The Black Prince

Edward of Woodstock, famously known as the Black Prince, was held up as the epitomy of Medieval Chivalry. Matt Lewis is joined by the Black Prince's biographer, Michael Jones to discuss King Edward III's eldest son; how he took command of the English vanguard at the Battle of Crécy at just 16 years old, captured the French King at Poitiers, his potential as a king, and the enigmatic origins of his nickname. Gone Medieval is presented by Matt Lewis. It was edited by Amy Haddow. The producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff. All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds. Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast. Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Matt Lewis?

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• 2:16Matt Lewis?

  Hello, I'm Matt Lewis. Welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We've got the most intriguing mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and latest groundbreaking research, from the Vikings to the printing press, from kings to popes to the crusades. We cross centuries and continents to delve into rebellions, plots and murders, to find the stories, big and small, that tell us how we got here. Find out who we really were with Gone Medieval.

• 2:54Matt Lewis?

  There is a man who represents one of the greatest what-if moments in English medieval history. He was the oldest son of the mighty King Edward III. He became the first Duke of the first dukedom in English history when his father created him Duke of Cornwall. He was a founding member of the Order of the Garter, into which I'm still awaiting my invitation, by the way. He fought in the legendary victory at the Battle of Cressy and led the English army at Poitiers. He was born to be king, shaped and moulded by experiences second to none. Yet, he would never rule England. He was not King Edward IV.

• 3:37Matt Lewis?

  Instead, history remembers him by another epithet: the Black Prince. Which sounds pretty cool. So, who was this chivalric warrior? How did the events of the Hundred Years' War shape his life? And what kind of king might he have been? To help us get to know him better, I'm delighted to welcome his biographer, Michael Jones, whose 2018 book, The Black Prince, is the captivating story of an incredible life.

• 4:18Matt Lewis?

  Welcome to God Medieval, Mike. It's fantastic to have you with us.

• 4:21Speaker 04

  It's a big pleasure, Matt.

• 4:22Matt Lewis?

  I can't wait to get stuck into this figure who, again, it's going to be a name that everybody knows, but how much do you really know about the life and career of the Black Prince? So I wonder if you could start off, just to set the scene for us. Who is the Black Prince? When is he born? Who are his parents? What situation is he born into?

• 4:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, he's born in 1330 and his parents are Edward III and Edward's Queen Philippa of Eno. He's born into a period of uncertainty, really, that the reign of his father, Edward II, was blighted by civil war. England had gone on to the defensive, both in terms of the war with Scotland and also its possessions in France. So he's born, I wouldn't say necessarily at a time of crisis, but a time of dislocation politically and militarily.

• 5:15Matt Lewis?

  Edward III is quite young when the Black Prince is born as well, isn't he? And that seems later on to forge a sort of closeness between them that almost verges on brotherhood?

• 5:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, there is a kind of brotherhood between them. And symbolically, when the Black Prince was born, it marked an occasion where Edward III really established his own authority. He was 18 and broke away from the rule of his mother and also his mother's favourite, Mortimer, and established his rule in his own right. And I mean, this is tempting to speculate, but the birth of his son seems to have been a galvanising influence. And I think that a consequence of that, well, of course, he was the oldest son and heir,

• 6:05Speaker 04

  apparent, but a consequence, I think psychologically, was that there was a sense of brotherhood and arms, really. And one sees that in the creation of the Order of the Garter around 1348, where the king and the Black Prince are co-creators of this extraordinary chivalrous order.

• 6:26Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, which I've repeatedly said, the only thing that I would really want in terms of honours in my life, if I could be a member of the Order of the Garter, that would be so cool. So I'm jealous of anyone who has been or is a member of the Order of the Garter. I think it's an incredible institution.

• 6:41Speaker 04

  Well, that would have been music to the ears of both Edward III and the Black Prince. So they'd probably give you an honorary invitation, Matt.

• 6:49Matt Lewis?

  Oh, I'll keep waiting for that. I'm sure it's in the post somewhere. You know, it'll turn up eventually. And we're going to get into some detail about his life and his career. But I wondered if you could just give us a kind of quick overview of why the Black Prince is a significant figure in English political history. Why is he important?

• 7:06Speaker 04

  In a way, he's very involved in the Hundred Years' War. And we'll get on to this in terms of the narrative, but he's a powerful military figure, but also becomes an embodiment of, embodiment really, of chivalry, belief system that was so powerful at this time in the Middle Ages. And I think that I'm a great admirer of the Black Prince. I think that he's in a privileged position because his father has to be pragmatic in much of his dealing. But when you're a prince rather than a king, you have, if you like, leeway

• 7:47Speaker 04

  in terms of patronage, in terms of lifestyle, to really step into that chivalrous world. So the Black Prince is important in terms of his military prowess. He will become important because he will rule the Principality of Accotin, that's later on in our story, in his own right. But I think the key thing is, he becomes a focal point for, if you like, chivalrous sentiments, a kind of idealism about the way, certainly from point of view of the aristocracy, but in the broader realm as a whole, of how ideal rules should be carried out.

• 8:28Matt Lewis?

  And when you're putting together a biography of the Black Prince, how much good historical source material do you have for his life? Is he well documented? Are there any problems with the sources that you had to deal with?

• 8:39Speaker 04

  We have a good variety of sources, bearing in mind it's the 14th century, not the 16th or 17th, when there are a lot more. Personal sources, letters and diaries, but we have A Life of the Black Prince by the Charnos Herald that was composed. The Charnos Herald was on the Black Prince's campaign to Castile, and so the count there is very, very vivid. But in the early sections of the life, he's clearly talked to a lot of people close to the Black Prince. So it's a powerful and detailed source. Of course, it's very, it's very much in favour of the

• 9:20Speaker 04

  Black Prince. And with all source material, one has to, has to sort of assess and measure it. We've got some good, good chronicle material. There was more that one could unearth, particularly some of the more obscure French chronicles that do give very attractive vignettes about what the prince was like as a person. And there's a whole range of documentary evidence that what is known as the registers of the Black Prince, which are a mine of information, have been known for a very long time. But what motivated me when I wrote my book was to really trawl the French archives. The prince spent a very large part of his

• 10:01Speaker 04

  career fighting and then ruling in France, in the southwest of France. And there are some very, very interesting archival documentary sources, some of them new, that can be brought into the picture.

• 10:18Matt Lewis?

  And I guess lots of people who know the name The Black Prince will want to know why we call him that. His name's Edward. How does he acquire the name Black Prince? Because I think I've seen several potential theories. So I don't know if you have a theory, a theory that you favour, or any thoughts on the other theories?

• 10:36Speaker 04

  Well, the first thing to say, he was never called The Black Prince in his lifetime. So he and his contemporaries would have been quite mystified by this way of describing him. And, I mean, I've said that Charnos Herald writes A Life of the Prince, which is now called A Life of the Black Prince, but that's us. The first evidence of him being called The Black Prince is some... Two hundred years or so after his birth, when our antiquarian John Leyland, who travelled around the country, you know, visiting places and jotting notes down. When he visited the Black Prince's tomb, a Canterbury Cathedral, and if you're interested

• 11:20Speaker 04

  in the Black Prince, you may know about his magnificent tomb already. If you don't, please come and visit it. And also, the Cathedral Nine, the crypt, is a brilliant display of the Black Prince's achievements. So it's well worth a visit, I'm just putting that in there. But Leyland, visiting Canterbury Cathedral and the tomb, jotted down that this was the tomb of the Black Prince. So that was the first reference to it, quite obscure. The first reference in print was in the Chronicle of Richard Grafton in about 1572. So again, a long time after the Black Prince died. And it was really William Shakespeare

• 12:02Speaker 04

  who popularised, Shakespeare used Grafton's Chronicle and he popularised it. So in Henry V, the French king, Charles VI, bemoaning how the English have afflicted French fortunes, looks back in time and mentions the terrible Prince of Wales, the Black Prince of legend. And once Shakespeare has mentioned something, it's enshrined in our consciousness. So that's the chronology of it. So we're kind of back projecting from a sobriquet, a nickname that was created several hundred years after his death. And there are, as you said, a variety

• 12:43Speaker 04

  of theories. So all I can do is offer my own, which is that if we go back to the first reference, John Leyland, he's visited Canterbury Cathedral. And my own belief is that it was a nickname for the prince and the tomb. From pilgrims, the tomb is placed very close to the shrine of Thomas the Becket. So it's right on the M1, if you like, with pilgrimage roots. And the tomb itself is very striking because the badges that adorn the monument to the Black Prince, the badges of peace with the ostrich feather, which are very imposing, have a black backdrop.

• 13:26Speaker 04

  So I think it was a nickname that pilgrims used for the tomb and the prince.

• 13:35Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, yeah. And important to remember then that he was never called that in his lifetime. Because that means it didn't really mean anything to him and it wasn't something that his contemporaries called him.

• 13:43Speaker 04

  No, they never did.

• 13:45Matt Lewis?

  If we could go back a little bit to Edward's upbringing, do we know much about how he was raised in terms of being heir to the English throne? What would his education have looked like?

• 13:55Speaker 04

  As far as we know, as a conventional education, he was trained in the arts of war pretty early. I mean, normally an aristocrat or a prince would start martial training around the age of nine. The prince already was kitted out. He had his own sword, miniature armour and even his own tent by the age of seven. So he was expected to learn fast on the job. I think.

• 14:21Matt Lewis?

  No pressure or anything?

• 14:22Speaker 04

  No pressure at all. The thing that really strikes me is that he's surrounded in the broader ambience of the courts and culture of his father and mother. He's surrounded by a colossal sense of expectation, that the idea that through acts of valor, the English would regain a sense of power, a sense of mission. And I think that's kind of incorporated into his outlook. So he learns on the job and I think he's profoundly influenced by stories that of what went well in previous history and military history and also what went wrong. I think.

• 15:05Speaker 04

  There's a resolution to do better, to somehow that England's reputation has been besmirched by the failures in the war against Scotland, the humiliation of terms imposed on them in terms of their rule over Gascony in southwest France. And there's, I think, a huge expectation that wrongs will be righted and England's martial reputation and standing in Europe will be restored.

• 15:38Matt Lewis?

  It seems like a lot to put on the shoulders of a child, but he also seems like someone who was willing to take that on. You know, he imbibed deeply of all of this sense that there was something that needed to be corrected. There was history that you could learn from. There were ways that you could do things better than they'd ever been done. So there was a lot of expectation on him, but also he seems to have put a lot of expectation on himself, even as a child growing up. He's living this life and almost can't wait to be an adult and take part in it.

• 16:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, we have to remember, far more than the prince was pious from an early age, and it's far more than conventional piety. And we'll get on to Cressy, I'm sure, and also the siege of Calais. On both occasions during the battle and then during the siege, the prince nearly dies. And I think came to believe that he was protected by God. And if one sees oneself being protected by God, then there is a huge sense of mission. And this would come again in the way the prince saw the Battle of Poitiers, his great victory against the French, that this was a battle that was going seriously wrong, that he was

• 16:47Speaker 04

  protected by God and given divine strength. So I think this mission comes into play very early. And interestingly, in the will of Archbishop Stratford, who was on governing council with the young Prince when the Third was abroad, in his will, I mean, to other people, including the King, there are conventional gifts of silver spoons, this, that and the other. But to the Black Prince Stratford, he gives a silver resurrection depiction.

• 17:20Speaker 04

  And I think this was personal and insightful that Stratford was recognising already that the prince saw himself and was perceived as a man of destiny, young man at the stage of destiny.

• 17:35Matt Lewis?

  Amidst all of this martial training and expectation, do we see much room for the influence of his mother, Philippa of Haynal?

• 17:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, one influence was spending. Edward III, Edward III was also overspending in the sense that he was embarking on a very ambitious foreign policy, but Philippa's household and lifestyle was quite extravagant and I think the Black Prince followed that. Also, I mean, both Edward III and Philippa were capable of being enormously charming. And indeed, when the chronicler Jean Frassa first visits the English court, I mean, he is enormously charmed. Now that charm will go sour. But I think one sees the influence of Philippa and it's often lost that sometimes I think the prince can be almost a cardboard

• 18:27Speaker 04

  cutout, a two-dimensional depiction of martial valour, but nothing much else. He had a very mischievous sense of humour. He understood the power of largesse, the power of gift giving, and he had a natural ability to win people over. And I certainly think that one sees this in Edward III as well, but I see it more strongly in Philippa.

• 18:54Matt Lewis?

  How then does Edward the Black Prince's military career begin? Is Cressy kind of his baptism of fire?

• 19:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, it certainly is a baptism of fire because he's given command of the vanguard of the English army that's on an ambitious campaign. It lands in Normandy, marches towards Paris to draw the French king into battle and then moves back to what I think was very likely to have been a prepared battle site at Cressy. And the prince was in the vanguard of the army on the march, which was an honour position, and he was clearly up for the fight. He took prominent role in some of the fighting.

• 19:37Matt Lewis?

  And he's only 16 at this point, isn't he as well? In charge of the front portion of the army at the age of sixteen.

• 19:42Speaker 04

  Remember the future Henry the fifth, Prince Henry is around the same age during the Battle of Shrewsbury and plays a really important part in the battle as well. So I think that you did. I think one hastens to add here that the prince was surrounded by trusted, experienced advisers and both in terms of counsel but in terms of actual fighting and commands, he has key men around him who are very experienced. So he's, he's learning on the job, but I would also caution against seeing him merely as a figurehead, but he

• 20:25Speaker 04

  has that support in place. And why this vanguard position is very significant, Cressy, is if we look at the topography of the likely battlefield site, I mean, the battlefield site has recently been questioned or is being debated, but I still favour the traditional battle sites. And basically, Edward the third was making the Black Prince himself and the vanguard a kind of bait to lure the French forward. So that in terms of the terrain, there was an embankment, the English were on a hill and there was an embankment which

• 21:08Speaker 04

  would force the French cavalry, because it was largely a cavalry on the French side against infantry on the English. And the French would be funnelled into the English position. And, and if you like, the stopper on that bottle was the Black Prince's division. So he would bear the brunt, his forces would bear the brunt of the fighting, which was both, I mean, this is tough love, fourteenth century style. It meant that if all went well, the prince would win his spurs, but if it went badly, he wouldn't be winning anything. And he did come very close to being killed. The French broke through, not just

• 21:50Speaker 04

  The battle line, but broke into his own personal bodyguard. The standard was grabbed by the French and then grabbed back again. And according to some chronicles, the prince was concussed and knocked to the ground, but he picked himself up and carried on fighting. So he really does gain renown in this exceptional English victory in thirteen forty six.

• 22:16Matt Lewis?

  It feels like a really dangerous game for Edward the Third to have been playing with his oldest son and his heir. Yes, you want him to take on the military characteristics that he might need as a king, but at sixteen to throw him in front of a French army, Edward must have been, well, both Edwids, Edward the Third and Edward the Black Prince, must have been slightly terrified about what might have happened.

• 22:37Speaker 04

  Hmm. I think that's quite a modern way of seeing things. And I suppose what I've put into place here is that at Bannockburn in thirteen fourteen, and that Bannockburn, this defeat of Edward the Second, Edward the Third's father, by the Scots hangs over like a shroud, everything that follows. And the English cavalry are defeated. And as a result, in the Hundred Years' War, they always fight on foot. It's like they don't want to go down that route again. And whatever else one says about Edward the Second, he was personally brave, but he was almost forced to flee from the battlefield for precisely

• 23:20Speaker 04

  the reason you said. You know, it's gone terribly wrong, but the last thing we want is for the French to capture you. But this is a huge propaganda disaster. So although Edward the Second rides Palme d'Or and eventually escapes, it's so humiliating that I think from the point of view of Edward the Third and the Black Prince, they'd rather take the risk of being killed and be seen in that light. And I just think in terms of medieval kingship, because often Richard the Lionheart in the 12th century was seen as very foolhardy. There's a moment when he wants to ride to

• 24:02Speaker 04

  the rescue of a reconnaissance party that he's sent out that's surrounded by the French. And some of his advisers said, don't even think about it, that the risk is too great and you're going to be captured. You're the king after all. And Richard's reply is very simple. He says, those men are there, those men are at risk because they have followed my commands. And if I don't make an attempt to rescue, you know, I don't deserve to be wearing the crown. And I suspect that Edward III and the Black Prince knew of that incident and certainly would have shared its sentiments.

• 24:34Matt Lewis?

  And so after Cressy, as you mentioned earlier, they move on to the siege of Calais. And this is the point at which Calais will be taken by the English and held for just a shade over 200 years. What part does the Black Prince play in the siege of Calais?

• 24:46Speaker 04

  So again, it's very interesting. We know that the Black Prince gets knocked around at Cressy, but some new research I did showed that the Black Prince became very ill. Of course, in our programme, we are using this title of convenience, the Black Prince. He became very ill. And I found a very interesting document that the Count of Flanders was in alliance with the English and a hospital under the patronage of the Count of Flanders was looking after the Black Prince. This is during the siege. So Edward has left the siege, you know, obviously experienced commanders are still carrying on with it to be by his

• 25:28Speaker 04

  son. And then as a grant of thanksgiving, that the prince's life has been saved. And Edward III promises to found a hospital in that area. So you have a double whammy of, you know, there by the grace of God. So we do, the prince and the king go back to the siege and it's successfully concluded. But also from the prince's point of view, there is this emerging sense of destiny.

• 25:58Matt Lewis?

  Of kind of indestructibility that God wants him to survive all of these things because he's meant for something greater.

• 26:03Speaker 04

  Indeed, and this is going to create a lot of bathos later on when we look at not only what went wrong, but how the prince might have tried to understand or come to terms with why it was going wrong.

• 26:30Matt Lewis?

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• 27:57Matt Lewis?

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• 29:38Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, fascinating stuff. And one of the military tactics that will become closely associated with Edward the Black Prince is the Chevreche. I wonder if you could just tell us a little bit about what those were, why they were useful, and why the Black Prince is keen on using them?

• 29:52Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, I mean, they're used by Edward III in the war against Scotland and also in France. Chevreche literally means a riot. The idea is both manateans and archers are moving in vast, mobile columns, spanning out over quite a

• 30:12Speaker 04

  Distance and the idea of Chevreche is to damage the agrarian economy for a number of reasons. First of all, by raiding, destroying, burning, it renders these lands incapable of paying taxes and supporting the French war effort. And that in itself is very important. Of course, France is economically more populous and more prosperous than England. So economically, these are important tactics. But it's also more than that because I I think if you launch a Chevreche, you know, you might be forced to face a battle, a pitched battle. And you have to be confident that your army can regroup and fight.

• 30:57Speaker 04

  And both Edward the Third and the Black Prince are. So they're prepared in these Chevreches to fight. And we'll learn about that in the Pratier campaign. And if the French, either the king himself or those magnates who are commanding the regions that are being raided, fail to put up a strong resistance, they're also being humiliated. So you it's like you can't even defend your own people. And when the Black Prince launches a big Chevreche in thirteen fifty five across the south of France, really from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, the French king's lieutenant is criticized.

• 31:40Speaker 04

  So there is an inquiry and the inquiry doesn't attack the Black Prince. It doesn't say what an awful chap he is, although this was a very brutal raid. It says how appalling that the defenses weren't properly maintained and he wasn't confronted in battle. So this is a big morale booster. So it has a propaganda element, particularly as the English are fighting this war. Ultimately, it derives from Edward the Third claiming the throne of France. And it's very powerful to be able to say that if you had a king who God favored and who has the rightful claim, he'd be putting up a much better resistance.

• 32:20Matt Lewis?

  It seems like they have a bit of everything from a twenty first. Century point of view, it seems like quite a brutal thing that it's essentially targeting the rural population, the civilian population. But it also serves so many purposes in a 14th century context in terms of denying resources to your enemy, but also, as you say, embarrassing them and causing those people in the rural communities to question, you know, why would I have that person as my lord who can't defend me when I could have this person who clearly has the military upper hand. So there's a lot of psychological stuff going on as well as the the physical warfare.

• 32:53Speaker 04

  Exactly. And it's similar to the issue you were talking about before, the conscious acceptance of risk in battle. So in some respects in the Middle Ages, they see things differently from us.

• 33:05Matt Lewis?

  And if we get on to Platia then, so we're kind of 10 years after Cressy in 1356. Does Platia begin as a chevreche?

• 33:15Speaker 04

  Yes, it does. So it's a chevreche, but a chevreche with a broader military purpose. So the Black Prince's army is coming up from Gascony towards the Loire and the plan is to have three armies, to have three English armies, one under a very competent nobleman, Henry of Grossmont in Brittany. The king himself will land at Calais and the Black Prince will come up from Gascony and this kind of combined movement will trap the French king who is struggling, he's facing opposition from his own nobleman. And this is seen as a great plan, but it all goes wrong for a variety of reasons. So

• 34:00Speaker 04

  by the time the prince, after some delays, gets to the Loire, he finds out that Edward III isn't coming after all and you know, the force from Brittany is trying to reach him, but unable to reach him. The Loire was very heavily flooded that summer. And then the French, the king and his aristocrats, who'd been Conducting a very lackluster campaign was suddenly galvanized by the thought, my good, we could actually pounce on the Black Prince and wipe him out. And at this point, the Black Prince is in serious trouble and he's moving back towards Gascogne with a,

• 34:43Speaker 04

  it needs to be emphasized, an Anglo-Gascogne army and the Gascons, it's often described as an English army, but the Gascons were a very important part of that army and they were good troops, but they were heavily outnumbered and they were in big trouble.

• 34:56Matt Lewis?

  So how do they end up then being confronted by the French at the Battle of Poitiers? What role does the Black Prince play in kind of deciding the military tactics of that day?

• 35:05Speaker 04

  The broader question is how we understand warfare, medieval warfare. And of course, we are very fascinated by tactics and up to a point medieval commanders were too, that from a tactical point of view, the English will start in a traditional manner of dismounting, finding protection for their archers. So the longbow has the potential to be a battle winning weapon if it's used correctly. But the French have wised up a bit since Cressy, when these tactics were used very effectively. And they're not making the same mistakes. So they have very strong cavalry forces, but also their main body will advance on

• 35:49Speaker 04

  foot. So it's a different tactical mix. And the other thing is that the French have got so many more troops. So at the crisis point of the battle, when the Black Prince's army has conducted itself very well and beaten off the first French advance, then the king's own force, his own division, is larger than the entire Anglo-Gascogne army, which is knackered, to be honest. And one soldier just goes kind of bloody hell. I'm out of here. And although the prince rounds on him and says, you know, you knave, no battle is lost

• 36:31Speaker 04

  while I am still in command, it doesn't quiet. People are going, yeah. But the prince and his close entourage, this is where the Chardos Herald, I mentioned, who did this life of the Black Prince, he catches this moment. He's talked to people who clearly were around the Black Prince. What happens is quite remarkable. If you imagine this huge French force advancing. Towards the prince's position, the prince stops and prays out loud. So there's this little, the eye of calm in the storm, he prays. And, and his entourage around him has been absolutely quiet. And when he finishes praying, suddenly there's an idea from some of his military advisers.

• 37:16Speaker 04

  Why don't we try this? And it involves sending a cavalry force behind, outflanking to come up from the rear. And then the extraordinary thing, and this is really dreamt up on the spur of the moment. It's not, you know, some deep tactical blueprint in the map room. The whole English force, I mean, English and Gascon force is given the orders to mount up. So they reverse the tactics on the spur of the moment and the signal is given. And the, the force riding behind comes into the French position and they all charge, the entire prince's army towards where the king is with such force

• 37:58Speaker 04

  that they knock the king's own bodyguards and the men around him right out of the battle line and into a, and, and they bring better. But if we use the funeral oration in Canterbury, but it comes from clearly a conversation that from the prince himself, they're still at this point outnumbered about 10 to one. But you can imagine they're totally adrenalized, you know, the archers are mounted up and come after them. And the French don't know what's going on. So it's very hard to rationally explain that. And the prince, particularly in his chantry chapel in, in Canterbury, he sees it as

• 38:40Speaker 04

  the story of Samson and the lion, the lion being subdued by God-given strength. And one chronicler, Geoffrey Le Baker, again. You know, clearly talked to a lot of veterans of that battle, describing the prince being heroically fighting everywhere, again, this idea of God given strength. And so I think it was seen by the prince and his entourage as a miraculous victory. And of course, had a miraculous result because not only were the French defeated, but their king, Jean the Second, was captured.

• 39:15Matt Lewis?

  And that must have been a real high point for the Black Prince to think that he could go back to his father and present him with the king of France who's been captured on the battlefield in a war to try and take control of France. That must have felt like a real high watermark.

• 39:28Speaker 04

  It was a high watermark and I think a bittersweet moment for the king, or perhaps, you know, over time, because in some respects, his son is starting to surpass him in martial endeavour and achievement. But yes, a very powerful moment and it leads, is a huge bargaining counter. And after another campaign in thirteen fifty nine to sixty, the Rats campaign, the Treaty of Brettoni is signed. And this treaty gives the English the principality of Accutane, a much enlarged Gascony. And unlike their predecessors, they hold this in sovereignty.

• 40:12Speaker 04

  They no longer like, you know, Henry the Second and Richard the Lionheart and their successors, they no longer have to render homage for it. And when Edward the Third makes his son Prince of Accutane, he specifically in the grant says, and quite vividly, this is, you know, a reward for the sweat and toil of you and your army on that campaign.

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• 41:47Matt Lewis?

  I quite like the idea of Edward III saying, "That's really nice, son", kind of through gritted teeth because actually this little version of himself that he's created is beginning to surpass him and that must have been, as you said, a bittersweet feeling that he's being eclipsed by his own son.

• 42:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:05Matt Lewis?

  Edward, the Black Prince, will go on to acquire a huge chivalric reputation. After Patti, he gets involved in tournaments and things like that. Does that help to craft his chivalric reputation? I also wondered whether you could talk a little bit about whether there are any blots on that. I think famously the massacre at Limoges in 1370 has sort of been laid at his feet as a black mark against him. I wondered if you could talk a little bit about his kind of chivalric reputation, please?

• 42:33Speaker 04

  Well, he was involved in tournaments from the off spectator while he was still a child. And then in combat in his teens, along with many of his closest friends and advisors.

• 42:46Speaker 04

  And in a way, you can imagine that an aspect of the order of the Garter is two tournament teams, when either side won, the King's team or won the Black Prince's team. So being skilled in tournament was a part of the Black Prince's life. In terms of broader chivalrous reputation, I mean, there are many factors. There's the tournament, there's largesse, there are so many aspects of chivalry. But where things start to go wrong, you know, we'll get to Limoges, but the Prince intervenes in Spain in support of the deposed King of Castile, who had the wonderful name of Pedro the Cruel. And the

• 43:31Speaker 04

  Prince also has to seek the support because this unsavory person held the roots over the Pyrenees of Charles the Bad, and so cruel and bad. And the whole campaign, although the Prince wins it, he wins this great battle at Machira in thirteen sixty-seven, my own view is that the Prince sees this as where subsequently is seeing this as where things go wrong, because Pedro the Cruel is an ex-communicant. And I think this is where the Prince starts seeing over the next few years that he's lost that divine protection and the English cause has lost the protection and favour of God. And why this is important to Limoges,

• 44:16Speaker 04

  so the new King of France, Charles the Fifth, reopens the war in thirteen sixty-nine. And why this idea of losing God's favour is so important is that the Prince, who's now suffering from illness, we'll talk about his illness perhaps in a while, both his personal illness and the reversal of fortunes, the King broke his an agreement with his father in which towns that have sworn allegiance to the Prince and to Edred the Third, if they go over to the French because of force majeure, there aren't enough troops to look after them. They should not be penalised because in the traditional account of La Moche, which

• 45:01Speaker 04

  was loyal to the prince and then part of the town then goes over to the forces of Charles the Fifth, it's seen that the prince orchestrates this terrible punishment for oath breaking, where 3,000 innocent civilians begging for mercy are nevertheless slain in cold blood. This is the product of Jean Frasson and in my book, I use a variety of chronicle and documentary evidence, some of it new, to show this is very unlikely to happen. And in fact, the reverse seems to have happened, that the French garrison, when when some of

• 45:41Speaker 04

  the town, and the prince had very good relations with La Moche, actually let the prince's army in, then the garrison turn on the inhabitants. And I think those in the book itself, the end notes, the appendix, this can, you know, this is discussed in detail. But the one thing I would say here is that when the prince dies in 1376, the French, this is absolutely extraordinary, have a solemn day of mourning. This is a man who's beaten in a battle, conducted these brutal raids, and they hold a recrée en masse for him. And the French chronicler, court chronicler says, this may come across as rather strange that we're holding this

• 46:22Speaker 04

  for our mortal enemy, but what he represented transcended that and was a kind of emblem of how chivalry should be conducted. Now, I don't think that recrée en masse would have been held for someone who's slayed 3,000 innocent French civilians. So there we go.

• 46:41Matt Lewis?

  One more reason to go and read the book, I guess. I wonder if we could just talk a tiny little bit more about that Castilian civil war. And you mentioned that the Black Prince becomes embroiled in that, partly to do with access over the Pyrenees and things like that. But it also seems to, it comes with the victory at Nahara, which I think, again, is another high point for him on an otherwise difficult campaign. But it also comes at the detriment to his health. Was it that campaign that ultimately made him ill?

• 47:11Speaker 04

  That is often said. This was um a very tough, grueling campaign and in its aftermath, many of the soldiers were afflicted by dysentery. Amebic dysentery, if if we believe that is what finished Henry the Fifth off, it did so very quickly. And the Prince's illness goes on for years and years and years. And dysentery kills people in weeks or months. So certainly his soldiers were affected. But when the Prince comes back to Gascany, he's very active in government and administration for about a year. So the dysentery outbreak is in the

• 47:53Speaker 04

  summer of thirteen sixty seven. The first evidence of the Prince becoming seriously ill is in the autumn, late autumn of thirteen sixty eight. So it's commonly said, but I don't think it was the case. My own view is that what the Prince becomes afflicted with is rectal cancer. And that's because a surgeon who wrote a treatise on rectal cancer, John Ardern, and he brought this out in the year of the Prince's death. I think that's a kind of telling coincidence, but we will never know for sure. Whatever it was, it was a terrible, wasting sickness that really becomes evident in that last phase of the war and ultimately forces the Prince to leave Accotane and come back to England.

• 48:39Matt Lewis?

  Much from the Prince's point of view must have reinforced that idea that God had, for some reason, withdrawn his favour. This is a man who had considered himself invincible and meant for some greater purpose. And now, all of a sudden, he's finding himself wasting away and struggling. He must have felt like he'd done something to lose God's favour. And maybe, as you said, the fact that Pedro the Cruel was excommunicated. Might have played into that, but he must have felt like something had gone horribly wrong for him.

• 49:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, absolutely. I think this was the medieval idea of the Wheel of Fortune, that when you're at the highest points of your career, when everything is going brilliantly. And if you think the prince, you know, he's won at a parterre, he's married, very beautiful Joan of Kent, he's married for love, he has this magnificent court in Aquitaine, and then it all goes wrong very, very quickly. And one thing is that when we visit the prince's tomb, it's very, very close deliberately. His son Richard II actually disobeyed the will of his father in this one instance, so that the tomb would be as close as possible. It was going to be in the crypt, but the tomb would be as close as possible to the

• 49:51Speaker 04

  shrine of Thomas the Becket. But if the prince dedicated his victory to God and Thomas the Becket, that he was supporting someone, not only an excommunicant, but the last thing he did before he reached the prince was he murdered on consecrated ground the Archbishop of Santiago de Compostela, the other great pilgrimage route. So I think two and two pretty quickly equaled four in the prince's own mind. And this was indeed the tragedy of his life.

• 50:24Matt Lewis?

  And you mentioned he will effectively govern in Aquitaine, sort of in his own right as prince there. Do we get amidst his growing illness, do we get enough of a view of him ruling in Aquitaine to get a sense of what kind of ruler he might have been? Can it give us a glimpse of what kind of King of England he might have ever made?

• 50:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, and it's far more than just having big tournaments and swanky banquets. The prince, and there is an element of risk in this, he developed a way of ruling that was chivalrous, that was based on an honour code. If you had some tough local lord who was oppressing the local population, a pragmatic view would be, well, he might be a tough old bastard, but he's a useful guy to have on our side. And we don't intend defecting to the valour king, Charles V. But the Black Prince took the view that if someone was oppressing the population and was not

• 51:19Speaker 04

  Behaving in a bad way, he should be removed. And and that won him a lot of loyalty, but it made him some very dangerous enemies as well.

• 51:28Matt Lewis?

  And I guess goes against the idea of that man at Le Moje who is punishing a community because he's willing to stand up to rulers who are behaving badly. So there's maybe a bit of an indicator again there that maybe he wasn't behind a kind of massacre at Le Moje.

• 51:42Speaker 04

  I think absolutely, absolutely.

• 51:45Matt Lewis?

  So could you just bring us towards the close? When does the Black Prince die? You've mentioned what you think may have been the illness that afflicted him. But when does he die? And and how significant, how consequential is his death?

• 51:58Speaker 04

  So he dies in thirteen seventy six, a year before his father. So his father outlives him. And he, in a way, his illness protects his reputation because it takes him out of the firing line of criticism of the government. Because, I mean, he has brief periods of recovery, but he's not at the centre of his father's administration. So it protects him. And in the good parliament of the year of the prince's death, he's seen as a kind of ideal champion of England's fortunes.

• 52:39Speaker 04

  So there is this element of idealism, whether he would have been able, if fit and well, to reverse the decline in English fortunes in the war. And indeed, in government generally is, of course, the big question.

• 52:55Matt Lewis?

  I guess he ends up in that position of of not living long enough to fail. And people can hang all of those hopes around him. And obviously, we, he leaves us with Richard the Second, a young boy who will become a king and will remember that as a reign that will end badly. But as you mentioned, the Black Prince is sort of removed from any kind of blame for the things that have gone wrong by his early death. And you can hold him up as this great chivalric figure who might have done so much more.

• 53:23Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 53:24Matt Lewis?

  I wonder if you had a an idea from from your research about him from writing the biography? Do you think he would have made a good king of England?

• 53:32Speaker 04

  Yes, I do. I think that he would have needed to have tempered his high principles with a measure of pragmatism.

• 53:43Speaker 04

  And I think that he'd have needed to have kept a closer check on his spending. But in the broader sense, he had the huge gift of binding the aristocracy, binding the governing past and also reaching out to ordinary people, which his son, who would become Richard II, sadly lacked. And this was the huge contrast, that Richard's uneasy relationship with most of his aristocracy became a hallmark of not only his reign, but also the civil war and ultimately his deposition. In that sense, he was the opposite of his father.

• 54:24Speaker 04

  So I, I do think on balance, if he'd have been fit and well, the, the prince would have been a great king.

• 54:32Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, potentially would have had time to make a better king out of his son as well, maybe.

• 54:37Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 54:39Matt Lewis?

  Yeah. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Mike. It's been amazing to get a little bit closer to The Black Prince. I'm definitely going to add Canterbury Cathedral and visiting his tomb to the list of things I really, really need to get on and do, because I haven't ever been to Canterbury Cathedral, which is a terrible thing for me to admit. But yeah, I'd thoroughly recommend the book and I will be hoping to go and visit the tomb at Canterbury. Thank you so much for, for bringing us a little bit closer to The Black Prince.

• 55:03Speaker 04

  It's been a pleasure.

• 55:06Matt Lewis?

  If you've enjoyed this episode, you can grab Mike's book, The Black Prince, to find out even more. You can also find episodes in our back catalogue on Edward III, His Wife and His Mistress with Gemma Holman, and on the end of the Hundred Years' War with Jonathan Sumption. There are new episodes of Gone Medieval every Tuesday and Friday, so please come back and join Eleanor and I for more from the greatest millennium in human history. Don't forget to also subscribe or follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval. You can sign up to History Hit to access hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week and to get all of History Hit's podcasts ad free.

• 55:49Matt Lewis?

  Sign up now at historyhit.com/subscribe. Anyway, I'd better let you go. I've been Matt Lewis and we've just gone medieval with History Hit.

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