Early English Nationalism, but with a twist of fantasy...

The Renaissance brought back the revival of learning in a classical since. Also the Renaissance put the Catholic Church on the spot and exposed the institution that had been around since the early medieval time. Many Renaissance thinker's question the institution and it's practices. People like Luther and Erasmus pointed how corrupt these practices were for the Church, like the selling of indulgences, to buy you way into heaven and all your sins would be forgiven. This brought about a Reformation that effected central Europe and England (happened later in 1500's). Edmund Spencer isn't different from Erasmus from criticizing the Catholic Church. In Spencer's book, The Faerie Queene, he uses imagery of Error spewing books and papers, these books and papers were produced by the Catholics aiming at Queen Elizabeth's stance of Religious practices. Also another good source of imagery is the knight Redcrosse, you end up thinking about a red cross on the flag that symbolizes England.