ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the use of this phrasal 'depth charge' in contemporary British newspaper discourse, where, notwithstanding its attendant notions of 'Englishness', it is appropriated for use as a metonym for both England and Britain. It assesses both the elements of 'Englishness' that appear to have been carried over from Gaunt's speech into the newspaper discourse and those that have been occluded or changed through continual redeployment, thereby revealing contemporary versions of England/Britain and Englishness/Britishness reflected in the institutional discourse of the press. The need for protection from envious outsiders is intensified by the parallel syntactic structures of the two phrases 'this fortress built by nature for herself/against infection and the hand of war'. Shakespearian verse was a popular resource for those in both the British government and popular cultural spheres involved in morale-boosting and generating patriotic fervour, and few pieces were more popular than Gaunt's portrait of England.
