rather as _symbols_ of
ships, as it were, than literally correct representations of them.
Still, we can deduce from them some general idea of the form and
structure actually employed in the naval architecture of those times.

[Illustration: ANCIENT REPRESENTATION OF ENGLISH SHIPS.]

Prince Edward's fleet had a prosperous voyage, and his army landed
safely in Gascony. Soon after landing he commenced his march through the
country to the eastward, pillaging, burning, and destroying wherever he
went. The inhabitants of the country, whom the progress of his march
thus overwhelmed with ruin, had nothing whatever to do with the quarrel
between his father and the King of France. It made very little
difference to them under whose reign they lived. It is not at all
unlikely that far the greater portion of them had never even heard of
the quarrel. They were quietly engaged in their various industrial
pursuits, dreaming probably of no danger, until the advance of this
army, coming upon them mysteriously, no one knew whither, like a plague,
or a tornado, or a great conflagration, drove them from their homes, and
sent them flying about the country in all directions in terror and
despair. The prince enjoyed the credit and the fame of being a generous
and magnanimous prince. But his generosity and magnanimity were only
shown toward knights, and nobles, and princes like himself, for it was
only when such as these were the objects of these virtues that he could
gain credit and fame by the display of them.

In this march of devastation and destruction the prince overran all
the southern part of France. One of his attendants in this campaign, a
knight who served in the prince's household, in a letter which he
wrote back to England from Bordeaux, gave the following summary of the
results of the expedition:

"=My lord rode thus abroad in the countrie of his enimies
eight whole weekes and rested not past eleven daies in all
those places where he came. And know it for certeine that
since this warre began against the French king, he had
never such losse or destruction as he hath had in this
journie; for the countries and good townes which were wasted
in this journie found to the King of France everie yeare
more to the maintainance of his warre than half his realme
hath doon beside, except, &c."=

[Illustration: MAP--CAMPAIGN OF POICTIERS.]

After having thus laid waste the southern coast, the