Cressy & Poictiers

It was the evening of Saturday, the 10th of October, 1346, when the sun was just setting, as I, having crossed the Channel, and travelled from Dover to London, and escaped all p...

It was not in the direction taken by the Scottish army that we were conducted as prisoners by the Scottish men-at-arms, but to a castle standing on the banks of a stream called...

On that memorable day when, at Cressy, King Edward so gloriously overcame his enemies, and the Prince of Wales so gallantly won his spurs, I, Arthur Winram, was no inactive spec...

To enable my readers to form some idea of the position which was occupied by the Prince of Wales at the time when I, Arthur Winram--for by this surname I was now known--was admi...

Having tasted captivity before, I was in a mood much less doleful than my comrade when I found myself confined to a dingy chamber, and cut off from communication with my country...

At the time when Aymery de Pavie unworthily figured as governor of the town and castle of Calais, Geoffrey de Chargny, a French knight of high distinction, was stationed at St....

At the time when the cavalier who called himself Jack Fletcher lost his way in Windsor Forest, and accepted such hospitality as my grandsire's tenement could afford, King Edward...

It was Saturday, the 26th of August, 1346, when Philip of Valois marched from Abbeville to Cressy; and, on the morning of that day, the King of England and the Prince of Wales,...

My excitement, which for many hours before I reached the homestead, where I came just in time to hear that I was too late, had been intense, gradually subsided; and such was the...

From the first hour of my arrival at Westminster, after returning from Calais, I had naturally been eager to visit my grandsire's homestead, of which, in the midst of battles an...

It was not my fortune to accompany the Prince of Wales in that expedition which, in the autumn of 1355, he made in the South of France. At this time I was with the King of Engla...

At the castle of Roxburgh, situated hard by the confluence of the Tweed and the Teviot, and the scene of many a royal festival in the days of William the Lion and the Alexanders...

My grandsire, much to my surprise, and much to my disappointment, showed no inclination whatever to avail himself of the cavalier's invitation, or to put the hospitality of Wind...

It was not merely to the king and the Prince of Wales, and the nobles and knights of England, that the news of Queen Philippa's victory was a subject of high interest. Every squ...

I must now leave the King of England and his army at Airaines, retrace my steps to Caen, and relate what befell me in that city when I so unexpectedly, and under such mysterious...

It was the evening of Saturday, the 16th of October, 1347--the day preceding that which was the anniversary of the battle of Neville's Cross--and Calais was about to be left to...

On the forenoon of St. John the Baptist's Day the Londoners crowded to Smithfield to celebrate the festival with sports and diversions; and thither I, mounting my horse, accompa...

It was the morning of the 3rd of August, 1347; and there was woe and lamentation within the walls of Calais. After having held out sternly for well-nigh a year, the town, left t...

About three days before the Feast of All Saints there was much commotion in the camp before Calais. Everything wore a gayer aspect than on ordinary occasions, and an unwonted de...

Great, as may be supposed, was the anxiety, and great was the consternation, which pervaded the town of Durham, and extended along the banks of the winding Wear, on that day whe...

Memorable as the name of John of Valois will ever be in history, as associated with a terrible defeat, and with the countless woes which that defeat entailed upon the nation he...

After discovering that John of Valois was between him and Gascony, and halting at Mapertuis, the Prince of Wales, with a determination to make the best of circumstances, took up...

It was natural that the king and people of England should at this time feel anxious that the heir to the crown of the Plantagenets should unite his fate with some princess worth...

It was the evening of Friday, the 16th of October, 1346, when, in the company of Copeland, the Northumbrian esquire, I reached Durham, and first beheld the city associated with...

Autumn deepened into winter, and winter was succeeded by spring; and spring ripened and mellowed into summer, with its long, bright, merry days: and every month rumour brought t...

It was a warm day in the month of September--one of those autumnal days when the sun still shines in all its vigour--and my grandsire, with me as his companion, was leaning on h...

I had been some time in England when the Prince of Wales achieved the last of the great triumphs which enshrined his name in imperishable glory; and Englishmen learned with prid...

I have no doubt I entered the castle of La Broyes with a merrier heart than any of the party whose prisoner I happened to be. I was not likely to forget, and I did not forget, t...

Soon after the Prince of Wales brought John of Valois as a captive, to London, Isabel the Fair, mother of King Edward, died at Castle Rising, in Norfolk. No great impression was...

I have related, in a previous chapter, and in its proper place, that when, on that memorable Saturday on which Cressy was fought, the English found themselves masters of the fie...

Before describing my adventures in the North of England, I must pause in my narrative to explain how the Scots, in time of truce, happened to make that sudden inroad into Englan...

It was, as I have intimated, late in the month of July, when the Prince of Wales, marching out of Bordeaux, ascended the Garonne as far as Agen, and then, turning to the left, o...

As King Edward had promised, I speedily found myself installed as one of the pages to the Prince of Wales, and hastened to provide myself with garments suitable to my new positi...

On the morning of that day when the embattled hosts of England and Scotland stood facing each other at the Red Hills, the prior and monks of Durham, occupying a hillock hard by,...

My grandsire's homestead, as I have already intimated, stood on the outskirts of the royal forest of Windsor. It was a humble enough tenement, but not without its comforts, and...

It is not unnatural that, when relating what the king said, and what his marshals did, and how his army moved, I should be in some danger of losing sight of my own figure, and e...

It was not only the King of England whose enmity John of Valois, after taking possession of the throne of France, had provoked by indulging his vindictive temper. Hardly had he...

And now the word of command was passed from rank to rank, and the English men-at-arms who had hitherto remained inactive, hastened to mount their horses. Everything being in rea...

Melancholy, I must confess, it was on that memorable August day, even in the eyes of the conquerors of Calais, to see the citizens expelled from the homes which hitherto they ha...

About St. John the Baptist's Day, 1346, the King of England, having nominated his young son, Lionel of Clarence, lieutenant of the realm, and intrusted Queen Philippa to his kin...

Much marvelling at the unexpected warning I had so strangely received, and attaching the more importance to the communication the longer I considered the matter, I felt, after l...

It was Midsummer Eve in the year 1344, and the citizens of London were celebrating the festival of St. John the Baptist, when I, then a stripling of fifteen, with a tall figure...

Not long was I allowed to linger at the castle of Roxburgh, though, at the time of my escape from Mount Moreville, there was on the borders of Scotland much work for English war...

In a former chapter I mentioned that, among the places taken by the King of England, during his victorious and exciting march through France, was Poix, a town of Picardy, about...

While the Prince of Wales was, with what speed he could, retreating from the scene of his exploits, in the hope of reaching Bordeaux, John of Valois, bent on intercepting the yo...

I have related how, when the French marshals advanced towards the vineyard at Mapertuis, with the object of forcing the position occupied by the Prince of Wales, Sir Eustace d'A...

It was the morning of Saturday, the 17th of September, 1356, and the Prince of Wales, having rested for the night at a village near Poictiers, mounted at nine in the morning to...

It was said of the first Edward, that, while figuring conspicuously between a weak father and a wilful son, he needed no such foils to set forth his real worth; that, personally...

I must now ask the reader to waft himself in imagination from Durham to Calais--to suppose that Sir John Neville and Arthur Winram have taken shipping at Dover, and landed near...

No news could have excited more joy and enthusiasm than pervaded England when rumour carried through the land tidings that the English had, against fearful odds, won another bat...

The night of Sunday passed without any incident worthy of record; and cold and clear dawned the morning of Monday, the 19th of September, 1356--a day likely to be long remembere...

Deep and somewhat depressing was the anxiety felt throughout the English army as the night of Wednesday closed over Oisemont; and brief, if any, was the sleep enjoyed by most of...

Next morning the Prince of Wales gave orders for resuming the march to Bordeaux, which had been, three days earlier, interrupted in so unwelcome a manner; and the English, packi...

It was noon, and the battle was virtually over; and, albeit the English were already as secure of victory as if every enemy had lain dead on the field, on one spot, hard by a li...

Not under circumstances the most joyous did King Edward reach England, after having baffled the ambition of Geoffrey de Chargny, and saved Calais from falling into the hands of...

It is necessary, having conducted the English army, and myself, to Airaines, to go back for a few weeks to describe the effect which the march of the invaders produced on Philip...

I have mentioned, in an earlier part of my narrative, that, when John of Valois was on his way from Paris to Poictiers to intercept the Prince of Wales, some Scottish nobles and...

One morning in July, 1356--orders having previously been issued that every man should be ready to march at the word of command--the trumpets of the Prince of Wales sounded, and,...

It was the month of May, and Gaston Phæbus, Count of Foix, was the guest of the Prince and Princess of Wales; and thither also had come Roger, Lord De Ov; and I, having just ret...

On foot, in the midst of his army, in the thickest part of the vineyard, where he had posted his men, as I have already stated, stood the Prince of Wales, calm and serene in the...

Bright and clear dawned the morning of the 17th of October, 1346--the Saturday after the Feast of St. Michael--and on that morning great was the commotion, great the excitement,...

It was now nine o'clock on the morning of Monday; and with trumpets sounding, and armour glancing in the sun, and banners waving in the wind, the French cavalry headed by the ma...

It was to recall his people from the pursuit that the Prince of Wales set his banner on a bush, and ordered to "sound trumpets to the return." Nevertheless, it was not till afte...

I awaited with something like resignation the hour of my removal from La Broyes to Bernicles; but day after day passed, and I still occupied the chamber in which I had been left...

I have said that it was the month of May, and the grass was green in the meads, the corn in ear, and the flowers in seed, when arrangements were made for the combat, which the C...

While the Cardinal of Perigord was riding from one camp to another, vainly endeavouring to make peace, the knights on neither side were wholly idle. Many, both from the French a...

At the time when John of Valois, fighting on foot, with his battle-axe in his hand, rallied his broken ranks, and made that sudden and unexpected attack on the Prince of Wales w...

My imagination, such as it was, completely got the better of what reasoning faculty I possessed as Copeland concluded, and, having accompanied him to Westminster with a brain on...

Eleanor De Gubium was not mistaken as to the fate of Lord De Ov. On the day when the battle of Poictiers was fought and won he had been under the necessity of surrendering, resc...

While the English were prosecuting the siege of Calais, and Philip of Valois was preparing to march, when too late, to relieve the town, and while King Edward was rendering his...

It soon appeared that the alarm expressed by the French when they heard that the King of England had set his armed heel on the soil of Normandy was not unfounded or unreasonable.

After remaining three days in Caen, and despatching the Earl of Huntingdon to England in command of that fleet which carried not only the spoil of the Norman towns but a multitu...

On the rounded extremity of a chain of hills, surrounded on all sides by narrow ravines, through which flow the waters of the river Clain, an affluent of the Vienne, stands the...

In the fourteenth century, when the population of England was estimated at two millions--when our railways were bridle-roads and our cornfields forests, and when the capital was...

It is well known that Robert, King of Sicily, was a great astrologer and full of deep science, and that he had often cast the nativities of Edward of England and Philip of Valoi...