John Lydgate
The earliest English references to chess, are in the works of Chaucer, Gower, Occreve, Price, Denham, Sir Philip Sydney, Sir Walter Raleigh, &c.
John Lydgate the English Monk of St. Edmund’s-Bury, calls this game, the Game Royal, and he dedicates his book, written in the manner of a love poem, to the admirers of chess, which he compares to a love battle, in the following words: M.S.