French antiquary that the King of France had the privilege of purchasing
any prisoner from his conqueror, on the payment of 10,000 livres; and
as a confirmation of this, the money paid to Denis de Morbec for his
captive John, King of France, by Edward III. amounted to this exact
sum. The English monarch afterwards extorted the enormous ransom of
three millions of gold crowns, amounting, as it has been calculated,
to L1,500,000. of our present money, from his royal captive. The
French author censures Edward somewhat unjustly for his share in
this transaction; here as in the case of the Percies, state reasons
interfered with private advantages. John yielded up to his conquerors
not only the abovementioned sum, but whole towns and provinces became
the property of the English nation; to these De Morbec could have no
right. It was, however, notwithstanding the frequent mention in history
of ransoms, still in the power of the persons in possession of a
prisoner to refuse any advantage, however great, which his liberty might
offer them, if dictated by motives of policy, dependant principally on
his personal importance. Entius, King of Sardinia, son of Frederic II.
was esteemed of such consequence to his father's affairs, that the
Bolognese, to whom he became a prisoner in 1248, would accept of no
price for his manumission; and he died in captivity, after a confinement
of twenty-four years. Such was the conduct of Charles V. of France
towards the Captal de Buche, for whose liberty he refused all the offers
made to him by Edward III.

On this principle the Duke of Orleans and Comte d'Eu, were ordered by
the dying injunctions of Henry V. to be retained in prison until his
son should be capable of governing; nor was it until after a lapse of
seventeen years, that permission was given to these noblemen to purchase
their freedom.

If no state reason interfered, the conqueror made what profit he
could of his prisoners. Froissart, in speaking of Poictiers, adds,
that the English became very rich, in consequence of that battle,
as well by ransoms as by plunder, and M. St. Palaye, in his "Mem. sur
la Chevalrie," mentions that the ransom of prisoners was the principal
means by which the knights of olden time supported the magnificence for
which they were so remarkable. In the next century, the articles of war
drawn up by Henry V. previous to his invasion of France, contain the
condition, "that be it at the battle or other deeds of arms,