The Rose of Rouen would northern lords over-run the south, but more, that "they would then live in it and take what they needed including wives and daughters." This is the fate, says the poem, that Edward of York saved England from. Like other political poetry of the period, it is careful to identify its protagonists by their cognizances rather than naming them: Edward, of course, is a white rose, his father Richard of York, Duke of York, is a falcon and fetterlock, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick a ragged staff, his uncle William Neville, Lord Fauconberg a fish hook, and John Mowbray, Duke
The Rose of Castille and Elvira's bravura aria ("Oh no! By fortune blessed"), concludes the opera to general rejoicing: she will now be the Rose of Castille as well as the Queen of León. James Joyce's "Ulysses" contains a number of references to "The Rose of Castille" (many more than to "The Bohemian Girl" or "The Maid of Artois"). The most notable is in the Aeolus section, where Lenehan answers his own riddle, "What opera is like a railway line?", with ""The Rose of Castille". See the wheeze? Rows of cast steel." In addition, Manuel's aria, "'Twas rank and fame that tempted thee" is