advantage; for when the Black Prince descended the hill on which he had posted himself, the archers were mingled with his chivalry, in true knightly fashion, and shot so closely together, that none durst come within danger.[20]

The well-known conduct of the Black Prince to his prisoner, King John, after the battle,—his waiting on him at table, saying that he was not sufficient to sit at the board with so great a man as the King,—his riding through London to the Savoy, the French monarch mounted on a white and superbly-equipped war-horse, while the Prince rode by his side on a little black palfrey,—all this beautiful deportment proceeded from the modesty, the self-abasement of true chivalry, and from that kindly consideration which one knight always showed to his brother in arms.[21]

There were many circumstances in Edward’s wars amply deserving of notice, as illustrative of national and personal character, but which have been passed over altogether, or but slightly regarded, by the general historians of England; some of whom, in their anxiety for chronological exactness, and others in their desire to make the matter in hand merely illustrative of a few political principles, have very ingeniously contrived to strip their subject of all its splendor, interest, and variety.

Three years after the battle of Cressy had given the town of Calais to the English, the Lord Geffray Charney, of France, endeavoured to regain it, by bribing the governor, Amery de Puy, a Lombard. Edward, hearing of the treaty, sent for his officer from Calais to Westminster. When the King saw him, he took him apart, and said, “Thou knowest well I have given thee in keeping the thing in the world I love best next my wife and children, namely, the town and castle of Calais; and thou hast sold it to the Frenchmen; wherefore thou deservest to die.”

Then the Lombard kneeled down, and said, “Noble King, I cry you mercy: it is true what you say; but, Sir, the bargain may well be broken, for as yet I have received never a penny.”

The King, who had warmly loved the governor, replied, “Amery, I will that thou goest forward in thy bargain, and the day that thou appointest to deliver the town, let me have knowledge thereof before; and on this condition I forgive thee thy trespass.”

Accordingly Amery returned to Calais, and continued the negotiation with Lord Geffray Charney. It was finally agreed between them that the surrender of Calais should take place on the night of the new year; and the governor, faithful to his allegiance, communicated the progress of the plot to Edward. The King immediately rode from London to Dover, with three hundred men-at-arms, and six hundred archers, and, crossing the sea, he reached Calais in the evening, and secretly lodged his men in the chambers and towers of the castle. He did not wish to head the emprise himself; and selecting Sir Walter Manny from his gallant band, as the prowest chevalier, he told him that he and his son, the Prince, would fight under his banner.

When the time for surrendering Calais approached, the Lord Geffray, having heard from Amery that matters were ripe, advanced from Arras, and sent before him twelve knights, and an hundred men-at-arms, to take possession of the castle. Amery admitted them over the bridge of the postern, receiving, at the same time, a bag containing twenty thousand crowns, the price of his treachery. He led the soldiers towards the donjon of the castle; and immediately King Edward and an hundred men, with swords and axes, furiously poured from it, shouting the war-cry, “Manny, Manny, to the rescue!” The Frenchmen were panic-struck by this wild sweep of war, and incontinently yielded themselves prisoners. Edward advanced to the Boulogne gate, where he found the Lord Geffray, who was anxiously expecting it to be opened; and his companions were driving away the tedious moments, by supposing that Amery, like a subtle and suspicious Lombard, was busy in counting his crowns.

The cry, “Manny to the rescue!” disturbed their jocularity, and grasping their swords they saw a band of armed men issuing from the gate. In an instant the King, the Black Prince, the Staffords, the Suffolks, the Salisburys, the Beauchamps, the Berkeleys, all the pride and flower of English chivalry stood before them. The Frenchmen did not decline the combat; and it was chivalrously maintained till a winter’s return of morn. The English were finally victors. Of the single combats in which the cavaliers signalised their valiancy, the fiercest occurred between the King and the Lord Eustace of Rybamount, a strong and hardy knight. Twice was Edward struck on his knees; but at last Eustace was worsted; and he yielded his sword to the King, saying, not knowing his royal quality, “Sir Knight, I yield me your prisoner.”

The King treated his captives like brethren in arms, giving them a noble entertainment, and sitting at the table with them, while the Prince, the lords, and the knights of England, acted as attendants. After supper, and when the tables were removed, the King talked a while with his own knights, and then conversed with the Frenchmen. He gently reproved the Lord Geffray of Charney for an enterprise so unworthy of nobility and knighthood; and then going to Sir Eustace of Rybamont, he said to him, with all the fine frank joyousness of chivalry, “Sir Eustace, you are the knight in the world that I have seen most valiantly assail his enemies and defend himself; and I have never found a knight that ever gave me so much ado body to body as you have done this day, and therefore I give you the prize above all the knights of my own court.” The King thereupon took from his head a chaplet of pearls, fair, goodly, and rich, and presented it to the knight, with the remark, “Sir Eustace, I give you this chaplet, for the best doer in arms this day of either party, and I desire you to wear it this year for the love of me. I know that you are fresh and amorous, and oftentimes among ladies and damsels. Say wheresoever you go that I gave it you; and I free you from prison, and renounce your ransom. To-morrow, if it so please you, you shall depart.”[22]

Here chivalry appeared in all its generousness, elegance, and refinement. How beautifully contrasted is Edward’s deportment to Sir Eustace de Rybamont with his feelings towards Eustace de St. Pierre and his five fellow-burgesses, three years before, at the surrender of Calais to the English. Edward had no sympathy with their magnanimous devotion of themselves to save the lives of their fellow-citizens; no consideration of knightly mercy softened his mind; and it was only the supplication of his queen, who was in a state to move the sternest soul to grant her wishes, that restored his better nature. Before Edward’s chivalry, however, be generally and finally condemned, let it be remembered that his severe losses of his own men had sorely grieved his mind against the people of Calais, and that at the commencement of the siege, when the captain of the town