Edward, prince of Wales

Edward, prince of Wales (1330–76), known as the ‘Black Prince’. He was, both for contemporaries and later generations, one of the great chivalric heroes, though his reputation does not stand up to close inspection in all respects. The eldest son of Edward III, he was made earl of Chester in 1333, duke of Cornwall in 1337, and prince of Wales in 1343. In 1362 he became prince of Aquitaine, becoming a virtually independent ruler there. He was a great soldier. His career began at Crécy, where he fought bravely, and the notable victories of Poitiers in France (1356) and Najerá in Spain (1367) mark him out as one of the best medieval commanders, a man of ability and charisma. The brutal sack of Limoges in southern France (1370) is the one blemish on his military reputation, though it can be excused in strict legal terms. He was less skilled as politician and ruler than as a soldier; his venture into Spain was unwise, and his extravagant and harsh rule in Gascony alienated some of the most influential nobles there. His policies contributed to the reopening of the Hundred Years War in 1369. In England the administration of his lands was efficiently centralized, but overly harsh. In 1362 he married the celebrated beauty Joan of Kent in a love match; a more statesmanlike man would no doubt have used marriage as a diplomatic tool. Disease forced him to return to England in 1371, and ruined his last years. In 1376 he predeceased his father, leaving his young son Richard as heir to the throne.

Michael Prestwich