Edward’s nickname, the ‘Black Prince’, was not used in his lifetime and the term is not known until Richard Grafton's Chronicle of England written in 1568. Contemporaries knew him as Edward of Woodstock, Prince of Wales and eldest son of King Edward III.
The Battle of Crecy 1346
Born on 16 June 1330 at Woodstock in Oxfordshire Edward grew up against the backdrop of the Hundred Years War and he excelled in the martial arts.
His first experience of war came when he was only 16-years old. In 1346 the Prince accompanied his father on campaign to France which culminated on 26 August at the Battle of Crecy. During the battle the Prince displayed great personal courage and skill and contributed to a famous English victory. His renown as a valorous knight grew accordingly.
The Battle of Poitiers 1356
In 1355 the King appointed him as lieutenant of the duchy of Aquitaine. Now in command of an army he led a major and destructive raid across southern France. In 1356 he led a second raid through northern France and on 19 September that year won a brilliant victory at the Battle of Poitiers in which he captured John II, King of France.
In 1361 he married Joan of Kent and in 1362 his father made him Prince of Aquitaine with sole responsibility for the governance of the province.
The Battle of Najera 1367
Aquitaine’s neighbour to the south was the Spanish kingdom of Castile and when in 1366 the pro-French Henry of Trastamara seized the throne of Castile from his half-brother Pedro I , Edward decided to intervene on behalf of Pedro. He led an army into Spain and defeated Trastamara at the Battle of Nejera on 3 April 1367.
This victory proved to be a personal defeat for the Prince for while in Spain he contracted a disease, possibly dysentery, from which he never fully recovered. He returned to Aquitaine where he faced unrest from the local nobility that eventually turned into revolt.
In 1370, despite his illness, Edward took to the field to attack the city of Limoges which had surrendered to the French. He seized the city after only five days and then massacred its inhabitants. However, the Prince’s health continued to deteriorate and the following year he had to return to England. He died on 8 June 1376 and was buried in Trinity Chapel, Canterbury Cathedral.
The Fame of the Black Prince
Historians do not know why Edward of Woodstock came to be known as the Black Prince. It is possibly due to his preference for wearing black armour or perhaps from the French reaction to his military victories. What is clear is that the Prince was an outstanding soldier at a time in history when military triumphs were much celebrated as the very essence of chivalry.
The Prince is a heroic and romantic figure in medieval England but his success on the battlefield was not always matched in other spheres of his life. He ruled Aquitaine in a aloof manner that antagonised an independently minded nobility and the massacre at Limoges demonstrates a capacity for brutish behaviour.
Nevertheless he was a man of his time and it is the image of a chivalrous knight that has endured. Perhaps the court of the Black Prince is best described by a contemporary admirer, ‘there abode all nobleness, all joy and jollity, largesse, gentleness and honour, and all his subjects and all his men loved him right dearly.’
Sources:
Richard Barber, ‘Edward , prince of Wales and of Aquitaine (1330–1376)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2008.
Nigel Saul, A Companion to Medieval England, (Tempus, 2000)
