Vigour'thè greater part were ether-lain or Cap-tured; • B/ thefe the prince learnt, that the king of France had marched forward, and that be could not return, without fighting him. Upon:which, hë colleBed. all the firaggiers, and ordered that no one, under, pain of death, fhould advance or fkirmifh before the battalion of the iq£rfhais. They marched 01* this Saturday* from about nine o'clock.until vef-pers, when they came within tWo fifiall .leagues of Poitiers. . ' \ • •' • - '• The captai de Buch*, fir.Ha^ménon de Pointer^ fir Bartholomew Burgher lh and fir Euftace .d'Am*. breticourt were ordered to advance, and obfejrve where the French were encamped. Thefe knights, • with two hundred men well armed and mounted on their befl jteeds, fet out, ' and foon perceived the French king's army/ AU the plain was covered with men at arms ; and thefe Englifh could not refrain from attacking the rear * The Captai de Such: The title of captai had anciently been affected by fome of the moft pluftrious lords of Aquitaine. , It feems that it was originally equivalent to the title of count, and" marked even a fuperiority, as the word capitalis announces, prin-cipal chief. This dignity, at iri perfonal, as well as all the othereé became* in length of time, attached to particular families, rinà ta tbe eftates o£ which they were poffeifed. In the time of the firft dukes of Aquitaine, there were feveral capitals; but this title* perhaps by neglect, was replaced by others, fo' that, towards ' the fourteenth century, there were no 'more than two captais ac-knowledged, that of Buch and that of Fmnc—Vide GloC dti Cange, ad. verb* Capitalis. .Vol,. II. ' . X of