But how could he help hearing her name? She was still spoken of and if he forbade her name to be mentioned what good would that do? It still went on repeating itself in his mind.

A curse on Joan of Arc! A curse on misfortune! What had happened to the victories, the successes?

They had just lost Chartres. Why should they lose Chartres? He had been so incensed that he had determined to make a great attempt to reverse this tide of misfortune. God help us, he said, we shall lose all that Henry gained if we go on in this way.

There was another matter which gave him cause for great uneasiness. Anne was looking ill these days. Sometimes he thought the witch of Arc had laid a spell on her.

She tried to soothe his anxieties by assuring him that she felt well, a little tired perhaps, but that was due to the heat, the cold or that she had perhaps ridden too far. Excuses which he did not believe.

Sometimes he thought she was more ill than she let him know.

Those were happy times he spent with her.

Once he had said to her: ‘It is a marvel to me that we who married for State reasons should have been so singularly blessed.’

‘I always determined that I would make a happy marriage,’ she told him.

‘And to be determined on something is the best way to succeed at it. Oh, Anne, I wish we could end this fighting. I wish we could be more together. I wish I could be more sure of your brother.’

She had been thoughtful. She knew her brother well. Proud, haughty, royal, he had always deplored the fact that the French throne had not descended to him and thought often how different life would have been for the French if it had.

Burgundy was not a man easily to forgive his enemies. When Charles as the Dauphin had been with those who murdered the old Duke of Burgundy he had made that Duke’s son his enemy for ever. A feud was in progress which had almost cost Charles his throne … and would have done but for this peasant girl about whom everyone was still talking.

But Philip of Burgundy loved his sister. He would listen to her, she knew, and whatever his own feelings towards the Duke of Bedford were, he was pleased that Anne had found happiness with him.

Anne had said: ‘I shall do everything I can to keep that friendship between you and my brother warm, dear husband.’

And she had, comforting him as she always did. No, he had reason to rejoice in his marriage. He had a wife whom he loved dearly and the marriage had served its purpose which had primarily been to strengthen the alliance between Bedford and Burgundy.

And now her health gave him anxiety. But he had a great many causes for anxiety. He was afraid of the subtle change which was creeping over France. Surely the powers of witchcraft were not as great as they seemed? And yet it had all begun with the Maid.

It was always the same. It came back to the Maid. It seemed as though in spite of the fire the witch lived on. As he brooded messengers came to him. Eagerly he awaited what they had to tell. Good news, he hoped, from Lagni-sur-Marne to which he had sent out a strong force to take the place.

But alas it was not good news. Everywhere the French were showing a stubborn resistance. The Maid seemed to have imbued them with a new spirit. They were holding out and the English troops were getting short of provisions. If help did not come soon they would have to retreat.

He was in a quandary. The place was of no great strategic value but the English could not afford another defeat.

He made up his mind with a speed which was characteristic of him. He would have to go to Lagni-sur-Marne in person.

By God’s Holy Writ, he thought, I will attack these French so fiercely that they will think twice before they put up such a resistance against us in future.

In a few days he was at Lagni. He went through the camp. There was something wrong, he knew. The English had lost the certainty that no one could beat them. The siege of Orléans had been demoralising and so had the French victories which had led to the crowning of Charles at Rheims. If only Henry had lived; he would have known how to deal with this strange influence which had affected both sides. He, Bedford, knew that he was a good soldier, he was a great general; he served his country with devoted loyalty, always had and always would; but there were times when a special genius was needed, and such genius did not appear in every generation. If only Henry had lived! Everything would have been satisfactorily settled. He would have known from the beginning how to deal with Joan of Arc. Bedford had made few mistakes in his military career but there were two vital ones, he saw now. He should have let the Orléannese surrender to Burgundy. Burgundy would never forgive him for refusing to do so. Thus he had given the Maid her chance to save that important town for the French. That was the first mistake. An even greater one had been to burn Joan. That act had made her live forever. And for the rest of his life he would be haunted by it.

It seemed as though she had laid a curse on all the English, for fiercely as they fought they could not break the siege of Lagni. And then … the shame of it … French reinforcements – cannon and cavalry – came to relieve the town.

Where were the bowmen of England? They had lost heart. They believed that Joan of Arc was possessed of some Divine power and that in burning her they had burned God’s elect. Heaven was against them. Many of the soldiers had been present in the square at Rouen on that day. They would never forget.

They retreated before the French and Bedford had the mortification of seeing his troops defeated.

He was even more discomfited when he learned that the victorious French were on their way to Paris.

He rode there with all speed and as he came through the Porte Saint Antoine the people were sullen. He was their master at this time they knew, but in their hearts they did not believe he would be so for long.

There was one consolation. Anne was in Paris. He went straight to her and even there horror awaited him. She could not disguise from him now the fact that she was very ill indeed.

‘Anne,’ he cried, ‘Anne, my love. What is it? Why was I not told?’

She smiled at him wanly. ‘You did not want to hear of my petty ailments,’ she answered. ‘It is nothing. I have had a bad day.’

He was desolate. God has indeed turned against me, he thought.

He spent a great deal of time with her. He tried to forget the dismal state of affairs. We are going from bad to worse, he thought, but he could really give his attention to nothing but Anne.

When he heard that some of the nuns of St Antoine, including the Abbess, had been in communication with Charles and were working to bring him to Paris, he was angry and ordered them to be imprisoned. He knew that the Parisians would turn against him to a man when and if the time was ripe to do so.

He could not speak to Anne of these matters. She lay still in her bed, her eyes closed, her fingers twined about his. He had married her for expediency but that did not mean that his love was any the less.

It did occur to him that if she died – and he greatly feared she would – his alliance with Burgundy would have suffered a great blow. Only he and she knew how very much she had worked to keep that friendship alive. It was an unnatural friendship – a Duke of Burgundy, member of the Royal House of France, to be an ally of the English conquerors! But for Burgundy’s intense hatred for the murderer of his father it could never have come about.

But it must be kept green, that friendship. It was the pivot on which success revolved. Henry had known it. He had mentioned it on his death bed. ‘Do anything … almost anything … to keep Burgundy on our side.’

He had tried, as he had endeavoured to carry out every wish of the late King. He had always known that his dead brother was the great architect of success in France, and he greatly feared that without his skill in keeping it the firmly built victory would collapse into defeat.

November was a dreary month. He would hate Novembers forever more, for on the thirteenth of that month, Anne died.

She looked at him sorrowingly as though begging his pardon for dying. She knew how important her brother’s friendship was to her husband and she knew that ruthless, brilliant and shrewd as Philip of Burgundy was, he would be ready to break that friendship at the first opportunity if it suited him to do so; it was her influence which had kept it alive.

‘John,’ she said, ‘be happy. Tell my brother that it was my dearest wish for you to remain friends. I am sorry I must leave you.’

He could not speak. He was too overcome with emotion.

She was buried as she had wished to be in the Church of the Celestins. The people turned out in their hundreds to mourn her. She had been noted for her goodness and her beauty and being but twenty-eight years of age, she was young to die.

They even warmed to the Regent Bedford when they witnessed his grief.

He seemed much older, bowed down with sorrow and anxiety. He had no wish to stay in Paris. He left at once for Rouen.


* * *

How he missed her! Although it had been impossible for them to be together a great deal, he realised that she had always been in his thoughts. During his dilemmas which had been frequent of late he had often said to himself: ‘I will ask Anne that’, or ‘I will tell her that’ or ‘I wonder what Anne would think of that?’

So there was a great gap in his life. People thought him cold and aloof, but he was human after all; he was more than soldier, more than Regent. He had been, though briefly, a devoted husband.