whither ye will:  bring hither no more words of treaty nor peace:  and ye love yourself depart shortly.’  When the cardinal saw that he travailed in vain, he took leave of the king and then he went to the prince and said:  ’Sir, do what ye can; there is no remedy but to abide the battle, for I can find none accord in the French king.’  Then the prince said:  ’The same is our intent and all our people:  God help the right!’ So the cardinal returned to Poitiers.  In his company there were certain knights and squires, men of arms, who were more favourable to the French king than to the prince; and when they saw that the parties should fight, they stale from their masters and went to the French host; and they made their captain the chatelain of Amposte,[3] who was as then there with the cardinal, who knew nothing thereof till he was come to Poitiers.

      [3] Amposta, a fortress in Catalonia.

The certainty of the order of the Englishmen was shewed to the French king, except they had ordained three hundred men a-horseback and as many archers a-horseback to coast under covert of the mountain and to strike into the battle of the duke of Normandy, who was under the mountain afoot.  This ordinance they had made of new, that the Frenchmen knew not of.  The prince was with his battle down among the vines and had closed in the weakest part with their carnages.

Now will I name some of the principal lords and knights that were there with the prince:  the earl of Warwick, the earl of Suffolk, the earl of Salisbury, the earl of Oxford, the lord Raynold Cobham, the lord Spencer, the lord James Audley, the lord Peter his brother, the lord Berkeley, the lord Bassett, the lord Warin, the lord Delaware, the lord Manne, the lord Willoughby, the lord Bartholomew de Burghersh, the lord of Felton, the lord Richard of Pembroke, the lord Stephen of Cosington, the lord Bradetane and other Englishmen; and of Gascon there was the lord of Pommiers, the lord of Languiran, the captal of Buch, the lord John of Caumont, the lord de Lesparre, the lord of Rauzan, the lord of Condon, the lord of Montferrand, the lord of Landiras, the lord soudic of Latrau and other that I cannot name; and of Hainowes the lord Eustace d’Aubrecicourt, the lord John of Ghistelles, and two other strangers, the lord Daniel Pasele and the lord Denis of Morbeke:  all the prince’s company passed not an eight thousand men one and other, and the Frenchmen were a sixty thousand fighting men, whereof there were more than three thousand knights.

OF THE BATTLE OF POITIERS BETWEEN THE PRINCE OF WALES AND THE FRENCH KING