Edward the Black Prince the party of Montfort, and Chandos won the Battle of Auray (29 September 1364) against the French. As the leaders of the free companies which desolated France were for the most part Englishmen or Gascons, they did not ravage Aquitaine, and the prince was suspected, probably not without cause, of encouraging, or at least of taking no pains to discourage, their proceedings. Accordingly on 14 November 1364 Edward III called upon him to restrain their ravages. In 1365 the free companies, under Sir Hugh Calveley and other leaders, took service with Bertrand du Guesclin, who employed them in 1366 in
Edmund of Woodstock, 1st Earl of Kent he had two children: Thomas (b. 1300) and, when the king was sixty-two, Edmund. Edmund was born at Woodstock in Oxfordshire on 5 August 1301, and was therefore referred to as Edmund of Woodstock. Son of the English king, he was also, through his mother, grandson of Philip III of France. On 7 July 1307, before Edmund had turned six, King Edward I died, leaving Edmund's half-brother Edward to succeed as King Edward II. Though not resident in the two boys' household, Edward I had taken great interest in the princes' upbringing and well-being. Before he died, the king had