"They with the prince sent a messenger to the king, who was on a little windmill hill.
Then the knight said to the king: 'Sir, the earl of Warwick and the earl of Oxford, Sir Raynold Cobham and other, such as be about the prince, your son, are fiercely fought withal and are sore handled; wherefore they desire you that you and your battle will come and aid them; for if the Frenchmen increase, as they doubt they will, your son and they shall have much ado.'
Then the king said: 'Is my son dead or hurt or on the earth felled?'
'No, sir,' quoth the knight, 'but he is hardly matched; wherefore he hath need of your aid.'
'Well" said the king, 'return to him and to them that sent you hither, and say to them that they send no more to me for any adventure that falleth, as long as my son is alive: and also say to them that they suffer him this day to win his spurs; for if God be pleased, I will this journey be his and the honour thereof, and to them that be about him.'
Then the knight returned again to them and shewed the king's words, the which greatly encouraged them."
-Quoted from Froissart's chronicle of the legendary episode during the Battle of Crecy in 1346. Such was the response of King Edward III to his son Prince Edward's (the Black Prince)
www.flickr.com/photos/8765199@N07/2281761340/in/set-72157...
plight while being hard pressed in the battle. Good chest thumping, warlike, manly stuff that has served to bolster the fighting English spirit in the nearly 700 years since.
I quote this recounting here because the sword pictured is my reworking of the Albion Crecy, named after this most celebrated English victory in the Hundred Years War.
On a related note, see my photo of the Black Prince's funeral achievments that hung above his tomb in Canterbury Cathedral at:
www.flickr.com/photos/8765199@N07/2281761284/in/set-72157...
The Victorian equestrian statue of him in the city of Leeds:
www.flickr.com/photos/8765199@N07/2281760526/in/set-72157... 