Once upon a time, 361 years ago on 29th May 1651 to be exact, a future king found shelter from his enemies up an immense oak tree after losing a disastrous battle. Nine years later, restored to his throne, he expressed his gratitude by decreeing that from henceforth the 29th May would be known as Royal Oak Day. Oak leaves, and if possible oak apples or galls, were worn in hats, branches hung over doors and windows and there was widespread partying.
The present Prince of Wales royal namesake and predecessor was Charles I. An unfortunate belief in the divine right of kings caused him to all too literally lose his head in 1649. His son, then but nineteen years old, fled Britain. Two years later he made an ill-advised return only to be soundly beaten by Cromwell’s Roundheads at the Battle of Worcester. The future king hoisted all of his two-yards-tall self into a handy Quercus robur at Boscobel while below soldiers beat the bushes for him.
An oak tree, still to be seen on the grounds of Boscobel House in Shropshire, is said to be that which sheltered the future Charles II, although some doubts have been raised regarding the veracity of the claim. It may be but a clone of the original oak.
Strangely, despite being designated ‘English oak,’ the species ranges Western Europe through to the Caucasus Mountains and even occupies a portion of North Africa. In Ireland, it becomes darach while to the French it is chêne commun or chêne pédonculé. Sacred to the Druids who had their oak priests, it later became immortalized as the classic tree to shelter Robin Hood and his Merry Men in Sherwood Forest. But don’t go looking for examples in Errol Flynn’s classic movie of the bold outlaw, filmed by Warners at various southern California locations.
Elizabeth Tudor was appropriately sitting under an English oak at Hatfield House when news arrived that she had become Queen Elizabeth I following the demise of her detested half-sister, bequeathed with the sobriety of ‘Bloody Mary.’ The tree was preserved in situ, recently corseted with concrete and guyed with wire.
Left alone, English oaks can attain heights of 25 metres or more with massive trunks and wide-spreading branches. Like other Quercus, they produce acorns that were certainly eaten by the Neolithic inhabitants of Europe. Later they were consigned to hogs, which were driven into oak forests to fatten on this largesse.
Rarely did oaks achieve ancient status, however. While Shakespeare’s second-best bed was made of oak, it found greater use in the fabled warships of the British navy, so much so that in 1770 theatre impresario David Garrick proclaimed British seamen to have ‘hearts of oak.’ Nelson’s famous HMS Victory required hundreds of such oak trees for her construction on the shores of the western Solent, cut from the surrounding New Forest – new, that is, half a millennium earlier.
Oak leaves have been an unofficial symbol for England and royalty there for several centuries. They featured on the décor, along with other floral symbols, surrounding the marriage last year of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Doubtlessly we can also look forward to observing them next month in the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations as she sails down the River Thames on her florally bedecked Royal Barge – fickle British weather cooperating.
Wes Porter is a horticultural consultant and writer based in Toronto. Wes has over 40 years of experience in both temperate and tropical horticulture from three continents.
