Black Prince's Expedition

Crecy, Poitiers, Agincourt: three great British victories that live in our memories even six centuries later - this is the tale of the battle of Poitiers, and the daring raids through France ("chevauchees") that led up to it. Poitiers was exceptional in that the Valois king himself, John II, was captured. The peace treaty, therefore, cemented Plantagenet hold on Aquitaine and Calais; though hostilities resumed and the Hundred Years War ended with the loss of the former while the latter too was lost under Mary Tudor. The victor of Poitiers was the son of Edward III, another Edward who predeceased his father by a year and is known to posterity as the Black Prince. He led a force largely recruited from his own principality of Wales and his earldom of Cheshire, with a goodly contingent of Gascons besides. Being young, he was punctilious in consulting his council of war on all critical decisions, a behaviour that may well account for his stunning success. This sort of history does not permit much sophistication in character portrayal, but Prince Edward comes across as an extremely free spender. This is a re-issue of a book written when a different style of history that one might almost call pre-modern persisted. The throwing together of a plethora of names, both of places in France and of men (such as the Captal de Buch) has a rather dated charm. The amount of detail, for example regarding finance, witnesses to original archival research being presented fairly raw. But however it has been done, this account of two years' campaigning in mediaeval France grips from beginning to end. (Kirkus UK)