Lincoln and the bishop of Durham; for he never voided his realm but that he left ever enough at home to keep and defend the realm, if need were.  Then the king rode to Hampton and there tarried for wind:  then he entered into his ship and the prince of Wales with him, and the lord Godfrey of Harcourt, and all other lords, earls, barons and knights, with all their companies.  They were in number a four thousand men of arms and ten thousand archers, beside Irishmen and Welshmen that followed the host afoot.

Now I shall name you certain of the lords that went over with king Edward in that journey.  First, Edward his eldest son, prince of Wales, who as then was of the age of thirteen years or thereabout,[1] the earls of Hereford, Northampton, Arundel, Cornwall, Warwick, Huntingdon, Suffolk, and Oxford; and of barons the lord Mortimer, who was after earl of March, the lords John, Louis and Roger of Beauchamp, and the lord Raynold Cobham; of lords the lord of Mowbray, Ros, Lucy, Felton, Bradestan, Multon, Delaware, Manne,[2] Basset, Berkeley, and Willoughby, with divers other lords; and of bachelors there was John Chandos, Fitz-Warin, Peter and James Audley, Roger of Wetenhale, Bartholomew of Burghersh, and Richard of Pembridge, with divers other that I cannot name.  Few there were of strangers:  there was the earl Hainault,[3] sir Wulfart of Ghistelles, and five or six other knights of Almaine, and many other that I cannot name.

      [1] He was in fact sixteen; born 15th June 1330.

      [2] Probably ‘Mohun’.

      [3] The usual confusion between ‘comte’ and ‘comte.’  It means,
      ‘of the county of Hainault there was sir Wulfart of Ghistelles,’
      etc.

Thus they sailed forth that day in the name of God.  They were well onward on their way toward Gascoyne, but on the third day there rose a contrary wind and drave them on the marches of Cornwall, and there they lay at anchor six days.  In that space the king had other counsel by the means of sir Godfrey Harcourt:  he counselled the king not to go into Gascoyne, but rather to set aland in Normandy, and said to the king:  ’Sir, the country of Normandy is one of the plenteous countries of the world:  sir, on jeopardy of my head, if ye will land there, there is none that shall resist you; the people of Normandy have not been used to the war, and all the knights and squires of the country are now at the siege before Aiguillon with the duke.  And, sir, there ye shall find great towns that be not walled, whereby your men shall have such winning, that they shall be the better thereby twenty year after; and, sir, ye may follow with your army till ye come to Caen in Normandy:  sir, I require you to believe me in this voyage,’

The king, who was as then but in the flower of his youth, desiring nothing so much as to have deeds of arms, inclined greatly to the saying of the lord Harcourt, whom he called cousin.  Then he commanded the mariners to set their course to Normandy, and he took into his ship the token of the admiral the earl of Warwick, and said now he would be admiral for that viage, and so sailed on before as governour of that navy, and they had wind at will.  Then the king arrived in the isle of Cotentin, at a port called Hogue Saint-Vaast.[4]