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While adopting the knightly apprenticeship pattern of the earlier novel, “Sir Nigel” is faster paced, with fewer tableaux-like descriptions and a host of models for its young hero, including wise Chandos, the indomitable French champion Bertrand du Guesclin and the ultrarational commando Sir Robert Knolles.

Peter was tempted out by du Guesclin, and the half brothers met in the Frenchman’s tent.

And so it turned out; for, when the Black Prince had left Spain, Henry came back with a body of French soldiers of fortune under du Guesclin, and drove his brother into the castle of Montiel in La Mancha.

The celebrated "Captain of the Companies," the famous du Guesclin, the saviour of France in the reign of his father, had paid the debt of nature many years before, and reposed there among the mortal remains of those whose throne he had guarded so well.

The astonishment of the guests was extreme, when it appeared that the exhumation and reinterment of du Guesclin formed part of the programme of the revels.