Friday June 15

    Welcome to the Wannaskan Almanac for Friday.

    As I watched the royal wedding last month, I was impressed by Prince Harry's elaborate uniform. Harry and his brother William had both served in the British Army, Harry having been deployed to Afghanistan as a helicopter pilot. He said shooting insurgents was like playing video games. There's the warrior spirit!
    This reminded me how through the ages, the aristocrats have gotten, kept, or lost their patrimony with the sword. But Harry and William's experiences were nothing like those of the Black Prince who was born today in 1330.  His real name was Edward Plantagenet, son of King Edward III of England. He grew up during the Hundred Years War and took part in his first battle at the age of 15 at Crecy in France.
   The war was all about who was going to rule France, the king of England or the king of France. As you remember, England had been conquered by the Normans back in 1066. Normandy was sort of part of France back then. Borders were fluid at the time. The Normans expected to rule both England and Normandy, but weak descendants loosened England's grip and France, originally just the area around Paris, made land grabs when it could.
   But I digress. Back to Crecy and Edward's first battle. He would have practiced swordplay and jousting as a boy so his father the king gave young Edward one wing of the army for the battle. Things went badly at first and Edward's companion, an older nobleman, called for reinforcements. "No, said his father. "He needs the experience." Edward was knocked down. His companion stood over him and fought off his attackers until a more prudent leader could bring help. The English won the battle and the king gave his son a lot of the credit for the victory. Scholars think Edward was wearing black armor that day, hence the nickname, the Black Prince.
   Edward loved warfare and was a capable leader. His life was one of almost constant warfare. At age 31 he married his first cousin, which required a dispensation from the pope. The province of Aquitaine in southwest France belonged to England at the time so Edward and his bride set up court there.  Edward was a high liver and gave all the good jobs to his English friends, so the locals began to negociate with the king of France.
   King Peter of Spain was one of Edward's allies and when Peter lost his throne, Edward took his army to Spain and also loaned Peter large amounts of money to help recover his kingdom. Edward won the war in Spain, but Peter couldn't pay him back. Edward's next move should have been to attack Peter, but Edward and most of his army were sick with dysentery. Edward returned to England a broken man. His health improved somewhat in England so he set off to war in France once more. He was too weak to ride a horse and had to direct the fighting from a litter.
   The war went badly and Edward returned to England in time to die at the age of 45. His father died the next year and Edward's ten year old son was crowned Richard II. Richard's life ended badly too, but that's another story.

    In honor of Prince Harry's latest deployment, here's a poem about marriage.

The wedding day blast off!

And it's noise,

Excitement, drinks!

Till cruising altitude,

When it's cloud, turbulence,

Kids tumbling out of bins.

Bloody stowaways!

We've seen all these movies,

The food is expensive,

The laptop's gone dead.

Longueurs of ennui.

Where are we, anyway?

Does it matter my dear,

as long as we're here.

                                       - Chairman Joe

Medieval video games.

Come back Sunday for more squibs from @jmcdonnell123