Now you are transported to the streets of fourteenth-century London. You stand at the upper window of a lofty timbered house, and from your coign of vantage see the ancient city donning its festive array. There is an air of rejoicing and there is a buzz of expectation everywhere. The houses of the wealthier citizens are hung with gay carpets, rich silks, and fine tapestry. Streamers are flying, garlanded poles are reared, and here and there you see trophies of arms—shields, helmets, breastplates, lances, swords, sheaves of arrows, maces, and battle-axes. Anon you hear the rattle of drum and the blare of trumpet as the City companies, clad in their liveries, take up the places assigned to them. Now a procession of clergy, habited in their richest vestments, winds by. Gay gallants in their blue or green tunics and hoods, their hose of diverse hues, and their Cracow shoes with long, curving toes laced to the knee with silver chains, come and go, and lend colour and vivacity to the scene. Many a fair maiden in a gay kirtle gazes out of her casement with sparkling eyes, and hard by you see no less interested matrons, in all the bravery of their best attire.

Now, afar off, you hear the huzzas of the crowd, and as you watch and wait nearer and nearer come the salvoes of applause. The cannon of the Tower roar out their welcome, trumpets sound, and bells clash from the steeples. Right royally does London greet those whom she delights to honour to-day.

Ah! here come the archers, the pride of England, a goodly array of stalwart yeomen, bronzed and hardened by long campaigning on French fields. Look at them as they swagger along, conscious of their prowess, the rings of conquered knights on their horny hands, and the jewelled baldrics of French nobles across their shoulders. See how they bandy many a merry jest with the maidens on the causeway, and shout their jovial greetings to the citizens, who wave their caps and cheer wildly in response. There is not a lad in London who does not yearn to be an archer. With his six-foot bow in his hand and a sheaf of arrows at his belt, your archer envies neither knight nor king. He has won great fame, and his pouch is filled with rose nobles; and when these are gone, there are plenty more to be won in Poitou and Gascony. And if the Prince—God bless him!—has no more wars on hand, why, there are always the Free Companies ready and willing to welcome a stalwart bowman who can “clap in the clout” at fourscore yards, and use a bill right yeomanly when it comes to handstrokes.

Behind the rollicking archers come the mail-clad knights, a noble and more sedate company, flashing back the May-day sun from their shining armour and their gleaming lance-points. Yonder is Chandos, the wise and watchful general whose keen eye perceived the critical moment in the great fight—he who cried to the Prince, “Now, sir, ride forward, and the day is yours.” And there is Audley, pale and weak from his wounds, but gallant as ever. Was it not he whom the Prince greeted by the glorious name of Preux, and dubbed the best knight on the field? Right proud must he feel to-day. And who be these? In sooth, they are the premier nobles of France, rich prizes of war, though they bear, neither by sign nor by look, the semblance of defeat.

And now the air is rent with still louder shouts as a noble figure on a superb white charger rides by. It is the King of France, bearing himself as a conqueror, yet knowing full well that he is a captive gracing a victor’s triumph. But not for him are the shouts. Look at that simple knight in black armour, quietly riding by his side on a palfrey. He is the hero of the day, the cynosure of all eyes, the praise of all tongues. He would seem to be no more than the French king’s squire; yet he is the victor of Poitiers, a name of terror in France, the idol of his knights, the boast of his archers, the pride of his land.

The stately procession moves on to the great hall at Westminster, where Edward the king waits the coming of his noble captive and his gallant son. With knightly courtesy he rises from his throne and embraces his unfortunate brother of France, and gives him gracious welcome to his court. He bids him be of good cheer; and the French king, who has borne the ordeal with manly fortitude, is right glad that the public parade is over. With gracious tact the English king conceals his triumphant joy; he does everything in his power to play the gracious host to the honoured guest; but nothing that he can do will remove the shame and grief that rack the proud heart of the “Fortune of France.”

Now let us turn to the Black Prince and learn why the Londoners so enthusiastically greet him. He is but twenty-seven years of age, yet he has many a hard-fought campaign to his credit. At thirteen years of age he was made Prince of Wales, and invested with the symbols of his office—the coronet of gold, the ring, and the silver wand. In his honour the king, his royal father, then held a Feast of the Round Table, and from every country of Europe came the most renowned knights to commemorate the fame of King Arthur, and to pledge themselves to emulate his chivalry, his courtesy, and his feats of arms. Never before had there been so splendid a pageant seen as that which King Edward arrayed beneath the ancient walls of Windsor Castle. The Black Prince that day yearned for the hour when he, too, might take spear and shield and break a lance in the tourney as a preparation for winning renown on the battlefield. Long before he was out of his teens he made acquaintance with the dangers and rigours of war in real earnest. In his sixteenth year the longed-for moment arrived. He accompanied his father to France, and as he landed at La Hogue he received the honour of knighthood, though he had yet his “spurs to win.” But forthwith, as the chronicler tells us, he “made a right good beginning” by burning and ravaging the neighbouring country, and by fighting valiantly when Godemar du Fay endeavoured to prevent the English army from crossing the Somme. Then came the never-to-be-forgotten battle of CrÉcy, in which he won his spurs.

When he rode into London after the battle of CrÉcy, every man, woman, and child in the great city loved him, and prophesied a wondrous future for him. And they were true prophets, for his fame grew with the years; and now they see him among them once more, victor in his own right, and bringing in his train the “Fortune of France.” What stories of his prowess and gallantry and modesty they tell! Listen to yon burly archer now released from duty. “I mind,” says he, “that after yonder king had yielded himself, the prince led him to his own tent, took off his helmet with his own hands, brought him drink, and gave him comfortable words, and served him at table as he had been a base serving-man and not the heir of Merry England. What think ye of that?”

And now, while all England is singing his praises and he is at the very summit of his fame, let us peep into the future and see what fate has in store for him. Again and again he will harry the fair land of France; and, greedy of warfare, will ally himself with Pedro the Cruel, and win a victory for that bloodthirsty tyrant in distant Spain. And when the victory is won he will beseech Pedro to spare the lives of the conquered. Before long, however, the Spanish king will refuse to pay him the price agreed upon, and will send him on wild-goose errands, until he sees his men fall around him stricken by pestilence, and scarce one in five of them will return with him across the Pyrenees. He, too, will be seized with a painful sickness from which he will never recover.

But still he will go on fighting, and every year his heart will harden within him, until one day he will stain his fair fame by a deed of pitiless cruelty. In his rage at the long defence of Limoges he will order no quarter to be given to the gallant defenders. Piteous appeals will be made to him for mercy; but he will not hearken, and three thousand defenceless men, women, and children will be massacred in the streets. “Pity ’tis, ’tis true.”

His sickness will increase, and he will return home to die, but not before he does something for the people of England in a peaceful and more useful sphere. He will drive from his father’s court the greedy, unscrupulous men who are oppressing the land, and he will strive to better the condition of the people in many ways. Knowing his end is nigh, he will give himself to prayer and good works; his sickness will rack him sore, but he will bear his sufferings patiently and will make “a very noble end, remembering God his Creator in his heart,” and bidding his people pray for him. He will die in his forty-sixth year, to the unbounded grief of the nation. And so he passes, a man of war from his youth up, not untainted by cruelty, not unsullied by martial pride, but, in spite of all, the very mirror of the knighthood of his day.

The Black Prince being made a Knight of the Garter.
(From the picture by C. W. Cope, R.A., in Westminster Palace.)