The Black Prince thought it almost impossible to fight his way through such a desperately determined host. So he offered to restore all he had just conquered and to make another truce, if he might pass by unmolested. But John would not consent. He must have Calais back again, and the prince, with one hundred of his best knights, into the bargain. "This will never do," thought the prince. "Better try for another Crecy." On the morning of September 19,1356, the battle began. John had with him all four of his sons, Charles, Louis, John and Philip; the eldest only nineteen, and the youngest fourteen. The three former were put under good guardianship in different portions of the field; but why the hair-brained monarch took the youngest boy with him into the very front and thickest of the fight, it is hard to guess, unless it was another imitation of Edward, and he had also good reason to think that the lad was unusually well able to take care of himself, having been trained at arms and pledged to knighthood. But young "Sir Philip," as he was called, proved quite equal to the occasion. King John himself led the van, moving down through a defile, into which, after a time, his whole army found themselves crowded. Meantime, the Prince of Wales had planted his army just where he would tempt John into that trap and had set his archers in good position. These men were clad in green, like Robin Hood's men, and carried bows seven feet long and so thick that few men of modern days could bend them. A cloth-yard shaft from one of these would fly with tremendous force. Edward had placed these archers in ambush, behind green hedges, and crouching in the green of the vineyards. Just as the French king, with all his new chivalry around him, dashed down the narrow valley--the white standard of France on one side of him, his keen-eyed little son on the other--and began to deploy the whole advance battalion, preliminary to a grand charge--whiz! whiz! whir! whir! from both sides came the arrows, as thick as hail and as terrible as javelins, from the hidden archers. The astonished Frenchmen fell back. That crowded still more those who were yet wedged in the narrow space behind. Now came the English onset. Then a panic. Then a rout. Then a general flight. Dukes, barons, knights of all sorts fled with the rest; also Charles, Louis, John, the three elder sons of the king. The king was in great danger of being slain; but he did not move, and Philip stood fighting by his side. The standard-bearer fell, and the white ensign lay in the dust. Many a faithful knight was cut down, or swept away a prisoner. But Philip flinched not.