Scott Alexander (author/host)

And Henry, now the Conqueror, rolled down France, taking castles one by one and installing loyal members of the Burgundian party, now the Collaborators party, as governors.

It looked as though the Hundred Years' War would soon be over.

Then Charles the Mad died.

Then Henry the Conqueror died.

The new King of England, son of Henry and his newlywed queen, was not yet one year old.

Now was a moment of opportunity, but the Armagnacs were in no position to take it.

The Battle of Venoy, when they had the aid of the Scots, took place two years after the death of the two kings, and even though the Scots knew how to fight Englishmen, the French and their allies were beaten as ever.

Henry's government rested in the hands of his brother, the Duke of Bedford, and if Bedford was not quite his brother's equal, it was only because very few men could be.

The Armagnacs were despised by the population at large as corrupt and murderous, and the educated, cultured classes looked towards Burgundy as the sole hope of France, and thereby accepted the necessity that the reign of the Valois kings was over.

Some villagers supported the Armagnacs as the lesser of two evils, others were pro-Burgundian, and bands of men-at-arms under any authority or none wandered the country pillaging as they pleased.

The most despised of them were the English army, the goddams, respecter of no property and of no religion, not speaking the French language or feeling the slightest mercy for the French people.

Footnote, it's not that the English weren't theoretically Catholic too, they were just bad at it.

Back to the text.

South of the Loire River, the country was Armagnac to the extent it was anything.

North it was Burgundian, and the key crossing lay at the city of Oliens, with an English army besieging it in spite of every relief effort the inept Dauphin could put together.

This was the state of France, leaderless, beaten, disorganized, a country that would need a miracle if it was going to survive.

Then it got one.

Part 2.

The life of Joan of Arc.

2.1.