st what were by
this time far superior numbers; and in that case he had a good prepared
position, which will shortly be described, upon which to meet them.

Or they would give him time to file away southward, in which case the
neighbouring Miosson, with its ravine and its woods, would immediately, at
the very beginning of the march, put an obstacle between him and his
pursuer; especially as he had two crossings, a ford, and a bridge some way
above it, and he could cut the bridge the moment he had crossed it.

Finally, if (as was possible) a combination of these two alternatives
should present itself, he had but to depend upon his prepared position for
its rearguard to hold during just the time that would permit the main
force to make the passage of the Miosson, not two miles away.

With this plan clearly developed he advanced upon the Sunday morning no
more than a mile or two to the position in question, fortified it after
the fashion which I shall later describe, and camped immediately behind it
to see what that Sunday might bring. He could not make off at once,
because his horses and his marching men were worn out with the fatigue of
the previous day's great march.

PART III

THE TERRAIN

The defensive position taken up by Edward, the Black Prince, upon Sunday
the 18th of September 1356, and used by him in the decisive action of the
following day, is composed of very simple elements; which are essentially
a shallow dip (about thirty feet only in depth), bounded by two slight
parallel slopes, the one of which the Anglo-Gascon force held against the
advance of the King of France's cosmopolitan troops from the other.

We can include all the business of that Monday's battle in a parallelogram
lying true to the points of the compass, and measuring three miles and six
furlongs from north to south, by exactly two and a half miles from east to
west; while the actual fighting is confined to an inner parallelogram no
more than two thousand yards from east to west, by three thousand from
north to south. The first of these areas is that given upon the coloured
map which forms the frontispiece of this little book. The second is marked
by a black frame within that coloured map, the main features of which are
reproduced in line upon a larger scale on the page opposite this.

I have said that the essentials of the Black Prince's defensive plan were:

(1) A prepared defensive position, which it might or might not be
n