Edward the Black Prince

Edward of Woodstock (15 June 1330 – 8 June 1376), known to history as the Black Prince, was the eldest son and heir apparent of King Edward III of England. He died before his father and so his son, Richard II, succeeded to the throne instead. Edward nevertheless earned distinction as one of the most successful English commanders during the Hundred Years' War, being regarded by his English contemporaries as a model of chivalry and one of the greatest knights of his age.

Quotes about

• Fair lords, though we be so few against that mighty power of enemies, let us not be dismayed; for strength nor victory lies not in multitudes, but those to whom God gives it. If he will it that the day be ours, the highest glory of this world shall be given to us. If we die, I have the noble lord my father and two fair brothers, and you have each of you many a good friend, who will avenge us well. Thus then, I pray you, fight well this day; and if it please God and St. George, I will also do the part of a good knight.
  • Speech before the Battle of Poitiers (19 September 1356), as reported in Froissart's Chronicles; spelling modernised by G. P. R. James, A History of the Life of Edward the Black Prince (1836), p. 188

Literary allusions

• Is the sable warrior fled?
  Thy son is gone. He rests among the dead.
  • Thomas Gray, The Bard: A Pindaric Ode (1757), II.2

• I have tried to make this book as representatively English as I might; with less thought of robust and resounding 'patriotism' than of that subdued and hallowed emotion which, for example, should possess any man's thoughts standing before the tomb of the Black Prince in Canterbury Cathedral: a sense of wonderful history written silently in books and buildings, all persuading that we are heirs of more spiritual wealth than, may be, we have surmised or hitherto begun to divine.
  • Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, preface to The Oxford Book of English Prose (1925), p. xiii