The French cavalry charged up the lane, hoping to break the lines of archers, but the men who were posted behind the hedges received them with such a volley of arrows that the horses refused to advance, and some of them fell, blocking up the way. Then a body of English knights, galloping down the hill, threw the foremost of the French lines into confusion. Lord James Audley, who during the first part of the battle had been by the side of the prince, now said to him, 'Sir, I have always truly served my lord your father and yourself also, and I shall do so as long as I live. I once made a vow that in the first battle that your father or any of his children should be in, I should be the first setter-on and the best combatant, or else die; therefore I beg of you that you will allow me to leave you in order that I may accomplish my vow.' The prince took him by the hand and said, 'Sir James, God give you this day the grace to be the first knight of all'; and Lord James rode away into the battle and fought until he had to be carried, sorely wounded, from the field. In the meantime the battle raged with great fury upon all sides, and many French and English knights were engaged in deadly combat. An English knight, Sir John Chandos, who had never left the prince, said to his master, 'Ride forward, noble prince, and the day is yours; let us get to the French king, for truly he is so valiant a gentleman that I think he will not fly, but may be taken prisoner; and, sir, I heard you say that this day I should see you a good knight.' 'John,' said the prince, 'let us go forth; you shall not see me turn back this day, but I will ever be with the foremost'; then the prince and his friend rode into the thickest of the fight. Where the battle raged most fiercely the French king, with his young son Philip by his side, was laying about him with his battle-axe. When the nobles around him were slain or had fled, the brave lad refused to leave his father, who made his last stand with the blood streaming down from a wound in the face. At last the king was forced to yield, and he gave his glove to a banished French knight, Sir Denis de Marbeke, in token of surrender. When the French were fleeing from the field, the Black Prince had become so exhausted with fighting that Sir John Chandos persuaded him to retire to his tent and take some rest. Presently the news came to the royal tent that the king had been taken prisoner, and was on his way to the English camp. The prince immediately sent two of his lords to meet him, and had him brought to his own tent, where he received his brave enemy with the greatest respect. [Illustration: The French King brought prisoner to the Black Prince after Poitiers.]