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 in demolishing a large piece of wall which filled the ditches with its ruins. The town was then stormed, with the inevitable destruction and loss of life. The Victorian historian, William Hunt and author of the Black Prince's biography in the "Dictionary of National Biography" (1889) relying on Froissart as a source wrote that when the bishop (who was the most responsible for the surrender) was brought before the Prince, the Prince told him that his head should be cut off (Lancaster persuaded him not to carry out the deed), but that the city was never the less pillaged and