was still standing where it was
posted, prepared for retreat on the bridge of Nouaille if it were not
molested, or for action if it were. Just as this minor detachment of the
more valuable vehicles, with its escort, had got across the water,
messengers told Edward that there were signs of a French advance. He at
once came back, countermanded all provisional orders for the retirement,
and recalled the escort, save perhaps some small party to watch the
waggons which had got beyond the river. Thus, returning immediately,
Edward was ready to instruct and fight the action in the fashion described
in all the other accounts.

This, I think, is the rational reconciliation of several stories which are
only in apparent contradiction, and which are rather confusing than
antagonistic.

PART IV

THE ACTION

Though the accounts of the Battle of Poitiers, both contemporary with and
subsequent to it, show, like most mediaeval chronicling, considerable
discrepancies, it is possible by comparing the various accounts and
carefully studying the ground to present a collected picture of that
victory.

The reader, then, must first seize the position, character, and numbers of
Edward's force as it lay upon the early morning of Monday the 19th of
September.

Three considerable bodies of men arranged in dense formation, faced west
by a little north upon the level which intervenes between the modern farm
of Cardinerie and the wood of Nouaille. These three bodies of men stood
armed, one rank behind the other, and all three parallel. The first was
commanded by Salisbury. It was drawn up along the hedge that bounded the
vineyards, and it stretched upon either side of the lane which led and
leads from Poitiers to Nouaille. With Salisbury was Suffolk; and this
first line, thus facing the hedge, the depression, and the fields beyond,
from whence a French attack might develop, was certainly the largest of
the three lines. The reader must conceive of the road astraddle of which
this command of Salisbury's and Suffolk's stood as lying flush with the
fields around, until the edge of the depression was reached, and there
forming for some yards a sunken road between the vines that stood on
either side of it. The reader should also remember that further to the
left, and covered by the last extension of this line of men, was the
second diverging lane, crossing through vineyards precisely as did the
other, and sunk as the other was sunk for some