The earl of Alencon came to the battle right ordinately and fought with the Englishmen, and the earl of Flanders also on his part.  These two lords with their companies coasted the English archers and came to the prince’s battle, and there fought valiantly long.  The French king would fain have come thither, when he saw their banners, but there was a great hedge of archers before him.  The same day the French king had given a great black courser to sir John of Hainault, and he made the lord Tierry of Senzeille to ride on him and to bear his banner.  The same horse took the bridle in the teeth and brought him through all the currours of the Englishmen, and as he would have returned again, he fell in a great dike and was sore hurt, and had been there dead, an his page had not been, who followed him through all the battles and saw where his master lay in the dike, and had none other let but for his horse, for the Englishmen would not issue out of their battle for taking of any prisoner.  Then the page alighted and relieved his master:  then he went not back again the same way that they came, there was too many in his way.

This battle between Broye and Cressy this Saturday was right cruel and fell, and many a feat of arms done that came not to my knowledge.  In the night[5] divers knights and squires lost their masters, and sometime came on the Englishmen, who received them in such wise that they were ever nigh slain; for there was none taken to mercy nor to ransom, for so the Englishmen were determined.

      [5] ‘Sus le nuit,’ ‘towards nightfall.’

In the morning[6] the day of the battle certain Frenchmen and Almains perforce opened the archers of the prince’s battle and came and fought with the men of arms hand to hand.  Then the second battle of the Englishmen came to succour the prince’s battle, the which was time, for they had as then much ado; and they with the prince sent a messenger to the king, who was on a little windmill hill.  Then the knight said to the king:  ’Sir, the earl of Warwick and the earl of Oxford, sir Raynold Cobham and other, such as be about the prince your son, are fiercely fought withal and are sore handled; wherefore they desire you that you and your battle will come and aid them; for if the Frenchmen increase, as they doubt they will, your son and they shall have much ado.’  Then the king said:  ’Is my son dead or hurt or on the earth felled?’ ‘No, sir,’ quoth the knight, ’but he is hardly matched; wherefore he hath need of your aid.’  ‘Well,’ said the king, ’return to him and to them that sent you hither, and say to them that they send no more to me for any adventure that falleth, as long as my son is alive:  and also say to them that they suffer him this day to win his spurs;[7] for if God be pleased, I will this journey be his and the honour thereof, and to them that be about him.’  Then the knight returned again to them and shewed the king’s words, the which greatly encouraged them, and repoined[8] in that they had sent to the king as they did.