Michael Jones

And you're also saying, look, our claim is better because your guys can't look after you.

So it's shrewd stuff, although very, very brutal.

And the following year is the big one.

There's a big plan to converge on the French king, Jean II.

Edward III will take an army to Calais.

Another major noble, Mahenio Grossman, will come in from Brittany.

and the Black Prince will come up from Gascony.

But this great plan goes totally pear-shaped, and so the Prince marches to the centre of France, to the Loire, and finds that no one else is there.

You're so right.

Not good.

And the interesting thing is that Edward III has decided he's not going to go to Calais, but that information has not reached his son.

Henry of Grossmont, who's in Brittany, can't get across the Loire.

There's bad flooding.

And sadly, the French, who've been very apathetic, they're not very keen on Jean II, who's been dealing with insurrection in Normandy.

But sadly, the thought of wiping out the Black Prince galvanizes everybody.

And there's a total change of mood, and a big army is gathered with the sole purpose of crushing the Black Prince.

So it's getting worse and worse.

And just outside Poitiers in September 1356, I should say at this stage that the prince's army, we often describe it as an English army, it's Anglo-Gascon, and the Gascons are a very important part of his army.

And Gascony is southwest France.

Yes, it's southwest France.