This John, on attaining to manhood, well sustained the martial fame of his progenitors, and served with distinction in the French wars in the reigns of Henry V. and VI. In 1424 he took part in the famous battle of Verneuil (August 17), when the Regent, the Duke of Bedford, utterly routed the French army in an engagement that is described on the rolls of Parliament as "the greatest deed done by Englishmen in our days, save the battle of Agincourt," and it is not unlikely that it was here he won his spurs; so conspicuous was he in the battle that in acknowledgment of his bravery a pension of £100 Tournois was granted him for life out of the forfeited possessions of John Tancrope, as fully set forth in an ancient document preserved among the Adlington MSS. in the Chetham Library. The victory at Verneuil was followed by a reverse in 1427. For some time the war was carried on without any decided success on either side, but in the year just named the forces of the Duke of Bedford sustained a severe defeat, which compelled them to raise the siege of Montarges, and it is more than probable that Sir John de Honford, who had participated in the glories of the previous victory, shared in the mortification of that disaster, for his name occurs on the Cheshire Rolls in that year as being "about to depart for France." From that time misfortune followed upon misfortune. A simple country girl--Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans--had been wonderfully raised up to serve her country's need; victory followed wherever she led, and after several actions the English, in 1429, were compelled to raise the siege of Orleans. No story of ancient heroism reads more like a romance. The English never recovered the blow struck by the maid for the freedom of her country. Their hold upon the soil of France gradually relaxed, and one by one the territories which had been won by the sword were surrendered. The Duke of Bedford gathered a vast force for the prosecution of the war; Sir John de Honford was in his retinue, and in a contemporary document his name occurs as holding, in 1434, the important post of Keeper of the Bridge over the Seine at Rouen for the Regent Bedford, with one horseman, three lance soldiers on foot, and twenty bowmen. ("_Pons de Rone super aquam de Sayne: Johannes Hanneford, chevalier locum tenens domini regentis (cum) i lanceam equestrem iij lanceas pedesires et xx archers._") Those were evil times for England; Harfleur, the first trophy of Henry V., had been recaptured in 1432, and in 1435 the peace of Arras was concluded between Charles VII. and the Duke of Burgundy, the news of which caused the young King Henry to weep. At this important crisis in her history England sustained an irreparable loss by the death of the Duke of Bedford, who expired at Rouen September 14, 1435, at the very time the negotiations for the peace were being concluded.