"and
summoned it, but they would do nothing. Thereupon on the Wednesday
after Michaelmas we stormed the city, and all those within were taken
or slain. And the lords that were within fled away on the other side,
and we tarried full eight days. Thus we have made a fair raid, God be
thanked, and are come again to Saint-Jean, whence we propose to return
to Bordeaux." This exploit ended Lancaster's Gascon career. In January,
1347, he was back in England, having restored the reputation of his
king in Gascony, and set an example of heroism soon to be emulated by
his cousin, the Black Prince.

Edward resolved to take the field in person in the summer of 1346.
Special efforts were made to equip the army, and lovers of ancient
precedent were dismayed when the king called upon all men of property to
equip archers, hobblers, or men-at-arms, according to their substance,
that they might serve abroad at the king's wages. But the nation
responded to the king's call, and a host of some 2,400 cavalry and
10,000 archers and other infantry collected at Portsmouth between Easter
and the early summer.[1] There were the usual delays of a medieval
muster, and it was not until July was well begun that Edward, having
constituted his second son Lionel of Antwerp, a boy of six, as regent,
took ship at Portsmouth with his eldest son, then sixteen years of age,
and, since 1343, Prince of Wales as well as Duke of Cornwall. The
destination of the army was a secret, but Edward's original idea seems
to have been to join Henry of Lancaster in Gascony, though we may well
believe that the resources of medieval transport were hardly adequate to
convey so large a force for so great a distance. Moreover, a persistent
series of south-westerly winds prohibited all attempts to round the
Breton peninsula, while Godfrey of Harcourt, a Norman lord who had
incurred the wrath of Philip VI. and had been driven into exile,
persistently urged on Edward the superior attractions of his native
coast. When the fleet set sail from Portsmouth, it was directed to
follow in the admiral's track; and as soon as the open sea was gained,
the ships were instructed to make their way to the Cotentin. On July 12
the English army reached Saint-Vaast de la Hougue, and spent five days
in disembarking and ravaging the neighbourhood.[2] Immediately on
landing, Edward dubbed the Prince of Wales a knight, along with other
young nobles, one of whom was Roger Mortimer, the grandson and heir o