The Black Prince and the Capture of a King

This “taut narrative” of the fourteenth-century conflict between England and France offers “a detailed, climactic account of a legendary battle” ( Publishers Weekly ). The epic fourteenth-century Battle of Poitiers marked a major turn in the Hundred Years’ War between England and France. Prince Edward, known to all as the Black Prince, not only won a surprising victory in his first campaign as commander, but managed the nearly impossible feat of taking the French monarch, King Jean II, prisoner.