ROSCOMMON (114), an inland county of Connaught, SW.  Ireland; is poorly developed; one-half is in grass, and a sixth mere waste land; crops of hay, potatoes, and oats are raised, but the rearing of sheep and cattle is the chief industry; the rivers Shannon and Suck lie on its E. and W. borders respectively; there is some pretty lake-scenery, interesting Celtic remains, castle, and abbey ruins, &c.  The county town, 96 m.  NW. of Dublin, has a good cattle-market, and remains of a 13th-century Dominican abbey and castle.

ROSCREA (3), an old market-town of Tipperary, 77 m.  SW. of Dublin; its history reaches back to the 7th century, and it has interesting ruins of a castle, round tower, and two abbeys.

ROSEBERY, ARCHIBALD PHILIP PRIMROSE, EARL OF, born in London; educated at Eton and Christ’s Church, Oxford; succeeded to the earldom in 1868; was twice over Secretary for Foreign Affairs under Mr. Gladstone, in 1885 and 1892; was first Chairman of London County Council; became Prime Minister on March 1894 on Mr. Gladstone’s retirement, and resigned in June 1895; he is one of the most popular statesmen and orators of the day, and held in deservedly high esteem by all classes; b. 1847.

ROSECRANS, WILLIAM STARKE, American general, born at Kingston, Ohio; trained as an engineer, he had settled down to coal-mining when the Civil War broke out; joined the army in 1861, and rapidly came to the front; highly distinguished himself during the campaigns of 1862-63, winning battles at Iuka, Corinth, and Stone River; but defeated at Chickamauga he lost his command; reinstated in 1864 he drove Price out of Missouri; has been minister to Mexico, a member of Congress, and since 1885 Registrar of the U.S.  Treasury; b. 1819.

ROSENKRANZ, KARL, philosopher of the Hegelian school, born at Magdeburg; professor of Philosophy at Koenigsberg; wrote an exposition of the Hegelian system, a “Life of Hegel,” on “Goethe and his Works,” &c. (1805-1879).

ROSES, WARS OF THE, the most protracted and sanguinary civil war in English history, fought out during the reigns of Henry VI., Edward IV., and Richard III. between the adherents of the noble houses of York and Lancaster—­rival claimants for the throne of England—­whose badges were the white and the red rose respectively; began with the first battle of St. Albans (1455), in which Richard, Duke of York, defeated Henry VI.’s forces under the Duke of Somerset; but not till after the decisive victory at Towton (1461) did the Yorkists make good their claim, when Edward (IV.), Duke of York, became king.  Four times the Lancastrians were defeated during his reign.  The war closed with the defeat and death of the Yorkist Richard III. at Bosworth, 1485, and an end was put to the rivalry of the two houses by the marriage of Henry VII. of Lancaster with Elizabeth of York, 1486.

ROSETTA (18), a town on the left branch of the delta of the Nile, 44 m.  NE. of Alexandria, famous for the discovery near it by M. Boussard, in 1799, of the Rosetta stone with inscriptions in hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek, and by the help of which archaeologists have been able to interpret the hieroglyphics of Egypt.