eady far
ahead of him. Edward reached the fields north of Poitiers to find his line
of retreat cut off and a French army of sixty thousand men interposed
between his forces and Bordeaux.

If the Prince had shown little ability in his management of the campaign,
he showed tactical skill in the fight which was now forced on him. On the
nineteenth of September he took a strong position in the fields of
Maupertuis, where his front was covered by thick hedges and approachable
only by a deep and narrow lane which ran between vineyards. The vineyards
and hedges he lined with bowmen, and drew up his small body of men-at-arms
at the point where the lane opened upon the higher plain on which he was
himself encamped. Edward's force numbered only eight thousand men, and the
danger was great enough to force him to offer in exchange for a free
retreat the surrender of his prisoners and of the places he had taken, with
an oath not to fight against France for seven years to come. His offers
however were rejected, and the battle opened with a charge of three hundred
French knights up the narrow lane. But the lane was soon choked with men
and horses, while the front ranks of the advancing army fell back before a
galling fire of arrows from the hedgerows. In this moment of confusion a
body of English horsemen, posted unseen by their opponents on a hill to the
right, charged suddenly on the French flank, and the Prince watching the
disorder which was caused by the repulse and surprise fell boldly on their
front. The steady shot of the English archers completed the panic produced
by this sudden attack. The first French line was driven in, and on its rout
the second, a force of sixteen thousand men, at once broke in wild terror
and fled from the field. John still held his ground with the knights of the
reserve, whom he had unwisely ordered to dismount from their horses, till a
charge of the Black Prince with two thousand lances threw this last body
into confusion. The French king was taken, desperately fighting; and when
his army poured back at noon in utter rout to the gates of Poitiers eight
thousand of their number had fallen on the field, three thousand in the
flight, and two thousand men-at-arms, with a crowd of nobles, were taken
prisoners. The royal captive entered London in triumph, mounted on a big
white charger, while the Prince rode by his side on a little black hackney
to the palace of the Savoy, which was chosen as John's dwelling