Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 08.djvu/153

LEFT ROSES 119 ROSEWATER by Anne, sister of Edmund Mortimer, the last Earl of March, and he was thus the nearest actual heir to Edward III. through his second son, Lionel, Duke of Clarence. The reigning family had become un- popular from its loss of France and its clericalism, but its strength was great in the N., where the power of the Percies was alone rivaled by that of the Nevilles. The Yorkist strength lay chiefly in the mercantile population of the southern counties. The effect of the war was the almost complete destruction of the old no- bility, the weakening of the power of the Church, and an enormous increase in the power of the crown, together with the great advance of the commercial classes and the large towns, destined a few gener- ations later to measure strength with the crown itself. In 1454 Richard was ap- pointed protector of the realm during Henry's insanity, and on his recovery soon after took up arms against his rival Som- erset and crushed him at the first battle of St. Albans (1455). A second period of insanity again gave him the protector- ship, but the king recovered in 1456. His weak attempts at reconciliation proved failures, and in 1460 the Yorkist earls of Salisbury, Warwick, and March defeated and captured the King at Northampton (1460). The lords now decided to grant the re- version of the crown to York, passing over Prince Edward. The queen refused assent and fled to Scotland, returning only after the death of York at Wake- field (Dec. 30, 1460) ; but York's son Ed- ward quickly gained a victory at Morti- mer's Cross (1461) though Warwick was defeated by the queen's main body in the second battle of St. Alban's (1461). But London rallied to young Edward, and in June he was crowned at Westminster after the great victory of Towton (1461). Next year Queen Margaret again ap- peared in the N. but in 1464 her forces were utterly routed by Warwick's brother, Montague, at Hedgeley Moor and Hex- ham. The estrangement of Warwick and his alliance with Queen Margaret's party drove Edward IV. from England and re- stored Henry VI. But Edward returned in the spring of 1471, defeated (and slew) Warwick at Barnet, and the queen at Tewkesbury. The murder of Prince Ed- Ward after the battle, and the convenient death of Henry VI. in the Tower, cleared away his two chief dangers and left him to reign in peace. The accession of Henry VII. after the death of Richard III. on Bosworth field (1485), his marriage with Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV. (1486), and^ the blending of the red and white rose in the Tudor badge, marked the termination of the Wars of the Roses, though the reign of Henry, whose own title was not good, was from time to time disturbed by the pretentions of Yorkist impostors. ROSETTA, a town of the Nile delta in Egypt, on the old Bolbitic arm of the river, 9 miles from its entrance into the Mediterranean and 44 miles N. E. of Alexandria. In the time of the Crusades it was a place of great strength; and St. Louis made it the basis of his crusading operations. Sultan Beybers, after that (in 1251) founded the present city farther inland. The Arabs call it Raschid, be- lieving that Haroun al-Raschid founded the old city. A few miles to the N. of the town was discovered the Rosetta Stone (q. v.). At Rosetta, too, are bar- rage works for holding up the Nile water till it can be directed into the irrigation channels. These works, originally con- structed by Mougel Bey (1843-1861), were almost entirely rebuilt by Sir C. Scott MoncriefF in 1886-1890. The barrage is 508 yards long and has 61 arches. Pop. about 16,000. ROSETTA STONE, the name given to a stone found near the Rosetta mouth of the^ Nile by a French engineer in 1798. It is a tablet of basalt, with an inscrip- tion of the year 196 B. c, during the reign of Ptolemy Epiphanes. The inscription is in hieroglyphic, in demotic, and in Greek. It was deciphered by Dr. Young, and formed the key to the reading of the hieroglyphic characters. It was captured by the English on the defeat of the French forces in Egypt, and is now kept in the British Museum. ROSETTA WOOD, a good-sized East Indian wood, imported in logs, 9 to 14 inches in diameter; it is handsomely veined, and its general color is a lively red-orange. The wood is close, hard, and very beautiful when first cut, but soon becomes darker by exposure to the air. ROSETTI, or ROSETI, CONSTAN- TIN, a Rumanian poet and politician; born in Bucharest, Rumania, June 14, 1816. He published a volume of poems under the title of "Hours of Contentment" (1843) ; and wrote many political trea- tises, poems, and translations, a new edi- tion of which appeared in Bucharest in 1885. He died April 19, 1885. ROSEWATER, VICTOR, an Ameri- can journalist, born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1871. He was educated at Columbia University. In 1893 he began his jour- nalistic career on the Omaha "Bee," be- coming managing editor in 1895, editor in 1906, and publisher in 1917. He took an active interest in Republican affairs, being a member of the Republican Na-