the King of Navarre faked his own capture during a hunt in collusion with captain Olivier de Mauny, cousin of Bertrand Du Guesclin, the Lieutenant of Henry's army. When Henry heard of the entrance of the Black Prince's army to the peninsula he enlisted all the troops he could and sent Bertrand Du Guesclin immediately from Zaragoza back to Castile with his best captains, although most of their forces had to stand to protect Aragon from the Black Prince's army. No more than 1,000 French men-at-arms reinforced Henry's army along with some Aragonese nobles. From the mountains, Biscay, Gipuzkoa and Asturias came footsoldiers but they did not participate in the battle. Army strength The commonly accepted version among historians is the version of the chronicles of Pedro Lopez de Ayala in which the army of Peter, supported by the Black Prince, consisted of more than 10,000 men, most of them the best mercenaries that could be found in Europe, and the army of Henry had 4,500 men of which 1,000 were elite mercenaries from France. Another source is the unreliable chronicle of Jean Froissart, known for his Anglophilia, whose data should not be taken too seriously in this battle, because he was not even in Spain at that time. According to Froissart, the Castilian-French army had 76,000 men. Some British historians have raised the numbers to 86,000 men. According to Froissart the Anglo-Castilian army had 24,000 men. Previous encounters During March, despite his huge disadvantages, Henry had great success using guerrilla tactics and skirmishing against the army of the Black Prince. Castilian troops had great offensive power and greater mobility thanks to their lighter armament, something that made them ideal for this type of action, unlike the slow and heavily armored army of Peter, composed mainly of heavy infantry and heavy cavalry. He was an experienced soldier, having fought in France as a great company commander against the English and knew that the best military strategy to take on the huge army of the Black Prince, was the wear it down with the harsh Castilian lands, hunger and the skirmishes. These were also the recommendations of the King of France and of Bertrand du Guesclin. The light cavalry was an old tradition in Castilian military systems and was designed for the frequent skirmishes with the Moors, even though the idea had been abandoned by other European armies of that time.