"To whom shall I surrender?" he asked aloud. "Where is my cousin, the Prince of Wales? If I could see him I would speak." "Sire," said a knight, "he is not here; but surrender to me, I will conduct you to him." "Who are you?" asked the king. "Denis de Morbecque, a knight of Artois; but I serve the King of England, because I cannot live in the kingdom of France, and because I have there forfeited all my possessions." The king tendered his glove to him. "I surrender to you," he said. The knight endeavored to lead the king away from the crowd; but although he was tall and powerful, everybody crowded round him, saying, "I have captured him; I have captured him," and the king could not advance, nor could his youngest son, Philip. The Earl of Warwick and Sir Reynold Cobham, who were seeking the king on behalf of the Prince of Wales, were obliged to deliver him from his enemies, and to conduct him courteously to the spot where Chandos had advised that the banner of England should be planted to reassemble the troops. "It is time that your men should rejoin you," he had said, "for they are scattered and the day is yours. You must refresh yourself a little, for I see that you are much heated." [Image] The Black Prince Serving The French King. {323} The prince had removed his helmet when the King of France was brought forward, before whom he made a profound reverence and received him as a king, well and wisely, and in the evening he waited upon him without ever consenting to be seated, notwithstanding any solicitation which the king made in this respect, and said that he was not yet sufficiently important to sit down at the table of so great a sovereign and so valiant a man, who had that day surpassed the ablest. "And all deemed that the Prince had spoken well." The towns and castles remained closed in Poitou and in Saintonge, but the French army was not rallied, and no attempt was made to deliver the king. The Prince of Wales hastened to Bordeaux, in order to place in safety his illustrious prisoners, and all the booty with which his army was loaded. The Duke of Normandy had been created Regent by the States-general, and the Black Prince concluded a truce of two years with him. He spent the winter in Gascony; then in the spring (April, 1357) he set sail to conduct to England King John and his son Philip. Negotiations were in progress for the ransom of the king, and the legates of the Pope, the ordinary negotiators of the great treaties between sovereigns, followed the Prince of Wales and his prisoners to England. John entered London on the 24th of April, upon a magnificent courser, richly caparisoned; the Prince of Wales was at his side upon a small black horse. King Edward had come forward to meet his illustrious captive, and all the court hastened to do him honor. King John consoled himself easily enough in his captivity. {324}