. Its whiteness is perceptibly evident. But why the sun should be equated with the colour red, rather than the more conventional yellow or gold, is not quite as obvious. That is until we recall the common conflation of red and gold, as outlined in our discussion of the Golden Fleece. Indeed, the yellowing stage of citrinitas (that of the "solar dawn" or "awakening") was often conflated with, or condensed into the rubedo stage by certain schools — whereas the object of that final red stage, the philosopher's stone, was said to be the secret of gold itself. Here, too, we may remark that both the houses of York and Lancaster ultimately claim descent from the sons of Eleanor de Provence, who bore a golden rose as her badge. And, in moving from the historical to the scientific, it is also worth considering that the yellow wavelength sits at the very centre of the white light spectrum, which then proceeds to extend into the invisible realms of infra-red, at one extreme, and ultra-violet at the other — recollecting, now, how reds and purples are often conflated as well, or can otherwise be combined in deep, royal palettes of burgundy and maroon (presumably, here, somewhere off on the dark side of electromagnetic infinity).