General Notes

REFN: 1763
Also called EDWARD OF WOODSTOCK, PRINCE D'AQUITAINE, PRINC
E OF WALES, DUKE OF CORNWALL, EARL OF CHESTER, son and hei
r apparent of Edward III of England and one of the outstand
ing commanders during the Hundred Years' War, winning his m
ajor victory at the Battle of Poitiers (1356). His sobrique
t, said to have come from his wearing black armour, has n
o contemporary justification and is found first in Richar
d Grafton's Chronicle of England (1568).
Edward was created Earl of Chester (March 1333), Duke of Co
rnwall (February 1337)--the first appearance of this rank i
n England--and Prince of Wales (May 1343); he was Prince o
f Aquitaine from 1362 to 1372. His first campaign was serve
d under his father in northern France (1346-47), and at th
e Battle of Crécy (Aug. 26, 1346) he won both his spurs an
d the famous ostrich plumes and with them the mottoes use
d by himself and subsequent princes of Wales, homout; ich d
ene ("Courage; I serve"; the words are here spelled as Edwa
rd himself wrote them; later variants include houmout and i
ch dien or ich diene). One of the original Knights of the G
arter, he was sent to France with independent command in 13
55, winning his most famous victory over the French at Poit
iers on Sept. 19, 1356. The French king John II, brought ca
ptive to England, was treated by the prince with a celebrat
ed courtesy, but he was obligated to pay a ransom of 3,000,
000 gold crowns and to negotiate the treaties of Brétigny a
nd Calais (1360) by which Aquitaine was ceded to the Englis
h.
Edward married his cousin Joan, the divorced and widowed Co
untess of Kent, in October 1361. He was created Prince of A
quitaine in July 1362 and left England in 1363 to take up h
is duties. His powers and his opportunities were great, bu
t his rule was a failure, and he himself was largely to bla
me. His court at Bordeaux, that of a foreign conqueror, wa
s extravagant; the 13 sénéchaussées into which the principa
lity was divided administratively followed their earlier Fr
ench pattern and allowed local French loyalties to subsist
; his relations with the many bishops were unfriendly, whil
e the greater nobles, Arnaud-Amanieu, sire d'Albret, Gasto
n II, Count de Foix, and Jean I, Count d'Armagnac, were hos
tile. He summoned several estates, or parliaments, but alwa
ys to levy taxes. In 1367 he undertook to restore Peter th
e Cruel of Castile to his throne, and though he won a class
ic victory at Nájera on April 3, 1367, the campaign ruine
d his health, his finances, and any prospect of sound rul
e in Aquitaine, where, in 1368, the nobles and prelates app
ealed against him to Charles V of France as suzerain. Edwar
d's reply to the French king's citation to answer the appel
lants before the parlement of Paris in May 1369 is well kno
wn--he would appear with 60,000 men at his back. He had, ho
wever, alienated the towns and peasantry as well as the nob
les; and by March 1369 more than 900 towns, castles, and st
rong places had declared against him. Relying on mercenarie
s whom he could not afford to pay, he was powerless to quel
l the revolt, and the terrible sack of Limoges (October 137
0) merely redounded to his discredit. He returned to Englan
d a sick and broken man in January 1371 and formally surren
dered his principality to his father in October 1372, alleg
ing that the revenues of the country were insufficient to d
efray his expenses. He had no successor as Prince of Aquita
ine.
Edward's position in England, where, throughout his life, h
e was heir apparent, was that of a typical 14th-century mag
nate. The registers of his household from 1346 to 1348 an
d from 1351 to 1365 have survived and add to what is know
n of him from the chroniclers and from his biographer, th
e herald of Sir John Chandos. In one important respect al
l of these sources paint the same picture, that of a man co
nstantly living beyond his means. His generosity, however