The Hundred Years War - Desmond Seward [90]
It was also true that Dauphinist France was much richer than Lancastrian France. Where the Regent’s revenue averaged from 100,000 to 200,000 livres a year, Charles’s potential revenue was three and sometimes five times as much, partly because the area under his control was larger and less devastated. However, in the early years of the King of Bourges his taxes were not properly collected or else went into other pockets, and he was so poor that his clothes had to be patched. Charles VII had both the men and the money to fight the English, but it would take a miracle to make him do so.
Joan of Arc was born about 1412 in a village called Domrémy on the Meuse in eastern Champagne. As a girl she worked as a cowherd and differed from her companions only in her piety, spending long hours in the parish church. She saw visions, and from the age of thirteen heard voices which eventually told her to go and rescue Orleans. In May 1428 her uncle took her to a Dauphinist stronghold, where the captain was unimpressed. However, she returned the following January ; the captain then sent her to the Dauphin and in February she met Charles at Chinon. Although he hid among his courtiers she at once recognized him and told him that God had ordered her to fight the English and to see that he was crowned at Rheims. The Dauphin was doubtful about the peasant girl dressed like a man—in the fifteenth century this was probably even more shocking than male transvestism in the early twentieth—but the theologians who then examined her detected no signs of heresy or insanity, and advised Charles to let her try at Orleans.
Joan had already dictated an extraordinary letter to the Regent and his officers. ‘Jhesus Maria’, it began, ‘King of England and you Duke of Bedford [Bethforth] calling yourself Regent of France ; William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, John, Lord Talbot and you Thomas, Lord Scales, calling yourselves Lieutenants of the said Bedford ... deliver up to the Maid sent by God, the King of Heaven, the keys of all the good towns which you have taken and violated in France.’ She explained : ‘I have been sent by the King of Heaven to throw you out of all France,’ and ended : ‘Take yourself off to your own land, for God’s sake, or else await tidings from the Maid whom you will soon see to your hurt.’ No chronicler has recorded Bedford’s reaction to the letter.
The Maid set out for Orleans at once, wearing armour, with an army of 4,000 men under the young Duke of Alençon who believed fervently in her mission. As has been seen, she entered Orleans at the end of April. On 3 May the main body of her relief force reached the city. Joan rode in at their head, accompanied by priests chanting psalms ; she was claiming the divine support which the English regarded as their special prerogative. Within a few days her troops had overrun the main English earthworks and recaptured the Tourelles, killing the garrison including Glasdale. On 8 May 1429, after an investment which had lasted ninety days, the Earl of Suffolk raised the siege. The outnumbered English made a last defiant gesture to show that God was on their side ; they paraded in battle formation on open ground opposite the walls, challenging the defenders to come out and fight, but even now the enemy dared not face them. Suffolk then marched off in excellent order, taking a detachment to Jargeau and sending the remainder to Meung and Beaugency under Lord Talbot and Lord Scales.
Dauphinist morale rose wonderfully and Alençon’s army immediately set about the English strongholds on the Loire. On 12 June Jargeau was stormed,