I pray you, then, in the name of God, to let me ride on to the Prince of Wales, to show him his peril, and to exhort him to peace." "Willingly, my lord," the king replied; "but above all things be quick." The cardinal at once hastened to the English camp; he found the Black Prince in the midst of his knights ready for battle, but by no means unwilling to listen to proposals for peace.

His position was indeed most perilous.

In his face was an enormously superior army, and he was moreover threatened by famine; even during the two preceding days his army had suffered from a great scarcity of forage, and its provisions were almost wholly exhausted.

The French force was sufficiently numerous to blockade him in his camp, and he knew that did they adopt that course he must surrender unconditionally, since were he forced to sally out and attack the French no valour could compensate for the immense disparity of numbers.

He therefore replied at once to the cardinal's application, that he was ready to listen to any terms by which his honour and that of his companions would be preserved.
The cardinal returned to the King of France and with much entreaty succeeded in obtaining a truce until sunrise on the following morning.
The soldiers returned to their tents, and the cardinal rode backward and forward between the armies, beseeching the King of France to moderate his demands, and the Black Prince to submit to the evil fortune which had befallen him; but on the one side the king looked upon the victory as certain, and on the other the Black Prince thought that there was at least a hope of success should the French attack him.