 Though the English rally and sorely press the Bretons, by an underhand act, one of the Breton squires mounts his horse, when the conflict was supposed to be on foot, and rides upon the English crushing them.This incident is a thinly veiled account of the famed Combat of the Thirty of March 1351, which is of importance in Breton history and in the annals of chivalry, as being an exemplary passage of arms.Sir Robert Knolles, who is held to have participated in the fictional jousts in "Sir Nigel", was also one of the original thirty combatants.