Joan of Arc

by Helen Castor

  For Charles VI’s death and funeral: Journal, pp. 177–80 (trans. Parisian Journal, pp. 179–82); Chronique du religieux, VI, pp. 486–99.

  Henry feared and Charles loved: see, for example, Chronique du religieux, VI, pp. 480–3, 486–7.

  For the duke of Gloucester as protector in England, see R. A. Griffiths, The Reign of King Henry VI (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1981), pp. 19–24, 28–9.

  For Bedford as regent in France, and popular disquiet at that development and Burgundy’s absence from Paris, see Journal, p. 180 (trans. Parisian Journal, p. 183); Juvénal des Ursins in Buchon (ed.), Choix de chroniques, p. 572. For the sword Joyeuse, and the possibility that Bedford also took the oriflamme, see G. Thompson, ‘“Monseigneur Saint Denis”, His Abbey, and His Town, under English Occupation, 1420–1436’, in C. Allmand (ed.), Power, Culture and Religion in France, c.1350–c.1550 (Woodbridge, 1989), p. 26.

  For the duke of Burgundy at Henry and Catherine’s wedding in black velvet, see Wylie and Waugh, Reign of Henry V, III, pp. 206, 224–5. For Burgundian interests and priorities in these years, see Vaughan, Philip the Good, pp. 6–8, 16–17, 27–8, 31–5; ‘in the service of the king of France’, p. 17.

  For Anne of Burgundy and the treaty of Amiens, see Vaughan, Philip the Good, p. 9. For the new duchess going everywhere with Bedford, see Journal, pp. 200, 230 (trans. Parisian Journal, pp. 201, 227). The comment that Anne and her sisters were as ‘plain as owls’ (‘laides comme des chouettes’) is quoted by Ernest Petit from unnamed manuscripts, including accounts and receipts of judicial fines, to demonstrate the unpopularity of John the Fearless and his family in Burgundy itself; it is possible, therefore, that this may not have been a universal or objective view of Anne’s appearance: E. Petit, ‘Les Tonnerrois sous Charles VI et la Bourgogne sous Jean Sans Peur (épisodes inédits de la Guerre de Cent Ans)’, Bulletin de la Société des Sciences Historiques et Naturelles de l’Yonne, xlv (1891), p. 314. Anne’s sister Margaret had previously been married to the dauphin’s elder brother, Louis of Guienne: see above, p. 25. For Richemont, see below, pp. 67–8.

  For Armagnac praise of Henry V and the story of St Fiacre, see Juvénal des Ursins in Buchon (ed.), Choix de chroniques, p. 571, adapted and adopted from the less partisan Chronique du religieux, VI, pp. 480–3. The Scottish chronicler Walter Bower had no hesitation in dubbing the Irish St Fiacre a Scot, and putting into the dying king’s mouth an acknowledgement of his sin: ‘Wherever I pursue the Scots alive or dead’, Bower’s Henry observes grimly, ‘I find them in my beard …’: Bower, Scotichronicon, VIII, pp. 122–3, 205n.

  For the dauphin’s piety, see Vale, Charles VII, p. 43, and for his enduring interest in astrology, pp. 43–4; also Beaucourt, Charles VII, VI, pp. 399–400.

  For Germain de Thibouville, see Le ‘Recueil des plus célèbres astrologues’ de Simon de Phares, ed. J.-P. Boudet, I (Paris, 1997), pp. 552–3. Beaucourt (Charles VII, I, pp. 222–3) mistakenly says that it was John Stewart of Darnley, not the earl of Buchan, who was given his services.

  For Charles calling himself king of France at the beginning of 1423, see Journal, p. 183 (trans. Parisian Journal, p. 185); and for the proclamation of his title at Mehun-sur-Yèvre, see Beaucourt, Charles VII, II, p. 55.

  For the territories controlled by Charles in 1423, and the isolated Armagnac garrisons in Champagne, see Beaucourt, Charles VII, II, pp. 8–9.

  For the accident at La Rochelle, see Beaucourt, Charles VII, I, pp. 240–1, and for the grant to Mont-Saint-Michel in April 1423 with explicit reference to the incident, see S. Luce, Jeanne d’Arc à Domrémy: Recherches critiques sur les origines de la mission de la Pucelle (Paris, 1886), pp. 87–93.

  For the white cross as the badge of the kings of France (at least from the fourteenth century), see P. Contamine, Guerre, état et société à la fin du Moyen Age: Etudes sur les armées des rois de France, 1337–1494 (Paris, 1972), pp. 668–9.

  For St Michael adopted as patron saint by Charles, in opposition to St George of England, and the white cross as his emblem, see Beaune, Birth of an Ideology, pp. 163–6.

  The battle of Cravant, and Charles’s attempt to play it down: Beaucourt, Charles VII, II, p. 58, and the full text of the king’s letter in Beaucourt, Charles VII, III, pp. 493–4; B. G. H. Ditcham, ‘“Mutton-Guzzlers and Wine Bags”: Foreign Soldiers and Native Reactions in Fifteenth-Century France’, in Allmand (ed.), Power, Culture and Religion, p. 1; Vale, Charles VII, p. 33. Unsurprisingly, there is a great deal of historiographical confusion between John Stewart, earl of Buchan, the constable of France, and John Stewart of Darnley (starting with Monstrelet, Chronique, IV, pp. 161–2). It was Buchan who was the constable, and not at Cravant; Darnley who was at Cravant, and who lost an eye and his liberty.

  Buchan and Wigtown’s journey to Scotland: Beaucourt, Charles VII, II, pp. 59–60; Chevalier, ‘Les Écossais’, p. 88.

  Charles’s letter to Tournai about Buchan’s return: Beaucourt, Charles VII, II, pp. 59–60.

  Letter announcing the birth of the dauphin Louis: Beaucourt, Charles VII, II, p. 60.

  For the Scots arriving in France, and discussion of their numbers, see Chevalier, ‘Les Écossais’, p. 88; Beaucourt, Charles VII, II, p. 63. For the earl of Douglas’s military past, see M. H. Brown, ‘Douglas, Archibald, fourth earl of Douglas, and duke of Touraine in the French nobility (c.1369–1424)’, ODNB; M. Brown, The Black Douglases: War and Lordship in Late Medieval Scotland, 1300–1455 (Edinburgh, 1998), pp. 105–6; W. Fraser, The Douglas Book (Edinburgh, 1885), pp. 368, 372–3. For Douglas in France, and his treatment of Tours, see Brown, The Black Douglases, pp. 220–2; Chevalier, ‘Les Écossais’, p. 91.

  For the decision that Charles should not take part in the campaign, see Beaucourt, Charles VII, II, pp. 70–1, and for Aumâle’s previous success in Normandy, pp. 58–9. For all other details of the Armagnac army, the road to Verneuil and the battle itself, see M. K. Jones, ‘The Battle of Verneuil (17 August 1424): Towards a History of Courage’, in War in History, 9 (2002), pp. 375–411.

  For the observation that no one could tell who was winning, see Journal, pp. 197–8 (trans. Parisian Journal, p. 198).

  The Burgundian chronicler with the English army was Jean Waurin, who noted the significance of Bedford’s robe at Ivry: J. de Waurin, Anchiennes cronicques d’Engleterre, ed. E. Dupont, 3 vols (Paris, 1858–63), I, p. 255, and for Bedford’s prowess, p. 267 (translated in J. de Waurin, A Collection of the Chronicles and Ancient Histories of Great Britain, now called England, from AD 1422 to AD 1431, trans. E. L. C. P. Hardy (London, 1891), pp. 68, 76–7).

  For Bedford’s return to Paris and the year’s vintage, see Journal, p. 200 (trans. Parisian Journal, p. 201).

  For the burial of the earls of Douglas and Buchan, and the blockade of the Scots garrison at Tours, see Bower, Scotichronicon, VIII, pp. 126–7; Ditcham, ‘“Mutton Guzzlers and Wine Bags”’, pp. 6–7; Brown, The Black Douglases, p. 223.

  3: DESOLATE AND DIVIDED

  For the dukes of Bedford and Burgundy in Paris in the autumn and winter of 1424, and Burgundy’s return to ‘his own country’, see Journal, pp. 201–2 (trans. Parisian Journal, pp. 202–3); also Monstrelet, Chronique, IV, pp. 208–9; Beaucourt, Charles VII, II, pp. 364.

  For Philip of Burgundy’s appearance, and his badge, see Vaughan, Philip the Good, pp. 127, 143.

  ‘a city which had loved him so well’: Journal, p. 165 (trans. Parisian Journal, p. 168).

  Fines for calling the dauphin ‘king’ or the Armagnacs ‘French’: B. J. H. Rowe, ‘Discipline in the Norman Garrisons under Bedford, 1422–35’, English Historical Review, 46 (1931), p. 205; Barker, Conquest, p. 74. Repeat offenders, Bedford said, could expect to have their tongues pierced, their foreheads branded and, if they still persisted, all their possessions confiscated. English France also included the duchy of Gascony in the south-west, which had been in English hands (albeit now in reduced size) since the twelfth century.

  For Charles’s various pronouncements on h
is forthcoming victory in 1423–4, see Beaucourt, Charles VII, II, pp. 58–64.

  ‘At that time the English …’: Journal, p. 190 (trans. Parisian Journal, p. 191).

  For Gloucester and Jacqueline, see G. L. Harriss, ‘Humphrey, duke of Gloucester (1390–1447)’, ODNB, and M. Atkins, ‘Jacqueline, suo jure countess of Hainault, suo jure countess of Holland, and suo jure countess of Zeeland (1401–1436)’, ODNB; and for the course of events in the Low Countries, Vaughan, Philip the Good, pp. 34–7.

  For diplomatic exchanges between Bourges and Dijon in 1424, see Vaughan, Philip the Good, p. 20; Beaucourt, Charles VII, II, pp. 357–8.

  For Bedford and the Burgundians at Verneuil, see Jones, ‘The Battle of Verneuil’, pp. 403–5.

  For the text of the truce of September 1424, see U. Plancher, Histoire générale et particulière de Bourgogne, 4 vols (Dijon, 1739–81), IV, pp. xliv–xlv.

  For the conflict between Gloucester and Burgundy, see Vaughan, Philip the Good, pp. 37–9. Burgundy’s challenge to Gloucester, and Gloucester’s acceptance, can be found in Monstrelet, Chronique, IV, pp. 216–22. For the description of Philip’s preparations by Jean Le Févre, the duke’s herald, see Le Févre, Chronique, II, pp. 106–7; for an extract from the accounts detailing Philip of Burgundy’s expenditure, see L. de Laborde, Les Ducs de Bourgogne, 3 vols (Paris, 1849–52), I, pp. 201–4.

  For Jacqueline’s capture and escape, and the following war, see Vaughan, Philip the Good, pp. 39–42 and ff.

  The dukes of Brittany did sometimes hold the earldom of Richmond, in the sense of the lands in England, but their use of the title – however contested it might be by the English – did not depend on the possession of those estates. For Richemont at Agincourt, see G. Gruel, Chronique d’Arthur de Richemont, ed. A. le Vavasseur (Paris, 1890), p. 18. For all other details here, see E. Cosneau, Le Connétable de Richemont, Artur de Bretagne, 1393–1458 (Paris, 1886), pp. 1–74.

  For Richemont’s rapprochement with the Armagnacs, see Cosneau, Connétable, pp. 84–92; Beaucourt, Charles VII, II, pp. 77–87.

  For Yolande, her family and her plans, see G. de Senneville, Yolande d’Aragon: La Reine qui a gagné la Guerre de Cent Ans (Paris, 2008), esp. pp. 67–70, 104–10, 123, 127–43.

  Yolande’s private correspondence with Philip of Burgundy: Beaucourt, Charles VII, II, p. 353.

  Yolande’s return from Provence and visits to Brittany in 1424–5: Beaucourt, Charles VII, II, pp. 61, 64, 71–3, 352–3; Senneville, Yolande, pp. 172–9.

  For the removal from the Armagnac court of Louvet and du Châtel, see Beaucourt, Charles VII, II, pp. 84–104.

  ‘the good advice and counsel of our dearest and most beloved mother’: Cosneau, Connétable, p. 508.

  For the schism, see A. Black, ‘Popes and Councils’, in C. Allmand (ed.), The New Cambridge Medieval History, Volume VII c.1415–c.1500 (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 65–9.

  For Marie Robine, see M. Tobin, ‘Le Livre des révélations de Marie Robine (+1399): Étude et édition’, in Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome, Moyen-Age, Temps Modernes, 98 (1986), pp. 229–64; A. Vauchez, ‘Jeanne d’Arc et le prophétisme féminin des XIVe et XVe siècles’, in Jeanne d’Arc: Une époque, un rayonnement, pp. 163–4; R. Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Poets, Saints and Visionaries of the Great Schism (Pennsylvania State University, 2006), pp. 81–6, and for the young cardinal Pierre de Luxembourg, pp. 75–8. Marie Robine made her journey to Avignon after the death of Pierre de Luxembourg in July 1387 and before the death of Pope Urban IV in October 1389, so 1388 is the most likely date.

  For Jeanne-Marie de Maillé, see Vauchez, ‘Jeanne d’Arc et le prophétisme féminin’, pp. 162–3; Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Poets, Saints and Visionaries, pp. 91–3.

  For the Armagnac call to arms, and Yolande and the royal council’s financial retrenchment, see Beaucourt, Charles VII, II, pp. 121–3.

  For grants to Darnley, see Vale, Charles VII, p. 33; Beaucourt, Charles VII, II, p. 131, and III, p. 511.

  For Bedford’s return to England, and his lieutenants in France, see Barker, Conquest, pp. 87–8.

  For difficulties getting rid of Jean Louvet, see Beaucourt, Charles VII, II, pp. 90–101.

  For Pierre de Giac, see Beaucourt, Charles VII, II, pp. 103, 123–5, 132–7 (with Richemont’s letter pp. 134–5). Guillaume Gruel says that Giac was removed by the advice of Yolande of Aragon: Gruel, Chronique d’Arthur de Richemont, p. 48.

  For Le Camus de Beaulieu, see Beaucourt, Charles VII, II, pp. 140–2.

  For La Trémoille, see Beaucourt, Charles VII, II, pp. 142–6.

  Yolande leaving court: Beaucourt, Charles VII, II, p. 146.

  The battle of the blind, the greasy pole and the Danse Macabre: Journal, pp. 203–5 (trans. Parisian Journal, pp. 204–6, and for the etymology of the name ‘Danse Macabre’, p. 204n).

  Bedford’s return to Paris and dreadful weather in the spring of 1427: Journal, pp. 213–14 (trans. Parisian Journal, pp. 212–13).

  For the Anglo-Breton treaty and the fighting at Montargis and Sainte-Suzanne, see Barker, Conquest, p. 89; Beaucourt, Charles VII, II, pp. 28–9, 389; J. Chartier, Chronique de Charles VII, ed. V. de Viriville, 3 vols (Paris, 1858), I, pp. 54–6.

  Richemont’s rebellion and Charles’s response: Beaucourt, Charles VII, II, pp. 149–73.

  For the campaign that led to the siege of Orléans, see Barker, Conquest, pp. 96–8; M. K. Jones, ‘“Gardez mon corps, sauvez ma terre” – Immunity from War and the Lands of a Captive Knight: The Siege of Orléans (1428–29) Revisited’, in M.-J. Arn (ed.), Charles d’Orléans in England (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 9–26.

  ‘a thorough soldier …’: Journal, p. 212 (trans. Parisian Journal, p. 211).

  For the topography and defences of Orléans, see K. DeVries, Joan of Arc: A Military Leader (Stroud, 1999, new edn 2011), pp. 27, 54–5.

  Salisbury’s report of the campaign, in a letter to the mayor and aldermen of London, 5 September 1428: J. Delpit (ed.), Collection générale des documents français, I (Paris, 1847), pp. 236–7.

  For the English bombardment and Salisbury’s death, see the ‘Journal du siège d’Orléans’ in Quicherat, Procès, IV, pp. 96–100; Monstrelet, Chronique, IV, pp. 298–300; Bower, Scotichronicon, VIII, pp. 128–9; K. DeVries, ‘Military Surgical Practice and the Advent of Gunpowder Weaponry’, Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, 7 (1990), pp. 136, 139.

  For Suffolk strengthening the blockade, see DeVries, Joan of Arc: A Military Leader, pp. 56–7; and for reinforcements under Scales and Talbot, ‘Journal du siège’ in Quicherat, Procès, IV, p. 103.

  ‘believing that, if it were lost …’: Monstrelet, Chronique, IV, p. 301.

  Charles’s response to the siege, and the petition of the estates-general: Beaucourt, Charles VII, II, pp. 170–5.

  The duke of Burgundy’s visit to Paris: Journal, p. 225 (trans. Parisian Journal, p. 222). For Burgundy’s concerns in the Low Countries, see Vaughan, Philip the Good, pp. 48–9.

  For the duke of Alençon and Yolande at Chinon, see Beaucourt, Charles VII, II, p. 170, and for Richemont at Parthenay, see Gruel, Chronique d’Arthur de Richemont, pp. 66–7.

  ‘too long and boring’: Monstrelet, Chronique, IV, p. 301.

  For details of the Battle of the Herrings, see S. Cooper, The Real Falstaff: Sir John Fastolf and the Hundred Years’ War (Barnsley, 2010), pp. 53–6 (including his identification of the battle site as Rouvray-Sainte-Croix rather than Rouvray-Saint-Denis); Monstrelet, Chronique, IV, pp. 310–14; Journal, pp. 230–3 (trans. Parisian Journal, pp. 227–9).

  ‘if a hair of them escaped …’: Journal, pp. 231–2 (trans. Parisian Journal, p. 228).

  ‘How dreadful it is …’: Journal, p. 233 (trans. Parisian Journal, p. 229).

  For the injury to the Bastard of Orléans, and the other survivors, see ‘Journal du siège’ in Quicherat, Procès, IV, p. 124.

  For the king’s fortunes going from bad to worse, see Monstrelet, Chronique, IV, pp. 310, 313.

  For the possibili
ty that the king might flee to Scotland or Castile, or retreat to the Dauphiné, and the debate about tactics, see Beaucourt, Charles VII, II, pp. 175–6. It has sometimes been suggested that the later reporting of these rumours is after-the-fact exaggeration to emphasise the significance of God’s intervention at Orléans, but it is clear both that the loss of the town would have been a major blow to the Armagnac position and that contemporaries believed the king to be under serious threat. See, for example, the letter sent on 10 May 1429 from Bruges by the Italian merchant Pancrazio Giustiniani to his father in Venice, in which he says that, if the English were to take Orléans, they would easily make themselves lords of France, and that Charles would be reduced to begging for his bread: A. Morosini, Chronique: Extraits relatifs à l’histoire de France, ed. and trans. G. Lefèvre-Pontalis and L. Dorez, 4 vols (Paris, 1898–1902), III, pp. 16–17.

  ‘that the persecutions of war, death and famine …’: from an anonymous Flemish chronicle, in J.-J. de Smet (ed.), Recueil des chroniques de Flandre, III (Brussels, 1856), p. 405.

  The date of Joan’s arrival at Chinon is not completely certain. According to the testimony in 1456 of Jean de Metz and Bertrand de Poulengy, who accompanied her, the journey took eleven days, and the most specific statement – that of Jean de Metz – suggests that they set off ‘around the first Sunday in Lent’, which in 1429 was 13 February. An eleven-day journey beginning on that Sunday would have brought them to Chinon on 23 February, which is the date given by the relatively well-informed and almost contemporaneous account of the clerk of La Rochelle. That is therefore the date I have adopted (cf. Tisset’s discussion in Condamnation, II, pp. 55–6n; Vale, Charles VII, p. 46; L. J. Taylor, The Virgin Warrior: The Life and Death of Joan of Arc (New Haven and London, 2009), pp. 38–9, 222n). Bertrand de Poulengy, however, seems to offer a slightly different chronology, which implies that they left a little later, and other writers have suggested that she arrived at Chinon as late as 4 March (see, for example, Taylor, Joan of Arc, p. 10), or 6 March (the date given by the chronicler of Mont-Saint-Michel, for which see Chronique du Mont-Saint-Michel (1343–1468), ed. S. Luce, I (Paris, 1879), p. 30). For the account of the clerk of La Rochelle, see J. Quicherat, ‘Relation inédite sur Jeanne d’Arc’, Revue historique (1877), p. 336; for the statements of Jean de Metz and Bertrand de Poulengy, see Duparc, Nullité, I, pp. 290, 306 (translated into French in Duparc, Nullité, III, pp. 278, 293, and into English in Taylor, Joan of Arc, pp. 272, 276–7).