Jean. But in the second generation the roles were changed. Pierre was
the religious brother, and became prior of Rougemont, while Jean, even
more eager for martial glory than his father, went far from home to join
the English armies of Edward III and the Black Prince in their wars with
Charles V of France. Count Rodolphe, surpassing his predecessors in the
brilliancy of his alliances, married two grand-daughters of Savoy, and
through his second countess, Marguerite de Grandson, was related to the
distinguished family whose soldiers following Pierre de Savoy to
England there established a noble line of Grandisson. These Grandissons
were intimately related with the kings of England through the Savoyard
Queen Eleanor. The glorious progress of the English armies, the fame of
Crecy, the capture of the King of France resounding through all Europe,
inflamed with chivalric ardor, young Othon de Grandson, and in his
company Jean de Gruyere, to set out in the spring of 1372 for England.
Warmly received at Windsor, they were present at the fete of St. George,
and assigned a place in the naval forces of Lord Pembroke, sailing
shortly after with his fleet for the western shores of France. Bravely
and confidently enough the English set out for the scene of their
earlier and easy conquests, but the Black Prince, stricken with mortal
disease, no longer led their armies; Spain under Pedro the Cruel was
allied with the already disaffected English possessions in Brittany, and
when Pembroke sailed up to the harbor of La Rochelle he was attacked by
an overwhelmingly superior Spanish fleet.

Recounted immortally in the glowing pages of Froissart, is the story of
Pembroke's hopeless battle with the Spanish fleet. Confiding in the
skill and valor of his soldiers and bestowing the title of chevalier on
every man among them in the last hour before the combat, he gave the
signal to advance. It was dawn and the tide flowed full, when, with a
favoring wind, the forty great Spanish vessels, bearing the floating
pennons of Castille, advanced to the sound of fife and drum in battle
line upon the English fleet. Arrived at close quarters, and grappling
Pembroke's ships with chains and iron hooks, they poured down from their
tall towers a rain of stones and lead upon the lower and exposed decks
of the English, who with swords and spears sustained the fierce attack
all day until darkness fell. With the twenty-two newly-made knights who
valiantly defended