Flights of arrows from the dreaded English longbow added immeasurably to their distress and bewilderment.  The three hundred horsemen utterly failed in their endeavour to approach these archers, securely posted behind the hedges, and protected by the trenches they had dug.  The arrows sticking in the horses rendered them perfectly wild and unmanageable, and turning back upon their own comrades, they threw the ranks behind into utter confusion, trampling to death many of the footmen, and increasing the panic tenfold.

Then seeing the utter confusion of his foes, the Prince charged in amongst them, dealing death and destruction wherever he went.  The terror of the French increased momentarily; and the division under the Duke of Normandy, that had not even taken any part as yet in the battle, rushed to their horses, mounted and fled without so much as striking a blow.

The King of France, however, behaved with far greater gallantry than either his son or the majority of his knights and nobles, and the battle that he led was long and fiercely contested.

If, as the chronicler tells us, one-fourth of his soldiers had shown the same bravery as he did, the fortunes of the day would have been vastly different; but though personally brave, he was no genius in war, and his fatal determination to fight the battle on foot was a gross blunder in military tactics.  Even when he and his division were being charged by the Prince of Wales at full gallop, at the head of two thousand lances, the men all flushed with victory, John made his own men dismount, and himself did the same, fighting with his axe like a common soldier; whilst his little son Philip crouched behind him, narrowly watching his assailants, and crying out words of warning to his father as he saw blows dealt at him from right or left.

The French were driven back to the very gates of Poitiers, where a great slaughter ensued; for those gates were now shut against them, and they had nowhere else to fly.  The battle had begun early in the morning, and by noon the trumpets were sounding to recall the English from the pursuit of their flying foes.

Such a victory and such vast numbers of noble prisoners almost bewildered even the victors themselves; and the Prince was anxious to assemble his knights once more about him, to learn some of the details of the issue of the day.  That the French King had either been killed or made prisoner appeared certain, for it was confidently asserted that he had not left the field; but for some time the confusion was so great that it was impossible to ascertain what had actually happened, and the Prince, who had gone to his tent to take some refreshment after the labours of the day, had others than his high-born prisoners to think for.

“Who has seen Sir James Audley —­ gallant Sir James?” he asked, looking round upon the circle of faces about him and missing that of the one he perhaps loved best amongst his knights.  “Who has seen him since his gallant charge that made all men hold their breath with wonder?  I would fain reward him for that gallant example he gave to our brave soldiers at the beginning of the day.”