Cultural depictions of the Black Prince

Edward the Black Prince has been depicted in art, film, literature, plays and games.

Plays

Edward the Black Prince features prominently as a character in Edward III, a sixteenth-century play possibly partly attributable to William Shakespeare.

Edward is referred to in Shakespeare's Richard II and Henry V.

Clipper ship Black Prince

Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery devoted his 1667 play The Black Prince to Edward.

Novels

• I Serve: A Novel of the Black Prince by Rosanne E. Lortz (2009)
• Edward makes appearances in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's historical novels The White Company and Sir Nigel
• The character Pyle in Graham Greene's novel The Quiet American has a dog named Prince after The Black Prince. Fowler says to him, "the one who massacred all the women and children in Limoges".
• Edward and Joan are supporting characters in The Lady Royal, by Molly Costain Haycraft, a fictional accounting of the life of Edward's sister Isabella.
• Edward and Joan also appear in supporting roles in Anya Seton's 1954 novel Katherine, about Edward's brother John's romance with Katherine Swynford.
• Edward and Joan are major characters in Karen Harper's The First Princess of Wales.
• Edward appears in the Gordon R. Dickson novel The Dragon Knight, and also with Joan in Dickson's novel The Dragon and the Fair Maid of Kent.
• Edward appears as a participant in the Crécy campaign in Bernard Cornwell's novel Harlequin (published in the U.S. as The Archer's Tale). He also features in the sequel "1356".
• The character of Robert Godwin in Susan Howatch's historical novel The Wheel of Fortune is based on Edward.
• Edward plays an important role in two novels by Rebecca Gablé, a German writer of historical fiction (as child in Der König der purpurnen Stadt, as an adult in Das Lächeln der Fortuna).
• Edward makes an appearance in the novel By Right of Arms, by Robyn Carr, as a supporter and friend of the main character.
• The dying Black Prince and his Berkhampstead court provide most of the background for Christabel R. Coleridge's 1896 juvenile novel Minstrel Dick. A Tale of the XIVth Century.
• Edward appears as the Prince of Wales in World Without End, by Ken Follett, during the battle of Crecy, where he is rescued by one of the main characters, Ralph FitzGerald (later Earl of Shiring).
• Edward and Canterbury Cathedral are mentioned in Chapter 52 of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens: "Yet the bells, when they sounded, told me sorrowfully of change in everything; told me of their own age, and my pretty Dora's youth; and of the many, never old, who had lived and loved and died, while the reverberations of the bells had hummed through the rusty armour of the Black Prince hanging up within, and, motes upon the deep of Time, had lost themselves in air, as circles do in water."
• Anthony Burgess claimed in a 1972 interview to have written a plan for a novel about the Black Prince which would incorporate John Dos Passos' narrative techniques: however, the actual novel remains unwritten and/or unplublished.^[1]
• Iris Murdoch published the novel The Black Prince in 1973, though her title in fact alludes to Hamlet.
• Edward The Black Prince appears in the novels of Thea Beckman, Give Me Space (1976), Triumph of Scorched Earth (1977) and Wheel of Fortune (1978)
• The Black Prince was mentioned in the 1927 short novel The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by H.P. Lovecraft, in which it implies there existed unknown darker secret on the reason of the Siege of Limoges.
• Edward is an antagonistic character in Emma Campion's 2014 novel, A Triple Knot. He is portrayed as rude, uncouth, and even somewhat sadistic in his pursuit of his cousin, Joan.

Art

The statue of Edward the Black Prince in Leeds City Square

• A large 1903 equestrian sculpture of the Prince by Thomas Brock can be seen in Leeds City Square. It was a gift from Colonel Thomas Walter Harding, Lord Mayor of Leeds between 1898 and 1899. The choice was probably also a tribute to the future Edward VII, then Prince of Wales, who opened Leeds Infirmary in 1867 and the Yorkshire College buildings (now the University of Leeds) in 1885. The statue is the centrepiece of an array of statues in the square, including more local people such as Joseph Priestley.
• "The Black Prince at Crecy" by Julian Russell Story is a very large and detailed painting of Edward, in black armor, standing after a battle above vanquished enemy King John of Bohemia. The painting is on permanent display at the Telfair Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia.

Films

• Edward, Prince of Wales is the main role played by Errol Flynn in The Dark Avenger (1955). The film was also known as The Warriors in the USA, and The Black Prince in the UK although the latter seems to have been a working title. In Greece it was aired on TV as The Black Knight.
• Edward, The Black Prince of Wales, was portrayed by James Purefoy in the 2001 film A Knight's Tale. Though never intended to be historically accurate, the film puts an oddly credible spin on Edward. He is portrayed as a benevolent prince who enjoys sneaking into jousting tournaments to compete anonymously. He is portrayed as kind to the protagonist, who impersonates a knight to compete in tournaments, helpfully knighting the protagonist when he is exposed as a peasant. Ironically, appearing incognito in tournaments was not uncommon, taking its inspiration from chivalric romances. In fact, the real Prince Edward's father, Edward III, competed in tournaments disguised in the arms of other English knights.^[2]
• English SS volunteers in the 1965 alternate history film It Happened Here are part of the Black Prince Division as seen briefly on their cuff titles at the end of the film when being massacred after surrendering.

Comics

• Edward the Black Prince features as a character in the 2007 Graphic Novel Crécy,by Warren Ellis and Raulo Cáceres; an adaptation of the events of the Battle of Crécy.

Games

• Edward is portrayed in the 2007 PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 video game Bladestorm: The Hundred Years' War by Koei. Within this video game, he is seen as the inspirational commander of English forces, aspiring to conquer France for his father, though remaining compassionate to the feelings of the French peasantry, knowing that they would be his people upon success in France.
• Edward appears under the name of Black Prince in the game Empire Earth in the English campaign in the fourth and fifth scenario.
• Edward is also a key military commander in Medieval: Total War.
• A British cavalier named The Black Prince appeared in Age of Empires II map editor and is one of the random names for the Britons' commander in random map games.
• In the game "Madness: Project Nexus" The Black Prince is referenced when clicking on the Iron Sword and reading its description.

References

1. Interviewed by John Cullinan (2 December 1972). "The Art of Fiction No. 48, Anthony Burgess". Paris Review. Retrieved 19 September 2012.
2. Judith Barker: The Tournament in England, 1100-1400 (Woodbridge, Boydell 1986), p. 86.