Donald
Trump’s problems with ‘fake news’ aren’t new. In February 1472, Edward IV of
England issued a statement that “many vagabonds, and ungodly and ill-disposed
persons … run through the same our land sowing seeds of discord and division in
making and telling of tidings, false lying and tales.”
The
solution was that “you will in all haste certify us theoreof” (i.e., turn them in). Edward
had regained the throne from Henry VI in the previous year, a period of “great
tempests, divisions and troubles” in the first round of the Wars of the Roses. [Source: The Coventry Leet Book, p.373]
