April, 1367, face to face with the Black Prince, he has but one idea, to rush on him at once and make an end! Strategy and prudence are cast to the winds. “Let us fight like true knights and carry the crown upon a lance!” is his idea.
Envoys arrive from France and entreat him to avoid a general engagement with the English chivalry, the finest in the world, led by the Prince of Wales, but he will have none of their advice. He will fight at once, and even shifts his advantageous position, against the counsel of Du Guesclin, on the other side of a small river which divides the camps—to deal his blows nearer.
“Your Grace will be beat,” says Du Guesclin, scanning with well-practised eye the battle-field.
“I tell you that this very night I shall be either dead or a prisoner.”
“I shall win!” cries the enthusiastic Caballero. “Santiago and Spain are with me. But as the Prince of Wales is a valiant knight, and my brother a lying traitor, that he may know the realm is mine, and that I am fighting in support of my right, I will send him a cartel to tell him what is my intent.”