INTRODrCTION 5 



stands the ruined keep of their ancestral stron.t^liold of Sault, 

 twice styled l^y Froissart 'a strong and good castle.' Here 

 dwelt Sir Peter Arnald de Brocas, foully slain at Bayonne 

 during truce by Earl Simon de Montfort, and here, during 

 many years of incessant border forays, the de Brocas showed 

 with other loyal Gascons their gallant devotion to their 

 ' Eoy Outremer,' by holding their fortress as a bulwark of 

 the English rule in Gascony against the ceaseless attacks of 

 their turbulent neighbours the Vicomtes de Beam, to whose 

 castle of Orthez the road still runs due south across the old 

 border line. Wild tales of flight and hot pursuit, of desperate 

 rally and midnight foray, could that old highway tell in the 

 days when Enghsh and French knights, hard-riding Gascon 

 borderers and swaggering Free Companions, mustered under 

 the rival royal standards and the banners of de Montfort, 

 de Beam and d'Albret, while from the keep above floated 

 the sable pennon of de Brocas. Strangely must old memories 

 have been stirred when along the same road in later days, 

 after the stubborn fight at Orthez, British squadrons pur- 

 sued the flying French and Wellington received his only 

 wound. Euined at length by their loyalty to the English 

 cause during the disasters of Edward II. 's latter years, the 

 children of Arnald de Brocas, ' lately slain in the King's 

 service in Scotland,' possibly at Bannockburn, were taken 

 into the royal household and brought up at the English 

 Court. As no less than three of these young Gascon officers 

 of the King became Masters of the Horse, and by their length 

 of service proved their aptness for the appointment, there 

 are sufficient entries under the name of ' de Brocas ' in the 

 Kecord Office to supply almost a history of Edward III.-'s 

 equestrian organisation. Space only permits the mention of 

 certain facts illustrative of the experience in this matter of 

 the family which had charge for so long a period of the royal 

 hunting establishment. 



