nd,
without they be paid and delivered. If it were a matter touching our
dear lord your father's affairs, or your own, or your honor or our
country's, we would not speak thereof so much beforehand as we do.' Then
the Prince of Wales looked towards the Prince Don Pedro, and said to him,
'Sir King, you hear what these gentlemen say; to answer is for you, who
have to employ them.' Then the King Don Pedro answered the prince, 'My
dear cousin, so far as my gold, my silver, and all my treasure which I
have brought with me hither, and which is not a thirtieth part so great
as that which there is yonder, will go, I am ready to give it and share
it amongst your gentry.' 'You say well,' said the prince, 'and for the
residue I will be debtor to them, and I will lend you all you shall have
need of until we be in Castile.' 'By my head,' answered the King Don
Pedro, you will do me great grace and great courtesy.'"

When the English and Gascon chieftains who had followed Du Guesclin
into Spain heard of the resolutions of their king, Edward III., and the
preparations made by the Prince of Wales for going and restoring Don
Pedro to the throne of Castile, they withdrew from the cause which they
had just brought to an issue to the advantage of Henry of Transtamare,
separated from the French captain who had been their leader, and marched
back into Aquitaine, quite ready to adopt the contrary cause, and follow
the Prince of Wales in the service of Don Pedro. The greater part of the
adventurers, Burgundian, Picard, Champagnese, Norman, and others who had
enlisted in the bands which Du Guesclin had marched out of France,
likewise quitted him, after reaping the fruits of their raid, and
recrossed the Pyrenees to go and resume in France their life of roving
and pillage. There remained in Spain about fifteen hundred men-at-arms
faithful to Du Guesclin, himself faithful to Henry of Transtamare, who
had made him Constable of Castile.

Amidst all these vicissitudes, and at the bottom of all events as well as
of all hearts, there still remained the great fact of the period, the
struggle between the two kings of France and England for dominion in that
beautiful country which, in spite of its dismemberment, kept the name of
France. Edward III. in London, and the Prince of Wales at Bordeaux,
could not see, without serious disquietude, the most famous warrior
amongst the French crossing the Pyrenees with a following for the most
part French, an