Edward the Black Prince of Cornwall in 1337. He was guardian of the kingdom in his father's absence in 1338, 1340, and 1342. He was created Prince of Wales in 1343 and knighted by his father at La Hogne in 1346. In 1346 Prince Edward commanded the vanguard at the Battle of Crécy, his father intentionally leaving him to win the battle. He took part in Edward III's 1349 Calais expedition. In 1355 he was appointed the king's lieutenant in Gascony, and ordered to lead an army into Aquitaine on a chevauchée, during which he pillaged Avignonet and Castelnaudary, sacked Carcassonne, and plundered Narbonne.
Edward the Black Prince he was taking into his pay. While his army was assembling he remained at Angoulême, and was there visited by Peter. He then stayed over Christmas at Bordeaux, for his wife, Joan, was there brought to bed of her second son Richard (the next king of England). The Black Prince left Bordeaux early in February 1367, and joined his army at Dax, where he remained three days, and received a reinforcement of four hundred men-at-arms and four hundred archers sent out by his father under his brother John, duke of Lancaster. From Dax the prince advanced via Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port through Roncesvalles