of English arrows; what
also might have contributed more to this desperate resolution was that,
on board the ships captured in the heat of battle, no quarter was given.
The engagement lasted from eight in the morning till seven at night.
The loss on the French side was enormous, 230 of their ships being
captured; only about 30 having escaped. According to the Frenchmen's
account of the battle, they lost two admirals, Bauchet, who was killed
in action, and De Kernel, who was taken prisoner. King Edward behaved
during the whole action with the most inimitable courage and conduct;
regarding neither danger nor fatigue, he was always present where the
battle raged the hottest.

During the night thirty French ships, endeavouring to escape, were
attacked by the English, and on board of one of them, the _James of
Dieppe_, after she had been engaged the whole night with the Earl of
Huntingdon, 400 dead bodies were found. Certain old writers remark that
the rostrum or beak used by the Romans could not have existed in the
English ships, nor was the manoeuvre employed by which one ship attempts
to break the oars of another. From this they conclude that the English
fleet must have consisted of high-sided ships, worked chiefly by sails.
Probably, however, they had oars also.

It is said that nearly 30,000 men were killed in this memorable battle.
So apparently irretrievable was the disaster to the French that none of
King Philip's counsellors had the courage to inform him of what had
occurred. At length they bethought them of employing the court fool to
communicate the disastrous intelligence. Accordingly, that dignified
individual took an opportunity of remarking to the king that he
considered the English arrant cowards.

"Why so, Master Wisdom?" asked Philip.

"Why does your Majesty ask? because they had not the courage to leap
into the sea and be drowned as our brave Frenchmen did the other day,
when your Majesty's ships went to the bottom."

In 1350 the warrior king, on board his cog _Thomas_, led his fleet to
attack the Spaniards, who had ventured into the British Channel; he was
accompanied by Edward, the Black Prince, and numerous great personages,
with nearly four hundred knights. The king, attired in a black velvet
jacket and beaver hat, took post on the bow of his ship, eagerly looking
out for the enemy. As they did not appear, to beguile the time he
caused his minstrels to play a German dance, and made Sir Joh