He died in 1376, a year before his father his son, Richard became king on Edward III’s death. The town was then thoroughly sacked, although claims that he put the civilian population to the sword appear to be unfounded. One of his last acts of war was his capture of Limoges in 1370. He was a keen exponent of the chevauchée – a method of warfare that involved riding through enemy territory and pillaging and burning it. As he was just 16 at the battle of Crécy, his command of a division there was probably nominal, but a decade later he led his army to triumph at Poitiers. Some attribute it to the colour of his heraldry, while others attribute it to his ruthlessness.
Exactly why he was known as the Black Prince is a matter of debate. The eldest son of Edward III, Edward of Woodstock was one of the most successful commanders of the Hundred Years’ War. Without their pavises for shelter, the hapless mercenaries were sitting ducks. A well-trained archer could easily let off a dozen shots a minute, and soon tens of thousands of deadly arrows were raining down on the exposed crossbowmen. As the Genoese bent down to begin the relatively lengthy business of reloading their crossbows, the English archers took one pace forward and began to shoot. Edward’s archers didn’t make the same mistake. Some say that their bowstrings had been loosened by the rain that had been falling, while others think that, squinting into the Sun, they simply misjudged the range. Nobody knows why, but the volley fell short. The mercenaries advanced in good order and unleashed a volley of crossbow bolts. Their absence would be disastrous in the events that followed. These crossbowmen were well-trained professionals who knew their business, but in the rush to get to attack the English, their pavises (the large shields they sheltered behind while reloading) had been left behind with the baggage. Philip hurried them forward to soften up the English, before his armoured knights launched what he was sure would be an unstoppable charge. Most of Philip’s infantry were of a dubious quality, but they did include a substantial contingent of Genoese mercenary crossbowmen under the command of Ottone Doria and Carlo Grimaldi. So, despite the fact that his army was strung out along the road from Abbeville and most of his infantry and supplies were still miles away, he ordered an immediate attack. Philip probably agreed with this approach, but he was faced with a fractious nobility who were itching to get to grips with the English. After taking a look at the enemy position, its leaders recommended to Philip that he should wait for his entire army to arrive before launching an assault. The advance guard of Philip's army arrived near Crécy around noon on 26 August. In fact, although he made a lot of this claim, it was primarily a move to strengthen his bargaining position, and Edward never seriously envisaged the total conquest of France. Encouraged by his Flemish allies, Edward hit back by declaring that because his sister was the daughter of the previous French king, he – not Philip – was the rightful king of France. In 1337, the simmering tensions surrounding Edward’s homage boiled over, and Philip declared that he had confiscated the English king’s lands in southwest France. This powder-keg situation was made even more explosive by French support for the Scots against the English, and English support for their trading partners, the Flemish, against France. But the two kings were supposedly equal, which created a recipe for trouble. In the mid-14th century, because the King of England held lands in France as a vassal of the French king, Edward III owed homage to Philip VI.
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