Edward the Black Prince black Prince". Raphael Holinshed uses it several times in his "Chronicles" (1577); and it is also used by William Shakespeare, in his plays "Richard II" (written "c".1595; Act 2, scene 3) and "Henry V" ("c".1599; Act 2, scene 4). In 1688 it appears prominently in the title of Joshua Barnes's "The History of that Most Victorious Monarch, Edward IIId, King of England and France, and Lord of Ireland, and First Founder of the Most Noble Order of the Garter: Being a Full and Exact Account Of the Life and Death of the said King: Together with That of his Most
John of Gaunt scale and organisation to that of a monarch. He owned land in almost every county in England, a patrimony that produced a net income of between £8,000 and £10,000 a year. After the death in 1376 of his older brother Edward of Woodstock (also known as the "Black Prince"), John of Gaunt contrived to protect the religious reformer John Wycliffe, possibly to counteract the growing secular power of the church. However, John's ascendancy to political power coincided with widespread resentment of his influence. At a time when English forces encountered setbacks in the Hundred Years' War against France, and Edward