HOW KING JOHN WAS TAKEN PRISONER AT THE BATTLE OF POITIERS

Oftentimes the adventures of amours and of war are more fortunate and marvellous than any man can think or wish.  Truly this battle, the which was near to Poitiers in the fields of Beauvoir and Maupertuis, was right great and perilous, and many deeds of arms there was done the which all came not to knowledge.  The fighters on both sides endured much pain:  king John with his own hands did that day marvels in arms:  he had an axe in his hands wherewith he defended himself and fought in the breaking of the press.  Near to the king there was taken the earl of Tancarville, sir Jaques of Bourbon earl of Ponthieu, and the lord John of Artois earl of Eu, and a little above that under the banner of the capital of Buch was taken sir Charles of Artois and divers other knights and squires.  The chase endured to the gates of Poitiers:  there were many slain and beaten down, horse and man, for they of Poitiers closed their gates and would suffer none to enter; wherefore in the street before the gate was horrible murder, men hurt and beaten down.  The Frenchmen yielded themselves as far off as they might know an Englishman:  there were divers English archers that had four, five or six prisoners:  the lord of Pons, a great baron of Poitou, was there slain, and many other knights and squires; and there was taken the earl of Rochechouart, the lord of Dammartin, the lord of Partenay, and of Saintonge the lord of Montendre and the lord John of Saintre, but he was so sore hurt that he had never health after:  he was reputed for one of the best knights in France.  And there was left for dead among other dead men the lord Guichard d’Angle, who fought that day by the king right valiantly, and so did the lord of Charny, on whom was great press, because he bare the sovereign banner of the king’s:  his own banner was also in the field, the which was of gules, three scutcheons silver.  So many Englishmen and Gascons come to that part, that perforce they opened the king’s battle, so that the Frenchmen were so mingled among their enemies that sometime there was five men upon one gentleman.  There was taken the lord of Pompadour and[1] the lord Bartholomew de Burghersh, and there was slain sir Geoffrey of Charny with the king’s banner in his hands:  also the lord Raynold Cobham slew the earl of Dammartin.  Then there was a great press to take the king, and such as knew him cried, ’Sir, yield you, or else ye are but dead.’  There was a knight of Saint-Omer’s, retained in wages with the king of England, called sir Denis Morbeke, who had served the Englishmen five year before, because in his youth he had forfeited the realm of France for a murder that he did at Saint-Omer’s.  It happened so well for him, that he was next to the king when they were about to take him:  he stept forth into the press, and by strength of his body and arms he came to the French king and said in good