had been beaten down,
when he at last delivered himself to a banished French knight, and gave
him his right-hand glove in token that he had done so.

The Black Prince was generous as well as brave, and he invited his royal
prisoner to supper in his tent, and waited upon him at table, and, when
they afterwards rode into London in a gorgeous procession, mounted the
French King on a fine cream-coloured horse, and rode at his side on a
little pony. This was all very kind, but I think it was, perhaps, a
little theatrical too, and has been made more meritorious than it
deserved to be; especially as I am inclined to think that the greatest
kindness to the King of France would have been not to have shown him to
the people at all. However, it must be said, for these acts of
politeness, that, in course of time, they did much to soften the horrors
of war and the passions of conquerors. It was a long, long time before
the common soldiers began to have the benefit of such courtly deeds; but
they did at last; and thus it is possible that a poor soldier who asked
for quarter at the battle of Waterloo, or any other such great fight, may
have owed his life indirectly to Edward the Black Prince.

At this time there stood in the Strand, in London, a palace called the
Savoy, which was given up to the captive King of France and his son for
their residence. As the King of Scotland had now been King Edward's
captive for eleven years too, his success was, at this time, tolerably
complete. The Scottish business was settled by the prisoner being
released under the title of Sir David, King of Scotland, and by his
engaging to pay a large ransom. The state of France encouraged England
to propose harder terms to that country, where the people rose against
the unspeakable cruelty and barbarity of its nobles; where the nobles
rose in turn against the people; where the most frightful outrages were
committed on all sides; and where the insurrection of the peasants,
called the insurrection of the Jacquerie, from Jacques, a common
Christian name among the country people of France, awakened terrors and
hatreds that have scarcely yet passed away. A treaty called the Great
Peace, was at last signed, under which King Edward agreed to give up the
greater part of his conquests, and King John to pay, within six years, a
ransom of three million crowns of gold. He was so beset by his own
nobles and courtiers for having yielded to these conditions--though t