Edward's reputation for brutality in France is also well documented, and it is possible that this is where the title had its origins. The French soldier Philippe de Mézières refers to Edward as the greatest of the "black boars" – those aggressors who had done so much to disrupt relations within Christendom. Other French writers made similar associations, and Peter Hoskins reports that an oral tradition of "L'Homme Noir", who had passed by with an army, survived in southern France until recent years. In Shakespeare's "Henry V", the King of France alludes to "that black name, Edward, Black Prince of Wales". John Speed reported in 1611 that the Black Prince was so named "not of his colour, but of his dreaded Acts in battell"; a comment echoed in 1642 by Thomas Fuller, who wrote that he was named "from his dreaded acts and not from his complexion". Joshua Barnes claimed in 1688 that it was from the time of the Battle of Crécy that "the "French" began to call "Le Neoir", or the "Black-Prince"", appearing to cite a record of 2 Richard II (i.e. 1378–9); but his reference is insufficiently precise to be traceable. However, it is unclear how a French sobriquet might have crossed to England, and Barber finds this derivation of the name "unlikely".