oduced that impression of outflanking and surrounding which most
demoralises fighting men. The rear ranks who pressed just behind the place
where the heaviest of the struggle was proceeding, and where John's
knights on foot were attempting to hold their own against the mounted
Gascons and English, broke away. The Captal's charge drove home, and the
remnant of the French force, with the king himself in the midst of it,
found themselves fighting against a ring which pressed them from all
sides.

King John had with him his little son Philip, a boy of fourteen, later
most properly to be called "The Bold." And this lad fought side by side
with his father, calling to the king: "Father, guard to the right! Father,
guard to the left!" as the lance-thrusts and the sword-strokes pressed
them. The lessening and lessening group of French lords that could still
hold their own in the contracting circle was doomed, and the battle was
accomplished.

Scattering across those fields to the west and northward bodies of the
Plantagenet's men galloped, riding down the fugitives, killing, or
capturing for ransom, the wounded. And Edward, his work now done, rode
back to the old position, rested, sent messengers out to recall the
pursuers (some of whom had pressed stragglers for four miles), and watched
his men gathering and returning.

He saw advancing towards him a clamorous crowd, all in a hubbub around
some centre of great interest for them, and slowly making eastward to
where the banner of the Black Prince was now fixed. He sent to ask what
this might be, and was told that it was the King of France who had been
taken prisoner at last, and for whom various captors were disputing. John,
pressed by so many rivals, had given up his sword to one of Edward's
knights. That knight was a man from the Artois, who had said to the
Valois, his lawful king, "Sir, I am serving against you, for I have lost
my land, and, owing no allegiance, therefore, I became the man of the King
of England."

Edward received his great captive, and that was the end of the Battle of
Poitiers.

It was noon when the fight was decided. It was mid-afternoon when the last
of the pursuers had been called back into the English camp.

PART V

THE ASPECT OF THESE BATTLES

In closing the coupled and twin stories of Crecy and Poitiers it is not
without advantage to describe the aspect which they would have presented
to an onlooker of their time; and in doing this I