Of course, in order to call something patriotic or someone a traitor, the past must be made to fit, and its characters—its icons—pressed into service. The reputation of Geoffrey Chaucer as master English writer who brought rhetorical eloquence to the English language (this is the opinion of George Ashby, ca. 1470) prevailed through the tumult of the fifteenth century and trumped any Yorkist stain sullying his literal progeny’s reputation. At the demise of Richard III, Henry VII and the Tudor propaganda machine he invented took hold of Chaucer’s English-identified legacy. Not only had Chaucer’s iconic reputation survived, but the Tudor monarchy, much in need of good press, took advantage of a new method to promulgate Tudor Chaucer’s icon in Britain. The printing press made its debut at the same time that Henry VII, first Tudor king and initial Tudor apologist, defeated Richard III at Bosworth. This coincidence augmented the royal treatment Chaucer’s icon received as England’s national poet. The press’s arrival happily coincided with, and abetted, the spectacular growth of royal administration: courts had grown since the royal functionary Thomas Hoccleve invoked Chaucer’s fatherhood of English poetry. Thus the politics and iconic status of Chaucer were shaped to coincide with newly active imperial attitudes and the grandiose visions of the English Tudor monarchy, culminating in the grand success of Elizabeth I (1533-1603, r. 1558-1603).
World History
