The Maid and the Queen

The Maid of the title is Joan of Arc and the Queen is the lesser known Yolande of Aragon. Subtitled The Secret History of Joan of Arc, this is not so much a secret story as a less familiar one; one that digs into the labyrinthine politics of the relevant bits of the Hundred Years’ War.

It’s complicated, but Nancy Goldstone’s account is clear and she brings the dramatis personae to life in a most engaging way in this excellent history.

Yolande (1381-1442) was a mover and shaker of her time. She was the Queen of Sicily, Duchess of Anjou and Countess of Provence, so with her husband Louis had a difficult task in protecting the disparate lands. She was an astute diplomat at a time when women were not involved in matters of state. Her daughter, Marie, married the dauphin, who with Joan of Arc’s help became King Charles VII of France. Charles was not much of a mover and shaker; in fact he was hamstrung by the thought that he was not really legitimate and therefore not entitled to the throne. This inaction frustrated his mother-in-law, who wanted him to take on the English, led by the regent Duke of Bedford, and their ally the Duke of Burgundy, so that her territories would be safer.

Enter the mystic Maid, Joan of Arc, who came from humble origins and claimed to have heard angel voices telling her to lead the dauphin to victory over the English and to his coronation at Reims. Yolande seized on this to convince Charles that God did recognise his claim to the throne. It worked: Joan led the army that relieved the siege of Orleans and went with Charles to Reims for his coronation. Yolande covered her tracks so Charles wouldn’t realise that she was promoting Joan. The myth that Joan magically appeared at Charles’s court persists.

Events went less well for Joan later: subsequent defeats and injuries showed Charles that she wasn’t quite as divine as he had thought; she was discredited, captured by the enemy, subjected to an Inquisition and a show trial, and was burnt to death.

Yolande of Aragon was more successful throughout her life, and perhaps more interesting, but she turned out to be much less memorable.

* Nancy Goldstone is at the Oxford Literary Festival on March 17. Box office at Oxford Playhouse, Beaumont Street, Oxford, tel 0870 343 1001. www.oxfordliteraryfestival.org