the environs of those that defended
themselves behind their walls. He met with scarcely any resistance, and
he was returning by way of Berry and Poitou back again to Bordeaux, when
he heard that King John, starting from Normandy with a large army, was
advancing to give him battle. John, in fact, with easy self-complacency,
and somewhat proud of his petty successes against King Edward in Picardy,
had been in a hurry to move against the Prince of Wales, in hopes of
forcing him also to re-embark for England. He was at the head of forty
or fifty thousand men, with his four sons, twenty-six dukes or counts,
and nearly all the baronage of France; and such was his confidence in
this noble army, that on crossing the Loire he dismissed the burgher
forces, "which was madness in him and in those who advised him," said
even his contemporaries. John, even more than his father Philip, was a
king of courts, ever surrounded by his nobility, and caring little for
his people. Jealous of the order of the Garter, lately instituted by
Edward III. in honor of the beautiful Countess of Salisbury, John had
created, in 1351, by way of following suit, a brotherhood called Our Lady
of the Noble House, or of the Star, the knights of which, to the number
of five hundred, had to swear, that if they were forced to recoil in a
battle they would never yield to the enemy more than four acres of
ground, and would be slain rather than retreat. John was destined to
find out before long that neither numbers nor bravery can supply the
place of prudence, ability, and discipline. When the two armies were
close to one another, on the platform of Maupertuis, two leagues to the
north of Poitiers, two legates from the pope came hurrying up from that
town, with instructions to negotiate peace between the Kings of France,
England, and Navarre. John consented to an armistice of twenty-four
hours. The Prince of Wales, seeing himself cut off from Bordeaux by
forces very much superior to his own,--for he had but eight or ten
thousand men,--offered to restore to the King of France "all that he had
conquered this bout, both towns and castles, and all the prisoners that
he and his had taken, and to swear that, for seven whole years, he would
bear arms no more against the King of France; "but King John and his
council would not accept anything of the sort, saying that "the prince
and a hundred of his knights must come and put themselves as prisoners in
the hands of