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On the 26th of August 1346, south of the port town of Calais in northern France, an outnumbered English army commanded by King Edward III of England confronted the forces of King Philip VI of France. As the fighting raged, the English right flank was furiously assaulted by the French. Despite the immense odds and after being thrown to the ground and nearly losing his life in the fighting, it was the 16-year old son of the English king, Prince Edward, who rallied their forces and beat back the French. Victory at the Battle of Crécy was only the beginning of the
remarkable career of Prince Edward. Who was he, how did he contribute to the Hundred Years' War and why did he never become King of England? This is the story of Edward, the Black Prince. The man known to history as Edward of Woodstock, or Edward the Black Prince, was born on the 15th of June 1330 at Woodstock Palace in Oxfordshire in England. The origins of the name 'The Black Prince' are not known for certain. Prince Edward was not called by this name when he was alive. Rather it was adopted during the Tudor era, over a hundred years after his death. Some speculate
that the name arises from the black armour he was said to have habitually worn into battle, whilst others claim that it was derived from the dark reputation he garnered by engaging in scorched earth campaigns or chevauchées across France during the Hundred Years' War. A third theory is that this name comes from his coat of arms, which depicted three ostrich feathers set against a black background. The Black Prince's father was King Edward III of England, the son and heir of King Edward II. Edward III became king in 1327 at the age of
fourteen after his weak and unpopular father was deposed by his wife Isabella and her lover, Roger Mortimer, a powerful English noble who along with Isabella organised an uprising while in France and invaded England in 1326, rapidly supplanting Edward's government. Edward II's great mistake was to grant excessive power throughout his reign to a series of court favourites such as Piers Gaveston and the Despenser family, actions which ultimately cost him his throne and his life in 1327. The Black Prince's mother was Phillipa of Hainault, the daughter of William I, Count of Hainault. She
was Queen of England from the date of her marriage to Edward III on the 24th of January 1328 until her death on the 15th of August 1369. Edward and Phillipa would ultimately have thirteen children of whom Prince Edward was the eldest. When Edward was born in the summer of 1330, his father was still basically a puppet of his mother and Mortimer. They had managed to overthrow the unpopular Edward II in 1327 and then seized control of England, with Isabella's teenage son being king in name only at first. However, Edward III soon showed that he was nothing like
his father in terms of his political and military abilities. It was the birth of his son and heir, Edward of Woodstock, that galvanised the King to move against the increasingly unpopular Mortimer and Isabella. On the 19th of October 1330, Edward III raided a castle where the couple were residing in Nottingham and captured them. On the 29th of November Mortimer was executed, while Isabella was placed under house confinement and banned from all political activity. Edward's decisive reassertion of royal power was welcomed by the English nobility. The young king immediately resolved to
wage war on the Scots to avenge the humiliation of the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, through which Edward II had lost control over Scotland. Edward III's well-trained army secured a complete victory over the Scottish forces at the Battle of Halidon Hill on the 19th of July 1333. Edward was received as a hero on his return to England. Thereafter he was determined to rebuild England's might as it had existed in the time of his grandfather, King Edward I, or indeed in the days of King Henry II in the twelfth century when the English king had ruled over most of northern and western
France as well. In this task of royal renewal, his eldest son would become an able participant. Details of the early life of Edward of Woodstock are scarce. He was made the Earl of Chester in 1333, his first title, and was brought up in the surroundings of a magnificent court, where feasting and celebration were abundant. The young prince was dressed in fine silk clothes and given a personal tailor. However, the prince's father also wanted to ensure that his heir could perform his duties as a military ruler as well one day. To this end, the Prince received his first suit
of armour at the age of 7, and from the age of 13 participated in the numerous chivalric tournaments held by the King. The first decade of his reign saw Edward III embroiled in further conflict with the Scottish King, David II, leading multiple campaigns in the Scottish borderlands following Halidon Hill. However, his thoughts soon turned towards England's greatest enemy, France, and in 1337 Edward launched what would become known as the Hundred Years' War, the conflict in which the Black Prince would establish himself as one of the great military leaders of the medieval period.
Edward's claim to the French throne originated from the death in 1328 of King Charles IV of France without a male heir, leaving two chief claimants for the throne: Philip, Count of Valois, Edward's cousin, and Edward himself, whose mother Isabella was Charles' sister. The French aristocracy chose Philip of Valois to become Philip VI of France. This choice was not contested at first, primarily because at the time Isabella and Mortimer wanted to maintain good relations with the French. Indeed, even when Edward took personal control of England late in 1330,
he maintained cordial relations with Philip as he dealt first with the Scots in the years that followed. But relations between the English and French monarchs soured gradually and in 1337 England went to war with France after Philip threatened to confiscate the Duchy of Gascony, England's last major holding on the continent. At first Edward went to war exclusively over the Gascony issue, but early in 1340 Edward extended the cause for war by publicly asserting his claim to the French crown. Thus, the war that would rage on and off down to 1453 was
over England's right to the French throne, but also the effort to reclaim territories like the Duchy of Normandy that England had lost back in the early thirteenth century. Edward's initial plan in the war was to draw the French forces into a decisive battle. Thus, he invaded northern France in the autumn of 1339, using scorched earth tactics to devastate the countryside. However, King Philip refused to meet the English in open battle and withdrew his forces into defensive positions, forcing Edward back to Flanders without a victory. It was there that
he formally declared his claim to the French throne in January 1340 in the city of Ghent. By then Edward was desperate for a victory over the French, as heavy taxation at home in England to pay for his army was unpopular. He therefore assembled more than 100 ships at Holbrook in the East of England to ferry his troops to Flanders and began a new offensive with his Flemish allies. Yet the French had anticipated this move and were blockading his entry into Flanders with a fleet twice as large as his own. Edward received news of this, but nonetheless chose to sail on the
22nd of June. The fleets clashed two days later near the town of Sluys. Though the French boats were faster, their sailors were inexperienced in combat, while Edward's vessels were crammed with skilled archers. Furthermore, the French boats were bound together to maintain a defensive position, making the fleet extremely immobile. The English consequently won a total victory, capturing almost the entire French fleet. Despite the stunning naval success at the Battle of Sluys, Edward could still not force King Philip into a decisive battle on French territory. He soon ran out of funds and was forced to abandon his campaign.
After peace talks in 1344 ended in failure, Edward launched a major new campaign in 1346. By now the Black Prince was 16 years old and considered to be old enough to take part in the war. He had also been made the Prince of Wales in 1343. Father and son, with their army, landed in Normandy on the 12th of July 1346 with a 14,000-strong army. Upon their arrival there, the Prince was knighted by his father and given command of the vanguard of the army. After pillaging the town of Caen in late July, with the Black Prince playing a leading role in
the town's capture, Edward's army continued its easterly march through Normandy towards Calais. After crossing the River Somme on the 24th of August they arrived on a ridge of high ground between the villages of Crecy and Wadicourt. The English king had around 2,500 men-at-arms, 3,000 cavalry, 2,000 spearmen and 5,000 to 7,000 longbowmen, whilst a swiftly approaching French force was much larger, numbering over 20,000 men. However, the English were well-rested when the battle commenced on the 26th, whereas the French were tired after a long march northwards. While
King Edward commanded the centre of the army and the Earl of Northampton the left, the Black Prince was given command of the right wing. The French advance was led by Genoese crossbowmen, with the extensive French cavalry building up behind them. Seeing the Genoese falter under heavy English longbow fire, they charged through the crossbowmen, causing chaos and confusion in the French ranks. While this slowed the French onslaught, in the early evening the main French force arrived on the battlefield and charged the English right under the Black
Prince. This led to a severe struggle, in which the Prince himself was beaten to the ground. However, reinforcements from the English left helped repel the French attack, and Prince Edward, though badly concussed, soon picked himself up and continued fighting valiantly. As daylight faded, the French launched wave after wave of cavalry attacks to no avail. King Philip himself had two horses slain under him during the battle and received an arrow wound in his face. As night fell, with his army disintegrating around him against a steady English advance, he
reluctantly fled the field, conceding a terrible defeat to King Edward's triumphant army. The Battle of Crecy was one of the greatest English victories of the Hundred Years' War, with Edward's army sustaining fewer than 300 casualties, while the French casualties were far higher, including a great number of prominent nobles, such as Philip's brother, the Count of Alencon and King John of Bohemia. The Black Prince and his father came across the body of King John when surveying the battlefield the following day. They were deeply moved, for John was one of the
foremost warriors of his age, losing his sight whilst on crusade. It is said that the Prince took John's emblem of three white feathers and made it his own. John's emblem remains the symbol of the Prince of Wales to this day. Following the battle, Edward laid siege to the port of Calais, whilst an invading Scottish army, encouraged by Philip to exploit Edward's absence, was decisively defeated at Neville's Cross by an English force under the Archbishop of York on the 17th of October 1346. Calais finally surrendered in August 1347 and in October of that year, King Edward negotiated
a truce and returned to London. The spirit of jubilation across England surrounding Edward and his son's great victories was quickly brought to an end, when in August 1348 the Black Death crossed the English Channel and ravaged the country. The bubonic plague would eventually kill over one-third of Europe's population. Densely populated cities like London were particularly badly hit. Indeed, the Black Prince was personally impacted by the disease, as it claimed the life of his sister Joan on the 2nd of September 1348. Nevertheless, in spite of the plague, King Edward inaugurated a new chivalric order at Windsor Castle that same year,
naming it the Order of the Garter. It had 26 original members including the Black Prince, who had assisted his father in selecting the other founding members, all of whom were selected based on acts of valour, rather than simply their rank. The Order was arguably the most enduring legacy of King Edward III's reign, as it remains the most senior order of knights in the United Kingdom to this day. As the effects of the plague began to dissipate in late 1349, King Edward saw the chance to reclaim the offensive against France. After hearing of an imminent
attempt to recapture Calais, the king and his son went to the vital port ahead of the French, and sprung a trap on their enemy, repulsing the French force on the 1st of January 1350, although not without the Black Prince having to lead his garrison in saving his father, after Edward became stranded outside the city gates, against a much larger enemy force. The Black Prince owned large estates throughout England. He implemented a host of revenue-generating policies when his income fell after the Black Death. During the crisis he
showed himself to be a fair landlord, instructing his revenue official in Cornwall in 1351, to 'deal equitably and rightly' with his tenants and to protect them from 'oppressions and extortions'. Furthermore, after local unrest in Cheshire in the summer of 1353, the Prince travelled to the county himself, holding judicial sessions to settle grievances. He also agreed to grant Cheshire a charter of liberties. This successful management of his lands aside, the Black Prince was also gaining a reputation as an overly indulgent spender,
constantly living beyond his financial means to fund his extravagant lifestyle. This being said, it should be noted that the Prince's extravagance was not mindless spending. In medieval England great lords needed to be generous in feasting and gift-giving to recruit men into their service and maintain their allegiance. Striking a balance between rewarding one's followers and avoiding the burden of debt was a challenge faced by many medieval lords, especially after the Black Death when there were labour shortages all across the continent and soldiers and farmers were
in an excellent negotiating position when it came to the retention of their services. In 1355, Jean de Grailly, a knight of the garter from Gascony, the English-held province in south-western France, informed King Edward that people in the region were concerned with the actions of the Count of Armagnac, who had been appointed by King John II of France as governor of the southern region of Languedoc, and who had captured a number of Gascon towns and fortresses. Edward was keen to resume the offensive against France and his Great Council decided that the
Black Prince should lead an expedition from Gascony to secure the province and punish the Count of Armagnac. Furthermore, on the 10th of July the Prince was made the King's lieutenant in Gascony, allowing him to basically govern Gascony as a de-facto royal viceroy. He was given an army of 2,600 men, to be bolstered by Gascon soldiers. Accompanying the Prince to France were fourteen knights of the Garter, including the experienced Earls of Warwick and Suffolk and the Prince's special advisers and close friends, Sir John Chandos and Sir James Audley. They
reached Bordeaux on the 20th of September 1355. The following day a religious ceremony was held in Saint-Andre Cathedral, after which the Prince spoke directly to the inhabitants of Bordeaux, telling them of his plan to take the offensive against the Languedoc governor, by marching east and ravaging his lands in a great chevauchée, a French term meaning a brutal plundering raid, where land either side of the advancing column was burned. The aim of a chevauchée was to plunder the wealth and resources of the enemy's land in order to undermine the enemy's capacity to wage
war. With the Gascon contingents joining his army, the Black Prince's force reached around 8,000 men, and on the 5th October they set off from Bordeaux following the river Garonne, and entering Armagnac's lands on the 12th of October, where the troops began burning, and fires soon raged for many miles around the army. Though Armagnac was in command of a larger force than the Anglo-Gascons, he did not want to risk battle against the Black Prince's experienced men. Instead, he gathered his army in the fortified city of Toulouse and destroyed the bridges over the
Garonne and Ariege rivers, hoping the raid would fizzle out or come to a halt before the rivers. On the 28th of October the Prince reached the Garonne south of Toulouse. The Prince had been informed by local guides in his service that the stream could be forded. As such, he led his army across the river. This audacious move greatly boosted the morale of his men, while causing panic amongst Armagnac and the French, who assumed the Prince would turn back before the rivers. Instead, his army now marched east through the Languedoc, a region totally unprepared for the carnage that
bore down upon them. The army reached the major town of Carcassonne and razed its outer settlements to the ground on the 6th of November, and then continued on to Narbonne, which was occupied on the 8th of November. The Prince's troops had now covered 250 miles since leaving Bordeaux and were within sight of the Mediterranean Sea. Edward ultimately decided to return to Gascony before the winter weather set in. The Prince's army re-crossed the Garonne on the 20th of November, and after receiving reinforcements, the Count of Armagnac finally
left Toulouse. He shadowed the Anglo-Gascons as they marched west, much to the fury of John II, the French King. On the 28th of November, the Prince arrived back on Gascon soil, and spent Christmas at Bordeaux amid great rejoicing and celebration, for the expedition had been a clear success. Many Gascon lords who had joined the French, now rallied to the English cause, as Armagnac's failure to protect his vassal's lands, had been brutally exposed. The chevauchée of 1355 further demonstrated the Black Prince's military skill. As news of its
success arrived to England, Edward III sensed an opportunity to launch a wider offensive against his enemy, as King John II was facing a crisis in his relations with the French nobility, originating from John's arrest of the powerful aristocrat Charles of Navarre and other Norman lords at a dinner party in Rouen, when he threw Charles in jail and executed four nobles, causing Normandy to rise in revolt against the French King. To exploit this situation, King Edward sent a small force under the Duke of Lancaster to Normandy at the beginning of June 1356 and urged
the Black Prince to march north to link up with Lancaster's army, in order to attack John II's son, the Count of Poitiers, who was charged with the defence of France south of the Loire River. The Prince was delayed in his expedition by a resurgent Count of Armagnac, whose incursions into Gascony forced the Prince to leave 2,000 of his 8,000-strong force in the duchy to defend it before he began his march on the 4th of August, moving north through France and devastating the lands as they went. As the Prince neared the Loire River, he began to realise the serious danger his
army was in, as Lancaster had ended his Normandy campaign in the face of a larger French force, whilst John II was building an immense army at Chartres. Moreover, while John remained unpopular with the French aristocracy, they now rallied to him out of fear of the Black Prince. Thus, the king was able to assemble a force more than twice the size of the Prince's, who now became desperate to locate and link up with Lancaster's army. On the 7th of September, the Prince's army reached the Loire in the suburbs of Tours, aiming to join Lancaster who was just 70 miles away on
the north bank. However, heavy rains soon made the swollen river impassable, and after receiving news that John's army was advancing towards him just 20 miles away, the Black Prince ordered a retreat, whilst Lancaster withdrew into Brittany, leaving the Black Prince to fend for himself. With both armies moving south, the French had managed to overtake and cut across the English line of march and were now west of their enemy, near Poitiers. It was clear that a major confrontation was imminent, but while the Prince led about 7,000 men, King John had over 20,000 men with him.
On the 18th of September, the Prince took up his position south-east of Poitiers. His forces occupied a ridge of high ground, while his flanks were protected by thick woods on one side, with wagons from the baggage train, used to shield his flanks further. The Prince placed Warwick and Oxford's division on his left, Suffolk and Salisbury's on his right, whilst he commanded the centre. His longbowmen were placed on the wings of the army. On the morning of the 19th, King John and the French had arrived. He formed his army into three divisions,
led by the Dauphin Charles, John's brother Philip the Duke of Orleans, and himself. At 7:30am the Prince gathered his carts and moved them in a southern direction, as if he were retreating. The feint worked and the French cavalry charged the English line. This charge met with initial success as the armoured French horses resisted the Prince's archers and crashed into the Anglo-Gascons. However, after repositioning to the side, the English archers targeted the horses behind the front line to devastating effect, destroying the momentum of the French assault. The cavalry that had broken through the defences were surrounded
and cut down. The English then attacked the exhausted French men-at-arms through the hedges and spilt around the flanks of the French line, forcing them to retreat after two hours of bloody fighting. The strongest French division under King John now began to advance. While this presented a grave threat, the Black Prince launched a surprise cavalry charge directly at the French line while also sending a mounted force on a large flanking manoeuvre to fall on the French left. A melee ensued, with both sides taking casualties. But then the Gascon reserve force crashed into the
French left flank, causing widespread panic in John's ranks. The English archers, having expended their arrows, threw down their bows and launched themselves into the battle. With contingents of the French army now fleeing, the French King was surrounded and captured by the English. On the evening of the 19th of September, the French dead stood at 2,500 men-at-arms, while the king and dozens of notable lords were captured. From the jaws of defeat, the Black Prince had snatched an improbable and total victory. The captured King John was treated respectfully by the Black Prince, who waited on his table on the evening after the battle
and praised the King's valour and bravery. If the central tenets of medieval chivalry were bravery in battle and respect for one's enemy, then at Poitiers the Black Prince had demonstrated why he would be remembered in history as the embodiment of a chivalrous warrior. The Anglo-Gascon army returned to Bordeaux on the 5th of October, to great public jubilation. Thereafter a two-year truce with the captive King John was agreed on the 23rd of March 1357. The Prince and his royal prisoner set sail for England and on the 24th of May Edward of Woodstock rode through London
in triumph. This was the pinnacle of his career as England's warrior-prince. On the 8th of May 1358, Edward III signed an agreement with John II, in which John agreed to pay 4 million French crowns for his release and recognised Edward as sovereign ruler of the large southern province of Aquitaine. In return Edward would renounce his claim to the French throne. This treaty constituted a substantial victory for the English. Following his victory, the Prince fell back into his ever-persistent problem of excessive spending as he embarked on an ambitious expansion
of his Vale Royal residence in Cheshire, an Abbey begun by his great-grandfather, Edward I. Nevertheless, when the French provisional government rejected the treaty signed with John, the Black Prince and his father once again led a large expedition into France on the 28th October 1359, intending to march on Rheims and have Edward III crowned as King of France. However, the army failed to capture the city and Edward decided to negotiate, agreeing to the Treaty of Bretigny on the 8th of May 1360. Under the terms of the treaty,
Edward ceded lands in the north and west of France totalling around a third of the country. In return Edward relinquished his claim to the French throne and lowered John's ransom to 3 million crowns. With the war with France now briefly in abeyance, the 31 year-old Black Prince married Joan of Kent, his 33-year-old cousin, in the summer of 1361. He returned to France and soon after he was invested as Prince of Aquitaine as a reward for his victory at Poitiers. The Prince departed for France with most of his household, as well as over 600 soldiers, arriving at Lormont near Bordeaux on the
29th of June. There the Prince was quite popular at the beginning of his rule, as his exceedingly generous hospitality and grand feasts endeared him to the local lords. Furthermore, the Prince and his wife were extremely happy in their new domain, especially so upon the birth of their first child in January 1365, a son whom they named Edward. In addition, in a meeting of the three estates, the representative body of Aquitaine, in September 1365, the Prince showed himself to be willing to listen to the grievances of his subjects, and act to redress them, working to reduce lawlessness
in his lands, after hearing complaints of marauding brigands and feuding lords. Meanwhile, France had a new king. John II had died in April 1364. The new king, Charles V, proved himself to be a strong and effective ruler, and a formidable adversary for the Black Prince, who by 1365 was already experiencing some tension with his nobles, including his old enemy, the Count of Armagnac. The Black Prince's attention was soon drawn away from Aquitaine altogether towards Spain, when he received a message in 1366 from the displaced King Pedro of Castile begging the
Prince to help restore him to the throne. The 32 year-old Pedro had succeeded his father, Alfonso XI, as the sole child of a loveless marriage to Queen Maria of Portugal, but his father preferred his mistress Leonore de Guzman, with whom he had multiple children who he showered with honour and affection, whilst isolating Pedro, who forged a strong resentment towards his half-siblings, especially the eldest, Enrique of Trastamara. As King, Pedro was a valuable ally of Edward III, as Castile had emerged as the most powerful state in the Iberian peninsula. Then, in 1366, Pedro
was removed from the throne by his bitter enemy Enrique, in an invasion supported by Charles V of France. When he fled to Gascony, many of the Black Prince's advisors were opposed to helping Pedro, as in his rapid flight over the Pyrenees he had not brought any soldiers with him, meaning that the Prince would have to mobilise an army and bear the financial burden of the campaign if he was to try to restore Pedro to the throne of Castile. Furthermore, Pedro was widely considered to be an unstable tyrant, one who had also been excommunicated by the Catholic Church.
Despite his reservations about Pedro, the English were wary of allowing Castile to come under French influence and were determined to uphold the Anglo-Castilian alliance. Therefore, Edward reluctantly agreed to help restore the Castilian King on September 23rd 1366, on the condition that Pedro swear an oath to reform how he ruled if he was restored to power in Castile, and to also repair his relations with the church. After the birth, on the 6th of January 1367, of the Black Prince's second son, Richard, who would later become King Richard II of England, the Prince left
Bordeaux to join his assembling army of over 6,000 men in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Then, on the 14th of February 1367, the Prince's vanguard under Sir John Chandos, crossed the Pyrenees, followed on the 20th by the Prince, with the main body, reaching Pamplona, the capital of Navarre on the 23rd of February. As the Prince's army reached Vitoria it suffered under harsh weather and a lack of provisions. While encamped around Vitoria it was ambushed on the 25th of March by a Franco-Castilian force under Enrique, losing hundreds of men. However, this shock spurred
the Prince into action, and after retreating into Navarre he marched south on a new route. On the 3rd of April 1367, the two armies would meet on an open plain a mile east of the town of Najera. Though the exact sizes of the armies are disputed, it is likely that Enrique of Trastamara, held the numerical advantage, but the Black Prince had the element of surprise. He shielded his advance behind a ridge and appeared unexpectedly with his army on Enrique's left flank. The surprised Castilians and French launched a poorly coordinated cavalry charge,
which was shot down by the Anglo-Gascon archers. Enrique's Spanish soldiers were not accustomed to the devastating effectiveness of the English longbow, which broke the advancing infantry in similar fashion and the Prince, seeing the enemy's distress, charged with his mounted soldiers to rout the Spanish and French troops. The Battle of Najera was another complete victory for the Black Prince, whose army inflicted heavy casualties on the Spanish, whilst sustaining very few casualties themselves, much to the delight of Edward III. Despite this, the Black Prince was
soon frustrated to learn that Enrique had escaped to France, to be shielded by Charles V. On the 2nd of May at Burgos, Pedro was informed that the campaign to restore him to his throne had cost over £400,000 and that the English crown expected to be reimbursed. Although Edward intended to remain with his army in Spain to ensure the debt was paid, an outbreak of dysentery hit the army in August. It was almost certainly at this time that the Prince himself was struck with the sickness, from which he would never fully recover. As the disease spread, the Anglo-Gascons marched back
across the Pyrenees and returned to Bordeaux in early September 1367. By autumn of 1367, Pedro's failure to repay his debts left the Black Prince on the verge of bankruptcy, with most of his army still unpaid. The Prince was accordingly forced to resort to taxing Aquitaine, introducing a property tax known as the fouage, which was approved by the estates in January 1368. A cohort of noblemen, led by the ever-difficult Count of Armagnac, denounced the tax as oppressive, and refused to allow its collection on their lands. Following his Spanish expedition, many of the
Prince's political strengths were fading, as he now lacked the financial means to maintain loyalty through his generosity and gift giving, and his personal charm was greatly diminished by debilitating sickness, which continually plagued him from the summer of 1368. In June of that year, Charles saw his opportunity and took it, entering an agreement with Armagnac, Albret and the Count of Perigord, three influential Aquitanian nobles who were resentful of the Prince and his new tax, pledging to defend them if the Prince ever attacked their domains and granted them lands
and funds, whilst the nobles promised to fight for Charles to recover Aquitaine for the French crown. As the Prince's health worsened, his hold over Aquitaine became ever more precarious. Edward III, whose energy and decisiveness had declined with age and ill health, failed to provide the Prince with adequate financial resources, and had dithered whilst Louis, Duke of Anjou, brother of Charles V, began raising troops in southern France, in coordination with the rebellious nobles, to threaten the Prince's authority. Furthermore, the Prince's position
was further weakened when Enrique of Trastamara reconquered Castile and killed Pedro in March of 1369, placing a French ally directly south of the Prince's lands. In June 1369, following months of tension, war broke out once again, between England and France, and Edward III sent a small force under the Earls of Cambridge and Pembroke to assist the Black Prince. Charles, meanwhile, had saved prudently throughout his reign, and had large funds with which to supply the rebellious lords, as towns and castles in vulnerable eastern Aquitaine began to fall to the French.
As he remained crippled by illness, to add to the Prince's woes, he began to lose some of his closest military companions. Sir James Audley died of sickness at the end of August, whilst his most experienced captain in Aquitaine, Sir John Chandos, was killed in a skirmish in Poitou on the 1st of January 1370. The French then launched an offensive in the summer of 1370 with two large armies, one of which, under Charles V's brother John, Duke of Berry, captured the city of Limoges in north-eastern Aquitaine in mid-August, after the Bishop Jean de Cros, a trusted friend
of the Black Prince, surrendered it to the French. The Prince, aghast at the city's surrender, joined a 4,000-strong army and marched to Limoges in what would be his final expedition, though he had to be carried in a litter, as he was by now too ill to mount a horse. Nevertheless, the army arrived and laid siege to the city on the 14th of September. On the 19th, the Prince's miners succeeded in destroying a large section of the city wall, allowing the English troops to surge into Limoges and push back the French defenders. The city was pillaged and burnt by the retreating French and
advancing English, and when the Bishop of Limoges was brought before the Prince, he was told that he deserved execution, although he was ultimately spared. The recovery of Limoges was an important victory for the English, but it was clouded by the news that the Black Prince's eldest son, Edward, had died from the plague just days after the fall of Limoges. This devastating news, combined with his own illness, made the Black Prince resolve to leave Aquitaine and return to England. The capture of Limoges became infamous, as the French chronicler, Jean Froissart, wrote
an account of it in which he claimed that the Prince's forces indiscriminately killed a large part of the civilian population after the city fell. Froissart's account was largely fabricated. While there was substantial property damage, casualties were limited to around 300 people, not the 3,000 that Froissart suggested. Nevertheless, this story of the capture of Limoges stained the Prince's reputation. In early January 1371, the Prince and his household sailed to England. He spent much of the remainder of his life at Berkhamsted Castle, having left his brother, John of Gaunt, in charge of the worsening military situation in Aquitaine.
By the time a year's truce was signed in June 1375 England's holdings in France had been greatly diminished. At home, old King Edward III had become unpopular, as he came under the influence of his young mistress, Alice Perrers. Meanwhile, the Black Prince remained an admired figure, though his health continued to deteriorate from the dysentery he had contracted, an illness that is easily treated with antibiotics today. As the Prince approached his 46th year in 1376, he was virtually unable to leave his bed, and on the 1st of June he was carried to the Palace of
Westminster so that he could spend the last of his days with his elderly father and the rest of his family. On Sunday the 8th of June 1376, Edward of Woodstock said a final prayer and died, almost certainly from the dysentery that had plagued him since the Spanish campaign nine years earlier. He was then buried in Canterbury Cathedral, where his tomb can still be seen today. Just over a year later, his father died, meaning that the Black Prince's 10-year old son, Richard, became England's first new king in half a century. Richard II would prove to be a
divisive ruler who was deposed in 1399 in what many historians view as the start of the Wars of the Roses that tore England apart between the 1450s and the ascent of the Tudors in 1485. The Black Prince is regarded as one of the greatest medieval warriors in the history of England, playing a leading role in two of the most decisive English victories of the Hundred Years' War at Crecy and Poitiers. He was respected by the people of England throughout his life and by his friends and soldiers, whom he never ceased to reward generously for their service to him.
Even the French Kings, John II and Charles V, recognised the Prince's valour and honour. The Prince's reputation has significant blemishes however, especially in France where his brutal raids through Languedoc and northern Aquitaine, prior to the battle of Poitiers included mass atrocities towards civilians and the destruction of significant swathes of French countryside. Nevertheless, the Black Prince was above all else a hero for his time, labelled by his surgeon John Arderne, who accompanied him on many campaigns, as "the very flower of chivalry", for there are few men in history who embodied medieval
chivalry as much as Edward of Woodstock did. The principles of courage in battle and showing honour towards one's opponents defined the warrior-Prince's life, who lived and died adhering to a code of chivalry that was widely aspired to in medieval Europe. Chivalry in many ways defined the era of the Black Prince, and the Black Prince in many ways defined chivalry. What do you think of the Black Prince? Was he a ruthless military commander who devastated large parts of France through his chevauchée raids, or would he have made a great English king?
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