These with three others made up the required thirty. Great was
the grumbling and evil the talk amongst the archers when it was
learned that none of them were to be included, but the bow had
been forbidden on either side. It is true that many of them were
expert fighters both with ax and with sword, but they were unused
to carry heavy armor, and a half-armed man would have short shrift
in such a hand-to-hand struggle as lay before them.
It was two hours after tierce, or one hour before noon, on the
fourth Wednesday of Lent in the year of Christ 1351 that the men
of Ploermel rode forth from their castle-gate and crossed the
bridge of the Due. In front was Bambro' with his Squire Croquart,
the latter on a great roan horse bearing the banner of Ploermel,
which was a black rampant lion holding a blue flag upon a field of
ermine. Behind him came Robert Knolles and Nigel Loring, with an
attendant at their side, who carried the pennon of the black
raven. Then rode Sir Thomas Percy with his blue lion flaunting
above him, and Sir Hugh Calverly, whose banner bore a silver owl,
followed by the massive Belford who carried a huge iron club,
weighing sixty pounds, upon his saddlebow, and Sir Thomas Walton
the knight of Surrey. Behind them were four brave Anglo-Bretons,
Perrot de Commelain, Le Gaillart, d'Aspremont and d'Ardaine, who
fought against their own countrymen because they were partisans of
the Countess of Montfort.
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