On the 30th of May 1431, Joan of Arc was burned at the stake in Rouen, France.

Her death occurred during the Hundred Years’ War, a series of armed conflicts fought from 1337 to 1453, interrupted by several truces, which spanned 5 generations of kings from the rival dynasties of England and France.

The English House of Plantagenet and the French House of Valois both claimed the French throne, the dominant kingdom in Western Europe.

Further complicating matters were the opposing factions in the French royal family itself, the Armagnacs (who supported the legitimate line of King Charles VI) and Burgundians (who would eventually ally themselves with the English).

In 1412, Joan of Arc (Jeanne d’Arc) was born in Domrémy, a village in Lorraine, north-eastern France.

In 1415, Henry V led his troops to a near-total victory at the Battle of Agincourt and went on to retake much of Normandy by 1419, turning the region English for the first time in 2 centuries.

After making a formal alliance with Burgundy, Henry met with King Charles VI in 1420, and the Treaty of Troyes was signed.

The terms of the treaty included Henry’s marriage to Charles’ daughter, Catherine of Valois, after which Henry V was made regent of France and acknowledged as successor to the French throne along with his future sons.

Of Charles VI’s 5 sons, the 4 oldest had died childless, leaving the youngest, Charles VII, as the Dauphin, but the Treaty of Troyes declared him to be illegitimate, disinheriting him from the succession.

Many Frenchmen loyal to the king of France regarded the treaty as invalid because of Charles VI’s diminished mental capacity, and believed he was coerced into signing it.

Henry V unexpectedly died in August 1422, and Charles VI died 2 months later in October.

Their deaths left Henry’s only child, his 9-month-old son, as King Henry VI of England, and then King of France, though the latter title remained a disputed one.

England, along with its French allies, occupied much of northern France, and the people of the region had to contend with soldiers from both sides attacking farms and villages.

Most likely, Domrémy suffered as well, but the villagers continued working their fields and farms for these places were their homes.

Like many peasants of the time, Joan couldn’t read or write, but she had a deep love for the church, instilled in her by her mother, Isabelle Romée.

When she was about 13, Joan began to hear voices, kind and friendly voices, telling her to be good and to go to church, which she already did willingly.

Then she began to see visions each time she heard the voices, and by the time she was 16, she could see the speakers whom she recognised as St. Michael, and the patron saints of Lorraine, St. Catherine and St. Margaret.

Illustration by John Kenney (1971 ed. of Ladybird book ‘Joan of Arc’)

They had a new message for Joan – she was to save France by leading the French army to victory, and to crown the Dauphin as the rightful king at Reims.

At first, she refused for she saw herself as a simple village girl; who was she to command men in battle?

But her voices persisted, and finally she decided to obey.

Knowing her father would never agree, she asked one of her mother’s relatives to take her to Robert de Baudricourt, the garrison commander at the walled town of Vaucouleurs.

Not surprisingly, de Baudricourt refused to entertain Joan’s claim that she’d been sent to save France.

It was only when she went to him for the third time did de Baudricourt finally agree to provide an escort to take her to Chinon where the Dauphin had his court.

On the 23rd of February, Joan, her hair cut short and dressed in men’s clothes, left for Chinon.

She arrived in Chinon on the 6th of March, and finally met with Charles on the 9th of March.

Their meeting was not straightforward as Charles was dressed as one of his nobles and hid amongst them to test Joan.

Although she’d never seen the Dauphin in her life, Joan wasn’t fooled by the decoy that had been set on the throne and went straight to Charles and knelt before him.

Believing, or hoping, this young girl had indeed been sent to restore his kingdom, Charles still insisted she be examined by church officials in Poitiers.

It was only after they concluded that Joan posed no harm did Charles formally accept her services on the 22nd of March.

Joan and her escort were sent to Blois, roughly halfway between Chinon and Orléans, to join a convoy under the command of Marshal Jean de La Brosse, Lord of Boussac who had much-needed supplies for the besieged city of Orléans.

The Siege of Orléans, considered a watershed of the Hundred Years’ War, had begun on the 12th of October 1428.

Orléans was strategically and symbolically significant to France and England, and it was widely believed the fall of the city would have realised Henry V’s dream of conquering all of France.

The relief convoy with an escort of around 500 soldiers left Blois around the 27th of April.

Joan had wanted to approach Orléans from the north, where the English forces were concentrated, and engage the enemy at once.

Instead, without telling Joan, the commanders took the convoy around to the south bank of the Loire River placing them about 4 miles east of the city.

The commander of Orléans, Jean de Dunois, came across the river to meet them, but Joan, annoyed at being deceived, wanted to immediately attack the nearest English bastille on the south bank.

But de Dunois managed to persuade her to allow the beleaguered city to first be resupplied before any assaults were made.

Joan of Arc entered Orléans on the 29th of April and was greeted with much rejoicing.

Joan of Arc enters Orléans - Jean-Jacques Scherrer, 1887 (***W.Commons***)

The next few days saw various attacks on the English bastilles culminating with the English loss of the south bank of the Loire, which meant Orléans could now be easily resupplied.

On the morning of the 8th of May, the English troops and the French army faced each other on the field near St. Laurent until the English withdrew and marched away; neither side had engaged in battle.

For 6 months since the start of the siege, it seemed as if the English forces and their French allies were winning, but in the 9 days after Joan’s arrival, the siege collapsed.

Each year, on the 8th of May, the city of Orléans celebrates the lifting of the siege, and, after the Second World War, the celebrations also include VE Day, the day that Nazi Germany surrendered to the Allies, which coincidentally also occurred on the 8th of May.

The victory at Orléans was the start of the Loire Campaign, launched by Joan to clear the Loire of all English and Burgundian troops.

The Battle of Jargeau, 11th-12th of June 1429, was Joan’s first offensive battle and ended in victory.

This was followed by the Battle of Meung-sur-Loire, 15th of June; the Battle of Beaugency, 16th-17th June; and the Battle of Patay, 18th of June, the culmination of the Loire Campaign.

Joan was not actually present at that last battle as she was with the main body of the French army.

The Battle of Patay dealt a devastating blow to England’s ambitions in France with the horsemen of the French vanguard inflicting heavy casualties on the English troops, and all but one of the senior English commanders captured.

At the end of this successful campaign, Joan could finally fulfil her duty to see the Dauphin Charles crowned King of France at the Cathedral of Reims on the 17th of July.

Joan of Arc at the Coronation of Charles VII - Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (***W.Commons***)

The royal court then negotiated a 15-day truce with the Duke of Burgundy who promised to try and arrange the transfer of Paris to the Armagnacs while peace negotiations continued.

When Burgundy reneged on his promise at the end of the truce, Joan and her comrade-in-arms, the Duke of Alencon, argued for a quick march on Paris, but the troops’ advance was hampered by divisions in Charles’ court and the continuing peace negotiations with Burgundy.

On the 8th of September, the Armagnacs launched an assault on Paris during which Joan was injured in the leg with a crossbow bolt.

The next morning, Charles ordered an end to the attack, obstructing Joan’s attempts to continue, and the Armagnac army was forced to retreat.

Joan of Arc - John Everett Millais (***W.Commons***)

In October, Joan was sent as part of a force to attack the territory of Perrinet Gressard, a mercenary who had served the Burgundians and English.

Gressard had seized the town of La Charité in 1423, but the Armagnac army’s efforts to take the town in November failed, and they had to retreat, abandoning their artillery.

At the end of March 1430, Joan organised a company of volunteers to relieve Compiégne, under siege by the Burgundians.

On the 23rd of May, Joan was captured by Burgundian troops.

After trying to escape, she was transferred to Beaurevoir Castle where she made another attempt to escape, jumping from a tower window and landing in a dry moat, and surviving.

In November, Joan was moved to Arras, a Burgundian town.

The English negotiated with the Burgundians for Joan to be transferred to their custody.

Bishop Pierre Cauchon, a supporter of the Duke of Burgundy and the English crown who would sit as judge in Joan’s subsequent trial, played a prominent part in these negotiations, which were completed in November.

Once the English paid the agreed ransom, Joan was moved to Rouen, the main headquarters of the English in France.

Joan was put on trial for heresy on the 9th of January 1431, accused of blaspheming by wearing men’s clothes, acting upon visions that were demonic, and refusing to submit her words and deeds to the judgement of the church as she insisted she would be judged by God alone.

Later studies of the trial highlight various irregularities; instead of being imprisoned by the English and guarded by male soldiers, Joan should have been in the custody of the church and guarded by women; and the charges against Joan had not been read to her until after her interrogations had begun.

Despite these and many other irregularities, witnesses at Joan’s trial were impressed with the level of control she displayed.

But, on the 23rd of May, as Cauchon began to read her sentence prior to a public condemnation, Joan agreed to submit.

The terms of the abjuration document she was required to sign included renouncing wearing men’s clothing, and to deny her visions; abjuration is the solemn repudiation, abandonment, or renunciation by oath.

However, instead of being transferred to an ecclesiastical prison, Joan, now in women’s clothes, was returned to her cell and kept in chains, still guarded by male soldiers.

Witnesses stated that Joan was subjected to mistreatment and rape attempts.

On the 28th of May, Cauchon and several clerics went to Joan’s cell where, among other things, she stated that her voices had admonished her for submitting out of fear, and she would not deny them again.

This was enough to convict her of relapsing into heresy and to condemn her to death.

Even at this point, Joan was still not treated appropriately for she should have been turned over to the bailiff of Rouen for secular sentencing.

Instead, she was handed to the English for execution.

When she asked to view a cross, an English soldier gave her one fashioned from a stick, and she kissed it and held it to her chest.

Joan of Arc was then executed by being burned at the stake; she was 19 years old.

Her remains were dumped in the Seine River.

In 1456, Joan’s trial was reinvestigated by an inquisitorial court, which overturned the verdict, declaring it had been tainted by deceit and procedural errors.

After the French Revolution of 1789-1799, she became a national symbol of France.

On the 16th of May 1920, Joan of Arc was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church, and, on the 2nd of March 1922, she was declared one of the patron saints of France with her feast day being the 30th of May, the day of her execution.

This Day in History - The Death of Joan of Arc