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sustain the verdict of one of the older writers that he was a prince who knew his work and did it.'
    Since 1959 various writers have gradually pushed towards a closer and more realistic understanding of Edward III . In 1965 he was the subject of Ranald Nicholson's excellent Edward III and the Scots, in which his importance in turning England from a feudal kingdom into a nation was underlined. The 1970s saw little Edward Ill-related activity, although four biographies of his eldest son (the Black Prince) appeared in just three years. Probably the major contribution at this time was Michael Prestwich's spirited evocation of the period in his The Three Edwards: War and State in England 1272-1377, published in 1980. By this date Edward's leadership skills had set him back on the list of England's successful kings, and Prestwich's book brought home Edward's courage and patronage of chivalry, and the adulation of his contemporaries. The 1980s saw the renaissance of serious attention on Edward III, particularly with a series of original and impressive biographical articles by Mark Ormrod. This attention continued in the 1990s and 2000s in works such as Ormrod's own The Reign of Edward III, Juliet Vale's Edward III and Chivalry, Clifford Rogers' original and revealing book on Edward's military strategy, War Cruel and Sharp, and a volume of essays edited by James Bothwell, The Age of Edward III. By 1992, after more than a century of prejudice, it was possible for a scholar once again to hold the view that 'The fifty years from 1327 until 1377, which encompass the reign of King Edward III, can be reckoned one of the longest and most successful periods of late medieval English kingship.' 22 Lastl y, although it is not a direct study of Edward III, it would be churlish not to mention the first two volumes of Jonathan Sumption's multi-volume work on the Hundred Years War. Outstanding for the very high quality of writing, narrative accessibility, scope and detail (from both the English and the French perspectives), these books reveal Edward as a harrassed, impetuous, frustrated and egotistical man - but a capable, committed and sometimes brilliant war leader — on the bloody stage of fourteenth-century Europe. They certainly provide the best available account of the great conflict which can only briefly be covered in a single-volume biography of one of its many leaders.
    Edward's reputation has thus been exalted to the heavens, forced through the mangle of Victorian cultural conceit, and gradually restored to its proper place of exemplary leadership, at least in the pages of military history and chivalry. But from this point on we can lay aside Edward's historical reputation and search for the man himself. What was he really like? Was he really a leader without equal? Was he a cruel, selfish, warmonger? Or was he a loving husband, conscientious ruler and champion of England in the eyes of his people? What should concern us primarily from here on is not how Edward's successors thought of him, nor what the future will think of him, nor even what the most up-to-date academic judgement makes of his successes and failures in relation to his society, but who he was, what he wanted to be, how his contemporaries saw him, and what he thought of himself. To determine these things might be the hardest historical task there is. It is like trying to describe an ancient bonfire on the strength of its wind-blown ashes. But the fact that this man existed, in truth, and lived a life which is so unlike our own, and yet experienced triumph, glory, disaster, suffering, fear, grief and love in ways which we would all recognise, is a good enough reason to make the attempt.
    ONE
    Childhood
    Of all the stages in the life of a resourceful and imaginative individual, childhood is the most important and the most difficult to understand. We need to think about a boy's physical well-being as he developed, as well as his education, so cial situation and religious outl