The Black Prince: The Knight Who Captured a King but Never Wore a Crown
By Jack the Good Knight.
He captured a king, frightened the French and became one of England's most celebrated medieval warriors, but he was never known as the Black Prince while he was alive. In fact, the nickname doesn't appear in surviving written records until the 16th Century, nearly 200 years after his death. But who was the Black Prince and why can he be considered as one of the greatest knights of all time?
Born for battle
Edward of Woodstock (1330-1376) was born on 15 June 1330, the eldest son of Edward III and Philippa of Hainault. At six he became Duke of Cornwall, the first dukedom ever created in England. At twelve he was made Prince of Wales, and at seventeen he became one of the founding knights of the Order of the Garter.
But his military career had already begun, at sixteen he was fighting the French.
Crécy: A knight at sixteen
The battle of Crécy: Edward the Black Prince commanding the English army including longbow archers against the strong French troops by Jean Froissart.
In 1346 he joined his father's invasion of France. At the Battle of Crécy he commanded the English vanguard (the frontline), which was close to 4,000 men. He faced a much larger French army, held the line against heavy attacks and calvary charges. The fighting would have been brutal. It has been recorded that when Edward's position came under pressure, a messenger begged the king for reinforcements. Edward III reportedly refused, saying his son should be allowed to win his battle spurs.
He certainly did that. The young prince and his men battled without reserves, securing their position and contributing heavily to the routing of the French army and securing one of the most famous victories in English military history.
Whether the king really said it is uncertain. Medieval chroniclers loved a dramatic moment. But the English won, and the teenage prince emerged with a formidable reputation.
Poitiers: The day he captured a king
Ten years later, at Poitiers in 1356, Edward's outnumbered Anglo-Gascon army defeated the French and captured their king, John II. Capturing an enemy knight was impressive. Capturing the King of France was quite another matter altogether!
So, how did he do it? Edward led an army of around 6,000 men on a chevauchée (that's a fancy way to say destructive raid) through France. King John II pursued them with a larger French army of up to 16,000 men and trapped the English near Poitiers. The English deployed their longbowmen and devastated the French army. A small mounted force then attacked the French rear and caused mass panic in the French ranks.
As the French army collapsed and retreated, King John II continued to fight bravely on foot alongside his 14-year-old son, Philip. Overwhelmed, the king was eventually surrounded and taken prisoner. He was taken to England and held in comfortable captivity while his release was negotiated (eventually leading to the Treaty of Brétigny) and a ransome of three million gold écus (an absolutely HUGE amount in modern terms).
Chroniclers also claimed Edward personally served his royal prisoner at dinner. The story may have been embellished, but it was exactly the sort of tale people wanted to tell about a victorious knight.
The other side of the legend
In 1362 Edward became Prince of Aquitaine, governing a large part of south-western France. War was expensive, and following a costly expedition into Spain in 1367, he introduced unpopular taxes that angered his Gascon subjects.
Then came Limoges. In 1370 the Bishop of Limoges, Jean de Cros, surrendered the English-controlled city to French forces under the Duke of Berry, switching allegiance to the French.
Edward led a small English army to retake the city - he was suffering from severe, failing health and had to be carried on a litter. The chronicler Jean Froissart claimed the Black Prince was in a blind rage and ordered a brutal massacre of up to 3,000 men, women, and children. Modern historians have challenged his account, particularly the number of people killed and the scale of the alleged massacre - estimating the number of dead as around 300 civilians and 60 soldiers.
Limoges was a reminder that medieval warfare was far removed from the romantic tales of knights in shining armour. The hero of English legend was also a commander in a brutal war. Due to his failing health, the siege of Limoges proved to be the end of the Black Prince's active military career.
The king who never was
By his late thirties Edward's health was failing. He had fallen seriously ill around the time of his Spanish campaign, although the exact cause remains unknown. He died on 8 June 1376, aged just forty-five. His father outlived him by a year. When Edward III died in 1377, the crown passed to the Black Prince's ten-year-old son, Richard II.
Edward was buried in Canterbury Cathedral, where his magnificent armoured tomb effigy can still be seen today. Modern medical re-examinations suggest his long decline may have involved complications such as malaria, brucellosis, inflammatory bowel disease, or kidney stones rather than a single uninterrupted bout of dysentery, which historians initially was the cause of his death.
So why Black?
Nobody really knows. Perhaps he wore black armour into battle, when jousting at tournaments he did carry a black shield with three white ostrich feathers, or the name reflected the fear his campaigns inspired in France during the 100 Years' War.
It is just strange that the name 'The Black Prince' was first used over 200 years after he died - during his lifetime he was known as Edward of Woodstock. There's no convincing contemporary evidence for any of these explanations. It's a strange fate for a man who spent his life making a name for himself with incredibly feats of bravery. The one everybody remembers wasn't even his.
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