When Royals Go To War

You can't turn on a television or pick up a newspaper in Britain today without getting more details of Prince Harry's deployment to Afghanistan. The latest: the Prince appears to be heading home, after all the media exposure.

It was pretty much inevitable that he was going to see action somewhere. The tradition of English royal princes proving themselves in war goes back to Crecy in 1346 when Edward III's son (also Edward, and known as the Black Prince to avoid confusion) was hard pressed at the height of the battle. According to the Chronicles of Froissartwritten in 1523, the king ordered his son should fight on without extra assistance:

*Then the second battle [= battalion] of the Englishmen came to succor the prince's battle, the which was time, for they had as then much ado and they with the prince sent a messenger to the king, who was on a little windmill hill. *

*Then the knight said to the king: "Sir, the earl of Warwick and the earl of Oxford, sir Raynold Cobham and other, such as be about the prince your son, are fiercely fought withal and are sore handled; wherefore they desire you that you and your battle will come and aid them; for if the Frenchmen increase, as they doubt they will, your son and they shall have much ado." *

*Then the king said: "Is my son dead or hurt or on the earth felled?" "No, sir," quoth the knight, "but he is hardly matched; wherefore he hath need of your aid." *

*"Well," said the king, "return to him and to them that sent you hither, and say to them that they send no more to me for any adventure that falleth, as long as my son is alive: and also say to them that they suffer him this day to win his spurs; for if God be pleased, I will this journey be his and the honour thereof, and to them that be about him." *

**
These days the king's words are normally condensed into the phrase "Let the boy win his spurs". Winning spurs was synonymous with proving yourself worthy of knighthood. Six hundred years on, and it seems the custom still holds and that Prince Harry had to undergo his own ordeal by combat to maintain respect.

This may be the 21st century, but the battlefield of lasers, robots and satellites still seems to be shared by knights and princes. Is this an honorable tradition, or just a weird anachronism?