King Edward III ruled for fifty years. Under his genial splendor, the fractious wilderness inherited from his murdered father became transformed into an English nation. It was a reign outstandingly rich in dramatic events and sometimes violent in its contrasts. There were spectacular feats of war at Sluys, Crécy and Poitiers, as well as at Nájera beyond the Pyrenees. They made the king and his eldest son, the Black Prince, into figures of legend. Yet the brightly colored pageantry of the chivalric king and his sons and loyal captains has to be set against the horrors and miseries of the Black Death. Similarly, if less sensationally, the king founded his new Order of the Garter for the benefit of a select group of those whom he and future monarchs might delight to honor just when the humble Commons were repeatedly demanding that he show a quite new respect for their own, less exalted persons and in particular for their pockets. - Preface.