the count of Alençon, now advanced to the attack, supported by numerous cavalry; but as they approached through the narrow lanes flanked by the English archers, many fell and the rest were thrown into confusion. As the prince of Wales was now hard pressed by superior numbers, the second division advanced to his support. When the king was entreated by those about him to bring up his reserves to his son's assistance, "No," said he; "let the boy win his spurs, and gain the glory of the day!" Inspired with this proof of the king's confidence, the English fought with renewed courage. After a stout resistance the French cavalry gave way the count of Alençon was slain: the Welsh and Irish infantry rushed into the throng, and with their long knives cut the throats of all who had fallen. No quarter was given that day by the victors. The king of France advanced in vain with the rear to sustain the line commanded by his brother. His horse was killed under him, and he was obliged to quit the field of battle. The whole French army took to flight, was followed and put to the sword, without mercy, till darkness put an end to the pursuit. On his return to the camp, Edward, embracing the prince of Wales, exclaimed, "Sweet son! God give you good perseverance: you are my son; for most loyally have you acquitted yourself this day, and you are worthy of a crown." From this time the young prince became the terror of the French, by whom he was called the Black Prince, from the colour of the armour which he wore on that day (August 26, 1346).

The dead found on the field included, on the French side, 11 princes, 80 bannerets, 1200 knights, 1400 gentlemen, 4000 men-atarms, besides about 30,000 of inferior rank. Among the slain was the old and blind king of Bohemia. Resolved to hazard his person and set an example to others, he ordered the reins of his bridle to be tied on each side to two gentlemen of his train; and his dead body, and those of his attendants, were afterwards found among the slain, with their horses standing by them in that situation. It is said that the crest of the king of Bohemia was three ostrich feathers, and his motto Ich dien, "I serve," which the prince of Wales and his successors adopted in memorial of this great victory.* The loss sustained by the English was very slight. But, notwithstanding his success, the king was compelled by his necessities to limit his ambition for the present to the conquest of Calais; to which, after an interval of a few days employed in interring the slain, he now turned his attention.

§ 8. While Edward was engaged in this siege, which employed

There is, however, great doubt respecting the truth of this tradition. See

the essay by sir H. Nicolas in the Archæologia, vol. xxxii.

him exactly eleven months, other events occurred to the honour of the English arms. The earl of Lancaster, who commanded the English forces in Guienne, carried his incursions to the banks of the Vienne, and devastated all the southern provinces of France. The Scots, under the command of their king, David Bruce, entered Northumberland, but were completely defeated by Henry Percy, at Neville's Cross, near Durham (October 17, 1346): the king himself was taken prisoner, with many of the nobility. David Bruce was detained in captivity till 1357, when he was liberated for a ransom of 100,000 marks.

The town of Calais was defended with remarkable vigilance, constancy, and bravery by the townsmen, during a siege of unusual length; and Philip had in vain attempted to relieve it. At length, after enduring all the extremities of famine, John de Vienne, the governor, surrendered unconditionally (August 3, 1347). The story runs that Edward had at first resolved to put all the garrison to death; but that at last he only insisted that six of the most considerable citizens should be sent to him, to be disposed of as he thought proper; that they should come to his camp, carrying the keys of the city in their hands, bareheaded and barefooted, with ropes about their necks; and on these conditions he promised to spare the lives of the remainder. When this intelligence was conveyed to Calais, the inhabitants were struck with consternation. Whilst they found themselves incapable of coming to any resolution in so cruel and distressful a situation, at last one of the principal citizens, called Eustace de St. Pierre, stepped forth and declared himself willing to suffer death for the safety of his friends and companions; another, animated by his example, made a like generous offer; a third and a fourth presented themselves to the same fate; and the whole number was soon completed. These six heroic burgesses appeared before Edward in the guise of malefactors, laid at his feet the keys of their city, and were ordered to be led out to execution. But the entreaties of his queen saved Edward's memory from this infamy: she threw herself on her knees before him, and, with tears in her eyes, begged the lives of these citizens. Having obtained her request, she carried them into her tent, ordered a repast to be set before them, and, after making them a present of money and clothes, dismissed them in safety. The king, after taking possession of Calais, removed the inhabitants to make way for English settlers; a policy which probably preserved so long to his successors the possession of that important fortress. He made it the staple of wool, leather, tin, and lead; the four chief, if not the sole, commodities of the kingdom for which there was at that time any considerable demand in foreign markets.

Through the mediation of the pope's legates Edward concluded a truce with France; but, even during this cessation of arms, an attempt was made to deprive him of Calais (1349). Being informed of the plot, he proceeded to Calais with 1000 men; and, when the French presented themselves to take possession of the town at the time appointed, Edward sallied forth to oppose them. On this occasion he fought hand to hand with a French knight, named Ribaumont. Twice he was struck to the ground, but contrived at last to make his assailant prisoner. The French officers who had fallen into the hands of the English were admitted to sup with the prince of Wales and the English nobility. After supper the king entered the apartment, and conversed familiarly with his prisoners. On Ribaumont he openly bestowed the highest encomiums, admitting that he himself had never been in greater danger. In token of his valour he presented Ribaumont with a chaplet of pearls which he wore about his own head (January, 1349).

§ 9. About the same time the king is said to have instituted the order of the Garter (1349). Its true origin is lost in obscurity. According to the popular account, the countess of Salisbury dropped her garter at a court-ball, when the king picked it up; and observing some of the courtiers to smile, he exclaimed, Honi soit qui mal y pense, "Evil be to him that evil thinks;" and gave these words as the motto of the order.

A grievous calamity, called the Black Death, more than the pacific disposition of the two princes, served to maintain and prolong the truce between France and England. It invaded England as well as the rest of Europe; and is computed to have swept away nearly a third of the inhabitants in every country attacked by it (1349). Above 50,000 souls are said to have perished by it in London alone. Public business was interrupted; war was discontinued until 1355; the legal and judicial work ceased for two years, and the population, especially among the lower orders, was greatly diminished. To augment the evils of the time, cattle and sheep were attacked by it, and the resources of the country were severely impaired. This malady first appeared in the north of Asia, spread over all that country, and made its progress from one end of Europe to the other, depopulating every state through which it passed. As labourers decreased in England, the survivors endeavoured by combination to obtain higher wages. The attempt was resented by parliament, and an act was passed, called the Statute of Labourers (23 Edw. III. c. 1), which ordered them to work at their accustomed wages. As they were little inclined to do this, another statute was passed a few years after,

making them liable to severe punishments if any wilfully remained idle, or quitted their usual place of abode.

The truce between the two kingdoms expired in 1355. John the Good had succeeded to the French throne on the death of his father, Philip of Valois, in 1350; and France was distracted by the factions excited by Charles the Bad, king of Navarre. John had succeeded in seizing and imprisoning that prince; but the cause of Charles was maintained by his brother Philip, and Geoffrey d'Harcourt, who had recourse to the protection of England. Well pleased that the factions in France had at length gained him partisans in that kingdom, which his pretensions to the crown had never been able to secure, Edward purposed to attack his enemy both on the side of Guienne, under the command of the prince of Wales, and on that of Calais, in his own person. Young Edward arrived in the Garonne with his army, overran Languedoc, advanced even as far as Narbonne, laying every place waste around him. After an incursion of six weeks, he returned with a vast booty and many prisoners to Guienne, where he took up his winter quarters. His father's incursion from Calais was of the same nature, and attended with the same results. After plundering and ravaging the open country, he retired to Calais, and thence to England, in order to defend his kingdom against a threatened invasion of the Scots, who, taking advantage of the king's absence, had surprised Berwick. But on the approach of Edward they abandoned that place, which was not tenable while the castle was in the hands of the English; and, retiring northwards, gave the enemy full liberty of burning and destroying the whole country from Berwick to Edinburgh.

In the following year (1356) the prince of Wales, encouraged by the success of the preceding campaign, took the field from Bordeaux with an army of 12,000 men, of which not a third were English; and with this small body he ventured to penetrate into the heart of France. His intentions were to march into Normandy, and to join his forces with those of the duke of Lancaster and the partisans of the king of Navarre; but, finding all the bridges on the Loire broken down, and every pass carefully guarded, he was obliged to think of making his retreat into Guienne. The king of France, provoked at this insult, and entertaining hopes of punishing the young prince for his temerity, collected an army of 60,000 men, and advanced by hasty marches to intercept his enemy. They came within sight at Maupertuis, near POITIERS; and Edward, sensible that his retreat had now become impracticable, prepared for battle with all the courage of a young hero, and with all the prudence of the oldest and most experienced commander. His

army was now reduced to 8000 men. At the instance of the cardinal of Périgord, John lost a day in negociation; and thus the prince of Wales had leisure during the night to strengthen, by new intrenchments, the post he had before so judiciously chosen. He contrived an ambush of 300 men-at-arms and as many archers, whom he ordered to make a circuit, that they might fall on the flank or rear of the French army during the engagement. The van of his army was commanded by the earl of Warwick, the rear by the earls of Salisbury and Suffolk, the main body by the prince himself. The king of France also arranged his forces in three divisions. The English position was surrounded by hedges, and was only accessible by a single road, flanked on each side by English archers. As the enemy advanced they were shot down with impunity, and the passage was choked by their dead. Discouraged by the unequal combat, and diminished in number, they arrived at the end of the lane, and were met on the open ground by the prince of Wales himself, at the head of a chosen body, ready for their reception. Discomfited and overthrown, and recoiling upon their own men, the whole army was thrown into disorder. In that critical moment the men placed in ambush appeared and attacked the dauphin's line in flank. The duke of Orleans and several other French commanders fled with their divisions. King John made the utmost efforts to retrieve by his valour what his imprudence had betrayed, till, spent with fatigue and overwhelmed by numbers, he and his son yielded themselves prisoners. Young Edward received the captive king with every mark of regard and sympathy; administered comfort to him amidst his misfortunes; paid him the tribute of praise due to his valour; and ascribed his own victory merely to the blind chance of war, or to a superior Providence which controls all the efforts of human force and prudence. The behaviour of John showed him not unworthy of this courteous treatment; his present abject fortune never made him forget for a moment that he was a king. More touched by Edward's generosity than by his own calamities, he confessed that, notwithstanding his defeat and captivity, his honour was still unimpaired; and that, if he yielded the victory, it was at least gained by a prince of consummate valour and humanity. Edward ordered a repast to be prepared in his tent for the prisoner, and he himself served at the royal captive's table, as if he had been one of his retinue. He stood at the king's back during the meal; constantly refused to take a place at table; and declared that, being a subject, he was too well acquainted with the distance between his own rank and that of royalty to assume such freedom. The battle of Poitiers was fought September 19, 1356.