Chronicles

With France and England at peace, many of the Free Companies were hired to fight in a civil war in the Spanish kingdom of Castile between King Peter “the Cruel” and his illegitimate brother, Henry of Trastámara. The Black Prince at first supported Peter the Cruel, but after finding that Peter was indeed very cruel, the Black Prince stopped backing him.

Peter the Cruel holed up at the castle of Montiel. Surrounded by Henry’s forces, he left the castle secretly and fled. Peter and his men were taken in by a man named Le Bègue de Villaines. However, Henry happened to arrive at the same place. Peter and Henry fought each other. In the end, Henry stabbed Peter to death with a dagger. His body was left out in the open for three days, which Froissart disapprovingly notes is an “inhuman thing to do” (174).

By 1369, the peace between France and England was shattered when Charles V attacked Aquitaine and besieged the town of Limoges. The lord of the town, the Bishop of Limoges, surrendered to the French, which enraged the Black Prince. Using miners to dig under the town’s fortifications, the Black Prince attacked Limoges. The miners succeeded in collapsing part of the town’s walls. The Black Prince ordered that the inhabitants be massacred. “Men, women and children flung themselves on their knees before the Prince, crying: ‘Have mercy on us, good sir!’ But he was so inflamed with anger that he would not listen” (178). The Bishop of Limoges might have been killed too if the Pope had not intervened.