duke and king.  Then he boldly dashed into the heart of Poitou, marching by Lusignan to Poitiers.  “We rode before the city,” wrote Lancaster, “and summoned it, but they would do nothing.  Thereupon on the Wednesday after Michaelmas we stormed the city, and all those within were taken or slain.  And the lords that were within fled away on the other side, and we tarried full eight days.  Thus we have made a fair raid, God be thanked, and are come again to Saint-Jean, whence we propose to return to Bordeaux.”  This exploit ended Lancaster’s Gascon career.  In January, 1347, he was back in England, having restored the reputation of his king in Gascony, and set an example of heroism soon to be emulated by his cousin, the Black Prince.

Edward resolved to take the field in person in the summer of 1346.  Special efforts were made to equip the army, and lovers of ancient precedent were dismayed when the king called upon all men of property to equip archers, hobblers, or men-at-arms, according to their substance, that they might serve abroad at the king’s wages.  But the nation responded to the king’s call, and a host of some 2,400 cavalry and 10,000 archers and other infantry collected at Portsmouth between Easter and the early summer.[1] There were the usual delays of a medieval muster, and it was not until July was well begun that Edward, having constituted his second son Lionel of Antwerp, a boy of six, as regent, took ship at Portsmouth with his eldest son, then sixteen years of age, and, since 1343, Prince of Wales as well as Duke of Cornwall.  The destination of the army was a secret, but Edward’s original idea seems to have been to join Henry of Lancaster in Gascony, though we may well believe that the resources of medieval transport were hardly adequate to convey so large a force for so great a distance.  Moreover, a persistent series of south-westerly winds prohibited all attempts to round the Breton peninsula, while Godfrey of Harcourt, a Norman lord who had incurred the wrath of Philip VI. and had been driven into exile, persistently urged on Edward the superior attractions of his native coast.  When the fleet set sail from Portsmouth, it was directed to follow in the admiral’s track; and as soon as the open sea was gained, the ships were instructed to make their way to the Cotentin.  On July 12 the English army reached Saint-Vaast de la Hougue, and spent five days in disembarking and ravaging the neighbourhood.[2] Immediately on landing, Edward dubbed the Prince of Wales a knight, along with other young nobles, one of whom was Roger Mortimer, the grandson and heir of the traitor Earl of March.  At last, on July 18, the English army began to move by slow stages to the south.  It met with little resistance, and plundered and burnt the rich countryside at its discretion.  The English marvelled at the fertility of the country and the size and wealth of its towns.  Barfleur was as big as Sandwich, Carentan reminded them of Leicester, Saint-Lo was the size of Lincoln, and Caen was more populous than any English city save London.