Life of Edward the Black Prince

The Black Prince was England's greatest medieval warrior, the son who never became king but shaped a nation's soul. Edward of Woodstock commanded at Crécy at sixteen, annihilated the French nobility at Poitiers, and held court in Bordeaux like a king in all but name. Yet he died a year before his father, leaving the throne to a child who would lose France and be remembered as Richard II. Louise Creighton renders this tragic figure with sympathy and steel, placing his brilliant, brutal career against the chaos of the Hundred Years' War. This is biography as it should be: not a chronicle of dates, but a portrait of ambition, chivalry, and the cruelty of fate. For readers who wonder why England still remembers a prince who reigned for only three years in Aquitaine, this book supplies the answer.