ABSTRACT
War with France was renewed in 1369, conducted initially by the Black Prince and John of Gaunt, and then by Gaunt alone, and English arms met with a series of reverses. Despite the Black Prince’s great victory at Najera in 1367, Pedro the Cruel was murdered in 1369 by his half-brother’s own hand. More ominously still in the long term, while in Spain, the Black Prince contracted the disease, possibly amoebic dysentery, which from 1370 left him incapable of active participation in government and killed him a year before his father’s death. Meanwhile, the French, who now had a wily and diplomatically astute king, Charles V, to replace the chivalrous but inept John II,11 had found an inspired and inspiring commander in the rough-hewn person of the new constable, Bertrand du Guesclin.
