Nor hold thou no other flower in such dainty
    As the fresh Rose, of colour red and white;
    For if thou dost, hurt is thine honesty
    Considering that no flower is so perfect,
    So full of virtue, pleasance and delight,
    So full of blissful angelic beauty,
    Imperial birth, honour and dignity.’”

    Guarded.
    *Rest = others.

By the Thistle, of course, Dunbar means James IV, and by the Rose the Princess Margaret.

Then to the Rose Dame Nature spoke, and crowned her with “a costly crown with shining rubies bright.”  When that was done all the flowers rejoiced, crying out, “Hail be thou, richest Rose.”  Then all the birds — the thrush, the lark, the nightingale—­cried “Hail,” and “the common voice uprose of birdies small” till all the garden rang with joy.

    “Then all the birdies sang with such a shout,
    That I anon awoke where that I lay,
    And with a start I turned me about
    To see this court:  but all were went away: 
    Then up I leaned, half yet in fear,
    And thus I wrote, as ye have heard to forrow,*
    Of lusty May upon the nineth morrow.”

    Before = already.

Thus did Dunbar sing of the wedding of the Thistle and the Rose.  It was a marriage by which the two peoples hoped once more to bring a lasting peace between the two countries.  And although the hope was not at once fulfilled, it was a hundred years later.  For upon the death of Elizabeth, James VI of Scotland, the great-grandson of Margaret Tudor and James Stuart, received the crown of England also, thus joining the two rival countries.  Then came the true marriage of the Thistle and the Rose.

Meanwhile, as long as Henry VII remained upon the throne, there was peace between the two peoples.  But when Henry VIII began to rule, his brother-in-law of Scotland soon found cause to quarrel with him.  Then once again the Thistle and the Rose met, not in peace, but in war.  On the red field of Flodden once again the blood of a Scottish King stained the grass.  Once again Scotland was plunged in tears.

After “that most dolent day"* we hear no more of Dunbar.  It is thought by some that he, as many another knight, courtier and priest, laid down his life fighting for his King, and that he fell on Flodden field.  By others it is thought that he lived to return to Scotland, and that the Queen gave to him one of the now many vacant Church livings, and that there he spent his last days in quietness and peace.

Sir David Lyndsay.

This may have been so.  For although Dunbar makes no mention of Flodden in his poems, it is possible that he may have done so in some that are lost.  But where this great poet lies taking his last rest we do not know.  It may be he was laid in some quiet country churchyard.  It may be he met death suddenly amid the din and horror of battle.