第69章 ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE THIRD(4)

Edward received them wrathfully,and ordered the heads of the whole six to be struck off.However,the good Queen fell upon her knees,and besought the King to give them up to her.The King replied,'I wish you had been somewhere else;but I cannot refuse you.'So she had them properly dressed,made a feast for them,and sent them back with a handsome present,to the great rejoicing of the whole camp.I hope the people of Calais loved the daughter to whom she gave birth soon afterwards,for her gentle mother's sake.

Now came that terrible disease,the Plague,into Europe,hurrying from the heart of China;and killed the wretched people-especially the poor-in such enormous numbers,that one-half of the inhabitants of England are related to have died of it.It killed the cattle,in great numbers,too;and so few working men remained alive,that there were not enough left to till the ground.

After eight years of differing and quarrelling,the Prince of Wales again invaded France with an army of sixty thousand men.He went through the south of the country,burning and plundering wheresoever he went;while his father,who had still the Scottish war upon his hands,did the like in Scotland,but was harassed and worried in his retreat from that country by the Scottish men,who repaid his cruelties with interest.

The French King,Philip,was now dead,and was succeeded by his son John.The Black Prince,called by that name from the colour of the armour he wore to set off his fair complexion,continuing to burn and destroy in France,roused John into determined opposition;and so cruel had the Black Prince been in his campaign,and so severely had the French peasants suffered,that he could not find one who,for love,or money,or the fear of death,would tell him what the French King was doing,or where he was.Thus it happened that he came upon the French King's forces,all of a sudden,near the town of Poitiers,and found that the whole neighbouring country was occupied by a vast French army.'God help us!'said the Black Prince,'we must make the best of it.'

So,on a Sunday morning,the eighteenth of September,the Prince whose army was now reduced to ten thousand men in all-prepared to give battle to the French King,who had sixty thousand horse alone.

While he was so engaged,there came riding from the French camp,a Cardinal,who had persuaded John to let him offer terms,and try to save the shedding of Christian blood.'Save my honour,'said the Prince to this good priest,'and save the honour of my army,and I will make any reasonable terms.'He offered to give up all the towns,castles,and prisoners,he had taken,and to swear to make no war in France for seven years;but,as John would hear of nothing but his surrender,with a hundred of his chief knights,the treaty was broken off,and the Prince said quietly-'God defend the right;we shall fight to-morrow.'

Therefore,on the Monday morning,at break of day,the two armies prepared for battle.The English were posted in a strong place,which could only be approached by one narrow lane,skirted by hedges on both sides.The French attacked them by this lane;but 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.