were so galled and slain by English arrows from behind the hedges,
that they were forced to retreat. Then went six hundred English
bowmen round about, and, coming upon the rear of the French army,
rained arrows on them thick and fast. The French knights, thrown
into confusion, quitted their banners and dispersed in all
directions. Said Sir John Chandos to the Prince, ‘Ride forward,
noble Prince, and the day is yours. The King of France is so
valiant a gentleman, that I know he will never fly, and may be
taken prisoner.’ Said the Prince to this, ‘Advance, English
banners, in the name of God and St. George!’ and on they pressed
until they came up with the French King, fighting fiercely with his
battle-axe, and, when all his nobles had forsaken him, attended
faithfully to the last by his youngest son Philip, only sixteen
years of age. Father and son fought well, and the King had already
two wounds in his face, and had been beaten down, when he at last
delivered himself to a banished French knight, and gave him his
right-hand glove in token that he had done so.
The Black Prince was generous as well as brave, and he invited his
royal prisoner to supper in his tent, and waited upon him at table,
and, when they afterwards rode into London in a gorgeous
procession, mounted the French King on a fine cream-coloured horse,
and rode at his side on a little pony. This was all very kind, but
I think it was, perhaps, a little theatrical too, and has been made
more meritorious than it deserved to be; especially as I am
inclined to think that the greatest kindness to the King of France
would have been not to have shown him to the people at all.
However, it must be said, for these acts of politeness, that, in
course of time, they did much to soften the horrors of war and the
passions of conquerors. It was a long, long time before the common
soldiers began to have the benefit of such courtly deeds; but they
did at last; and thus it is possible that a poor soldier who asked
for quarter at the battle of Waterloo, or any other such great
fight, may have owed his life indirectly to Edward the Black
Prince.
At this time there stood in the Strand, in London, a palace called
the Savoy, which was given up to the captive King of France and his
son for their residence. As the King of Scotland had now been King
Edward’s captive for eleven years too, his success was, at this
time, tolerably complete. The Scottish business was settled by the
prisoner being released under the title of Sir David, King of
Scotland, and by his engaging to pay a large ransom. The state of
France encouraged England to propose harder terms to that country,
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where the people rose against the unspeakable cruelty and barbarity
of its nobles; where the nobles rose in turn against the people;
where the most frightful outrages were committed on all sides; and
where the insurrection of the peasants, called the insurrection of
the Jacquerie, from Jacques, a common Christian name among the
country people of France, awakened terrors and hatreds that have
scarcely yet passed away. A treaty called the Great Peace, was at
last signed, under which King Edward agreed to give up the greater
part of his conquests, and King John to pay, within six years, a
ransom of three million crowns of gold. He was so beset by his own
nobles and courtiers for having yielded to these conditions –
though they could help him to no better – that he came back of his
own will to his old palace-prison of the Savoy, and there died.
There was a Sovereign of Castile at that time, called PEDRO THE
CRUEL, who deserved the name remarkably well: having committed,
among other cruelties, a variety of murders. This amiable monarch
being driven from his throne for his crimes, went to the province
of Bordeaux, where the Black Prince – now married to his cousin