The works of the Black Prince lived after him. Not that we must look for them immediately in England, where we now enter on forty years of intestine division and civil strife. We do indeed find that Richard the Second, on his invasion of Scotland in 1385, adopted for his army the organisation that had been taught by his father at Navarete; but we discover no trace of military progress. Far more instructive is it to look to the continent of Europe and watch the spread of English military ideas there. It has already been seen that the French, not daring to meet the English archers on horseback, adopted the English system of dismounting for action; and it is interesting to note that the same fashion spread to Germany and Italy, steadily tending to overthrow the supremacy of cavalry wrought by the feudal system, and to make a revolution in the art of war. Not one of the nations, however, seems to have grasped the pith of the English tactics, the combination of the offensive and defensive elements in the infantry. The French indeed, under King Charles the Sixth, strove to raise up archers, and with all too good success, for they became so efficient that they were esteemed a menace to the nobility, and were soon effectively discouraged out of existence. Perhaps the most striking example of the misapplication of the English system is the conduct of the Austrian commander at Sempach, who by dismounting his knights deliberately gave away every advantage to the Swiss, and thus helped forward that nation on the way to make its infantry the model of Europe; a very significant matter in the history of the art of war. But the truest disciples of the Black Prince were the English Free Companies, from whom there descended to England, and indeed to Europe, a legacy of a remarkable kind. These companies were military societies framed very much on the model of the ancient trade-guilds, and had as good a right to the name as they. A certain number of adventurers invested so much money in the creation of a trained body of fighting men, and took a higher or lower station of command therein, together with a larger or smaller share of the profits, according to the proportion of their venture. If any man wished to realise his capital he could sell out, provided that he could find a buyer; if any one partner seemed to the rest to be undesirable they would buy him out and take in another. Thus grew up what was known as the purchase-system. The abuse of their monopoly by these companies drove the sovereigns of Europe after a time to issue commissions to their subjects to raise companies for their own service only; but even so the commercial basis of the company remained unchanged, being only widened when the time came for the amalgamation of companies into regiments. These military adventurers taught the nations the new art of war, and the nations could not but follow their model. [Sidenote: 1387.] [Sidenote: 1391.]