Character Descriptions
First Act Characters
• Joan of Arc, a French peasant maid
Joan possesses a deep appreciation for all living things, indeed all of creation. Quick to finish her chores so she may go to church and pray, in her daily rounds she focuses on meeting the needs of friends, family and fellow townsfolk. Joan always places other folks before her self; she quickly identifies their needs and fills them to the best of her ability. In this way she embraces both the feminine and masculine tasks associated with life in a medieval village. She cooks, cards wool, spins flax, washes clothes, nurses the sick, tends livestock, mends fences and barns, and even follows the plow. When work is done she loves to go to church to hear her parish priest tell stories from the Bible, stories of her lord Jesus and of the great prophets of God.
In the middle of her sixteenth year (when the play begins) three of Heaven’s Angels ask her and guide her, in the name of God, to go to the aid of defeated France and its weak and doubtful monarch. The challenges set before her are immense. She must employ effective military tactics that lead men in battle to victory against the combined forces of Burgundy and England. Among her gifts, Joan is a fast learner, and in the field of military tactics she soon discovers that she has an intuitive propensity for employing inventive military strategies, and she quickly uses that talent to great effect. What’s more, she is a naturally cheerful person, so when she is tasked with raising the spirits of the disheartened dauphin and his depressed military she again stands firm, exhorting the men-at-arms to put away their many differences and, in the bond of brotherhood born of unity, follow her into glorious victory.
Through all she encounters Joan never complains. Pain, setbacks of temporary military defeat, courtiers who doubt and challenge her – none of these cause her to waiver in her dogged and determined desire to defeat the enemy and successfully escort her dauphin to his coronation – through and in enemy-held territory no less!
Twice in her military career Joan receives wounds that would cause most men to feint or, worse yet, quit. Yet in each instance she recovers (miraculously?) and heads back into melee. Facing the harsh realities of the medieval soldier’s life whether it be on the march, sleeping in armor, going without food for long spells, or charging before a besieged battlement, dodging enemy arrows and climbing vulnerably exposed scaling ladders set against the enemy’s curtain’s walls – Joan makes no complaint whatsoever! None of these discourage or cause her to waiver in her dogged desire to defeat the enemy.
When captured by her Burgundian enemies, imprisoned for a year, and braving a tortuous five-month trial, incredibly, Joan remains resilient and cheerful. Only at the very end does she break and deny her Heavenly inspiration – and this she does at the threat of death by fire. But conscience and her Angels quickly convict her of this error and she mends it with great sorrow and penitence, paying the ultimate price and choosing to do her penance once and for all rather than suffer perpetual imprisonment at the hands of her English tormentors.
In summary, Joan is a study in paradox. She is a dutiful daughter and yet she is completely independent – in her thinking and in her deeds. She is very much a female and yet she is completely comfortable with, and even excels at, performing masculine deeds. She is illiterate yet she possesses a knowledge and a wisdom (even a nobility) far superior to the “noble” nobility of the loyalist French court. She is very much a youth, with all the impulsive, fast-acting, high-charged energy that phase of life offers, and yet, once she comes to court she comports herself with a great dignity and serenity born of other-worldly control, as if she were a trained and highly experienced professional commander. And how does one clearly describe that? She is, in fact, very simple and yet very complex.
From the moment she learned her Credo her greatest desire has always been to please God so that she may someday be deemed worthy enough to go where the “Dawn Becomes the Day.”
• Saint Catherine of Siena, an angel
Along with Saint Margaret, Catherine is in charge of encouraging Joan in her religious devotion and guiding her in all piety and godliness. In contrast to Margaret, Catherine is a bit more classically feminine than Margaret, nevertheless, she and Margaret work as a perfect team in counseling, motivating and assisting Joan.
• Saint Margaret of Antioch, an angel
Along with Saint Catherine, Margaret is in charge of encouraging Joan in her religious devotion and guiding her in all piety and godliness. In contrast to Catherine, Margaret is a bit more aggressive than Catherine, nevertheless, she and Catherine work as a perfect team in counseling, motivating and assisting Joan.
• Saint Michael, Archangel of God
Michael is the highly dignified heavenly personage who presides as a kind of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff over Heaven’s military host. When Joan was in her thirteenth year, three years before the outset of the play, Michael first appeared to her, and as such he was her first heavenly visitor. As Joan’s initial sponsor he is the number one connection between she and God, and it is he who appoints Joan’s two Lady Saints to become her guides and mentors in holiness. The three of them collectively constitute Joan’s heavenly counsel and are referred to as Joan’s Angels. As messengers of God – and from God – is is they who communicate to Joan God’s will for her which thru-out the play becomes her mission.
• Romee, Isabeau, Joan’s mother
Joan’s Mother normally goes along to get along. This is not to say that she has no morals, scruples or convictions, just that she is the quintessential peacemaker – one who, when sensing domestic social discord, spends a very minimum of time analyzing it before she has confidently decided how to bring about peace for all concerned, and in the quickest and most effective way. When it comes to Joan, Mama Romee’s love for her daughter is deep and devoted – so when Romee enters into a plot with her husband Jacques and Joan’s childhood friend Colin, to get Joan married, Romee truly believes she is doing what is best for Joan.
• Mayor of Domremy
A jocular person, the Mayor has a natural charm and charisma that makes him the logical representative of and spokesperson for the God-honoring, idyllic, yet earthy and productive folk that reside in the humble little town of Domremy. A bit “over the top” and “larger-than-life” his inflated self importance is completely at home and accepted in Domremy. Even though he and his fellow townsfolk are well aware that he, as Mayor, merely presides over a humble little hamlet, whenever he speaks and waxes philosophical on a subject there is also a very real sense in which he feels and thinks himself to be a spokesman on a much larger scale – as if he were a great Roman orator, a high profile diplomat, or perhaps even a king himself.
• Jacques d’Arc, Joan’s father
Jacques is usually long-suffering and patient, and willing to give most folks the benefit of the doubt. Naturally protective of his daughter, steadily over the past three years he has been plagued by nightmares of his daughter in highly unfavorable and compromised situations with men. As a result he is tremendously edgy, jumpy, and impatient to a fault, to the extent that he is now terribly suspicious of all young men, particularly soldiers, who come thru Domremy with news and talk of the French war with England and Burgundy.
• Nicholas, loyalist Soldier
Squire / Knight-errant of Robert di Baudricourt the Captain Governor of the market town of Vaucouleurs, the nearest market town to Joan’s hometown of Domremy. Due to Joan’s persistent efforts to get permission to meet Charles VII, Baudricourt assigns Nicholas to escort her across enemy-held territory to the court of Charles VII of Valois in Chinon on the Vienne. Nicholas is the first loyalist soldier to believe in Joan and her cause. Impressed by her spirit and energy he quickly comes to support her in full and unconditionally. Nicholas is a career soldier and fighting against the English and the Burgundians is the only thing he’s wanted to do his whole life. This is why Joan’s engaging confidence strikes such a sympathetic chord in him causing him to see her as a veritable enigma and as the hope of France.
• Colin of Greux, Joan’s “Suitor”
has been Joan’s friend from childhood on. When we meet him he fully intends to make her his wife. In the court action he brings against Joan for what he claims is a Breach of Promise, and as her suitor, Colin is lovestruck, over-bearing, over-confidant, and a bit cocky. Adding to his “confidence” in no small way and leading him to believe that his suit is impregnable is his knowledge that he has Joan’s parents’ unequivocal consent of the match, even their endorsement, as well as the complicity of all Joan’s godparents.
• Judge, of Toul
Level-headed, fair, and highly intelligent the Judge is that rare weigher of personalitieswho can spot and recognize the extremely gifted individual (Joan) at once, and not only accept her but endorse her as well – to what may often be the surprise of less discerning, less observant eyes. As such, from the very first moment he encounters her the Judge clearly discerns Joan’s dignity, integrity and natural gift for rhetoric, each for the novel aspects they are, and that in one so very young! Far from condemning her for being a woman and an extremely young one at that, and far from sympathizing with her suitor and opponent Colin in the legal action against her, the Judge immediately appreciates Joan for the rare, well-spoken and charismatic being she is. Far from your average, run-of-the-mill rural justice the Judge is, quite to the contrary, an excellent appraiser of character, amazingly unbiased and exceptionally open to the remarkable girl that he finds speaking before him arguing her case.
• Charles VII of Valois; Dauphin “King” of France
Charles the Seventh is the eccentrically insecure, mercurial son of Isabeau of Bavaria and Charles VI (the Sixth) of France. A depressing anxiety regarding his own legitimacy has all but mastered him, and it stems from two historical facts: First, that in his (Charles’ own) youth, his deceased father Charles the Sixth was completely mad for nearly all of his adult life, and the fact that his mother the Queen, unable to remain faithful to a husband who was insane, took many different lovers; Second, in a contract between the royal houses of France and England (The Treaty of Troyes) his mother the French Queen and his (alleged) father the King of France Charles the Sixth, legally disinherited him bequeathed all of France not to him but to the infant son of Henry V of England and his French Queen, Katherine of Valois (Charles’ sister). What’s more, in the eight years since the Treaty disinheriting Charles had been proclaimed in the streets thru-out the realm, rumor of Charles’ not being the true heir has made its way back to his own ears and caused him much anxiety. Charles’ monarchy weighs even more heavily upon him because he is well aware of the suffering the war in his name causes all his subjects, the people of his realm – and if his cause is not legitimate, if he is not the true son of Charles VI, then the entire war effort is also not legitimate and thousands upon thousands of people have been suffering and dying for naught. For he well knows that his war with England and England’s ally Burgundy is all about contesting the Treaty of Troyes and attempting to regain what may be his rightful kingdom. It is this, the rightfulness or the wrongfulness of his claim to legitimate rulership that weighs most heavily upon him. So whether he is or is not rightful ruler of France and the heir to Charles VI or simply a bastard spawned of any one of his mother’s many extra-marital liaisons, well… this is simply beyond Charles’ human ability to know with any reasonable measure of accuracy, that is, shy of some supernatural clue, say, such as a sign from God.
• Louis Coutes, Page boy to Charles VII, then Squire/Soldier
Louis becomes a squire, that is to say a soldier, during Joan’s rise to leadership at the head of the dauphin’s military force. Intensely loyal to his Dauphin that same loyalty is transferred in whole to Joan when he follows her to war. Having come from aristocratic parents he has been sheltered thru-out his young life and as such he is completely out of his element when interacting with the “lower” class of men which comprise the dauphin’s army. Tending to be a bit of a braggart where his elite social connections are and carrying, as he proudly does, a somewhat self-righteous, arrogant spirit about him he finds himself in dire circumstances when he goes on too long about his knowledge of the Dauphin.
• Queen Mother, Yolande of Aragorn
A “Spanish” Queen, Charles VII’s mother-in-law is the most powerful female at Charles’ court, even more wealthy than the Constable. Nevertheless, the bulk of her wealth is centered in Aragorn (a region south of the Pyrenees in medieval Spain) and as such it is not immediately available or easily transferable to her during her long stay in France with her son-in-law. And where sons vis a vis their mothers down thru the ages are expected to be close to their own blood mothers and somewhat estranged from their mother-in-laws, just the exact opposite is the case with the Queen Mother and Charles. So it is quite a note of grand irony that in complete contrast to Charles’ own blood mother, Isabeau of Bavaria, who never really loved him and who not only legally disowned and disinherited him but did everything she could to make him a social pariah in his own country, Charles’ mother-in-law the Queen Mother has been, down thru the years since his wedding to her daughter, more of a real mother to him than his own. Significantly, Charles VII is indeed the Queen Mother’s greatest “investment” in that she married off her daughter to him in order to multiply her political influence, in addition to always lending him financial help when his needs are dire and when she is able to do so. And yet, putting aside the emotional investment of granting her daughter’s hand in marriage to Charles and the periodic financial investment she makes in granting him various types of loans, she truly loves and cares for him not only as the king, but as a son (as if he were her own), as a man and as a human being. Charles, in response, is always aware of the Queen Mother’s great natural love for him and it’s what makes her influence on him, if not thee most powerful influence on him, then perhaps one of the most powerful of all influences. Finally, when Joan comes to Charles VII’s court in Chinon the Queen is the first of the nobility to befriend her – and the two of them immediately become fast friends.
• His Grace, Archbishop of Reims, Regnault des Chartres
His Grace is the highest ecclesiastical personage in not only Charles VII’s realm of France but in all France. His Grace is Bishop Pierre Cauchon’s metropolitan, meaning that His Grace is a higher Catholic church-dignitary than the Bishop. So His Grace’s opinion of Joan matters more from the medieval church’s perspective than Bishop Cauchon who ultimately tries Joan for witchcraft and heresy. And yet, His Grace never accuses Joan for crimes against the Catholic church or the Catholic faith, he merely believes that she is all puffed up with pride and that she deserves the fall that is ultimately coming to all who, as he sees it, lift themselves up for all to see and adore. Unfortunately for Joan, the French church that sided with Charles VII in believing him to be the true king of France needs money to function, and though the church may consider itself an ally with the poor (at least in theory (“Blessed are the poor” etc.), in practice this doesn’t work so well because running the Church takes great financial resources. For this reason His Grace must ally himself with the rich and powerful nobility. The natural outcome of this situation is that His Grace’s relationship with the ultra wealthy Constable is his strongest friendship at Charles VII’s court, and as such the two men’s political interests completely merge as one.
• Constable of France, Georges de la Tremouille
the Constable is the richest and most powerful man at Charles VII’s court. He acquired most of his wealth by marrying rich heiresses who soon died after marrying him. Did he have them murdered? It is anyone’s guess. But since Charles is always needing money to run his kingdom, money which he does not have due to the madness of his erstwhile father’s wastefulness, the Constable is ready and willing to offer the king numerous loans, whenever a financial need arises, which it always does and with great regularity. Thus, the Constable’s great wealth has endured him to the king and earned him the nickname the “Favorite.” He is, therefore, the number one go-to-person when it comes to coming up with means with which to solve Charles’ financial problems. But mark this: Power and Control over Charles are the Constable’s main objectives, and so it follows that he is terribly jealous of Charles’ attention to whatever or whomever, and he will therefore not suffer others who challenge his monopoly over it. So although Joan and the Constable are both loyalists and believe that Charles is the legitimate son of his father Charles VI, and therefore rightful ruler over all of France – though Joan and the Constable are on the same political side vis a vis the king, they are not on the same side when it comes to their individual objectives for the king. In this way they completely clash. Thus it is that from the moment Joan comes to Charles’ court she is seen by the Constable to be a threat and an enemy.
• Alencon, Duke of; French commander
The cousin of the Dauphin Charles VII of Valois, he is of the same general physical build and size as his royal cousin. Though not possessing his royal relative’s timidity in matters of war he is by contrast quite the accomplished warrior, as well as an experienced and seasoned leader of men. When we first meet him at the court of Chinon he has just recently endured and survived the aristocratic medieval ordeal of ransom, whereby a large sum of wealth was raised (mostly from his family’s dukedom) to pay for his release from his English captors. After first trying to deceive Joan in a game of switched identity he and the entire court of Chinon play on her, Alencon soon becomes Joan’s faithful friend, and in time comes to believe that she has been sent by God to aid a war-torn France.
Men-at-Arms
• Rene, Man-at-Arms and cook
He is the quintessential team player among the men-at-arms. As such he is also the least argumentative, always wanting to make the best out of the ugly reality that is war. A craftsman’s apprentice for nearly twenty years he is just shy of becoming a master carpenter, although the financial investment made toward this goal has saddled him with a great deal of personal debt. In serving in the Dauphin’s army Rene is also serving his liege lord, who is his master carpenter.
• Giles, Man-at-Arms
Farmer Giles is a plowman who works for the lord of a castle manor south of Poitiers, He is married and has two sons, an elder son who is out in the world and a sixteen-year old who is fulfilling his father’s manorial duties while his father is away at the war. Giles as such is practical but skeptical. He doesn’t believe in quick fixes or easy answers to life’s (and war’s) numerous troubles. Having, in the last ten years, fought in a number of campaigns against the English and the Burgundians and having had the chance to go up against them on a number of occasions, Giles is highly doubtful that anything of import will change nor does he believe the French have any chance at being victorious this time out. In his mind a French victory would take a miracle.
•Thevenin, Man-at-Arms
‘Thev’ works his own stretch of land (just south of Poitiers), and like Joan’s Papa Jacques, he and his fellow townsfolk also tend sheep and cattle. Though ‘Thev’ complains just as much as his fellow men-at-arms, ironically, he is present in the army for no other reason but that he feels it is the right and honorable thing to do, though he cannot exactly identify the sense of obligation he feels. He simply does not really know why it is the right and honorable thing to do. He just feels that way. Not believing in Charles VII’s cause, legitimacy or God’s backing of Valois, loyalist France, nor any sense of French independence from the English, he nevertheless feels ethical, moral compulsion to respond to Charles VII’s call to arms. Having no sons and only two daughters, both married and out of the nest with lives of their own, in his absence from home and away at the war he relies on his fellow townsmen to tend his fields. What’s more, on some level, the fact that Thevenin has no sons, he feels that his contribution to the war effort is all the more important as he has no offspring to offer to the next generation of the French military.
• Raymond, Man-at-Arms
Raymond is the youngest of the men in camp. Up until the moment we first meet him he has simply been a member of Charles VII’s military out of a desire for adventure and money. A native of Chinon, having come from a large family of six sisters as the only boy and the youngest sibling he was quick to leave home when the opportunity offered itself only five weeks earlier. As a youth he thought he might like to be a priest but then adolescence came along and he found himself wanting to learn a more “masculine” trade, as he thought of it. So for the last several years he has tried to become the apprentice of a local blacksmith. Looking to raise fast money toward that end he answered the call to Charles VII’s military. However, the pay has not been nearly as good or as consistent as he had come to believe it would be, and the tales he’s been hearing his fellow men-at-arms tell as of late as to the natural prowess and superiority of the English soldiers has caused him for several nights now to seriously consider going absent without leave. The only factor keeping him from doing so has been that he used his real name to enlist and he thinks quite logically that he won’t be able to become a blacksmith using his own name if he goes absent without leave. For as he sees it, half of the pride in learning a respectable trade is making your family proud of you. But had he used a false name, no matter how the war turned out, there would likely be a stigma associated with his name, a stigma that he knows would keep any God-fearing blacksmith from taking him on, never mind how much money he may be able to pay. In the present, because of his growing fear of the English and because he wished he’d used a false name when he enlisted so that he could now go AWOL without having his conscience sting him mightily, he now dreads what he thought only weeks before would be a grand adventure, and that is being a part of the French loyalist army.
•Tiphaine, Man-at-Arms and gambler
he is the one soldier in camp most happy to be present during a military campaign, and not because he wants to fight, but on the contrary, because being on the march and in camp with an ample supply of naive, gullible men he has a full and ready supply of marks, men he can practice his art of subterfuge and fraud upon. A natural coward he is not looking forward to any kind of a real and physical confrontation with the English or the Burgundians. Although once upon a time he was married with little ones he is now divorced and hasn’t seen the little ones for years, and has since lived in sin with many different women. Currently he could be said to be “playing the field.” In his capacity as a volunteer in the Dauphin’s army he is the conniving Sergeant Bilko of the camp, always looking for a way to finagle something out of every situation. In private life he has had experience as a minor artisan, having been apprenticed from time to time in a number of different disciplines to a number of different masters, but unlike Rene he has never stuck to one long enough to master it. When all is said and done, the one craft he may be said to have decently mastered is the art of the slight of hand, street magic, or, to put it in other words, in the art of duping the dupes.
•Maugier, a gunner
A natural trouble-maker, of all the men-at-arms he is the only one who has been a mercenary, that is to say, a professional soldier paid for hire – unrelated to any allegiance to king, lord or country. This took place twenty years ago when he was in his youth and tramping about Italy. Having a reckless nature he is drawn to that aspect of medieval warfare which by its nature is most risky: gunnery – for gunners risk their lives every time they put fire to wick, for the simple reason that cannons were not perfected in that day and they could, and often did, blow up in their operator’s face, often taking the gunner’s life or limb in the explosion. In his social contacts he has many friends who could be considered criminals and who, along with Maugier, constitute the dangerous side of life in the big city. When honestly employed he often works jobs that require manual labor. As a result, his recent liege lord is the head of the bricklayers guild in Poitiers, and it is for this man that Maugier is doing military service.
•Gerard, Man-at-Arms
Gerard, along with his brother Martin, runs a combination tavern and inn in Poitiers and was forced to “take to the field” and respond to Charles VII’s call to arms when only five weeks previous, Charles VII’s recruiting men chanced to stay at his tavern-inn for several nights. Charles VII’s men, learning that Gerard ran the business with his brother, insisted that it only took one man to run an establishment of that order and further insisted that one of the brothers serve in Charles’ army. The brothers had then drawn lots and Gerard lost, hence his presence in camp with the military force. Unmarried, unlike his married brother, though constantly loaded down with responsibility at home and goaded by his brother and sister-in-law to run a respectable business, the only thing Gerard likes about military service is the easy availability of women folk (bawds, camp-followers) with which he can freely fraternize, and without his sister-in-law’s moral indignation and constant sermonizing.
•Friar Leo
As a gift to Joan from Charles VII, the friar is in camp with her having been bequeathed to her as her personal confessor. Having been with Joan on the march toward Orleans for about a month, when we meet him his belief in Joan and her mission is whole-hearted and complete, although when he is questioned by the men-at-arms as to whether God is or is not behind Joan he responds with probing, Socratic, dialectical reasoning, in effect eschewing all easy, cut and dried answers, and says “perhaps,” challenging one and all to think for themselves and weigh all such weighty matters in their own way.
Second Act Characters
• Burgundy, Philip “the Good,” the duke of
The richest man in all of France, richer than the Constable due to his wealth coming in large part from his dominance of the European cloth trade, Burgundy is a staunch ally of the English, as are all towns loyal to him. When we meet him his alliance with the English has been active for eight full years, ever since the writing of the Treaty of Troyes, and together, Burgundy and England have succeeded at eroding the lands of the Dauphin Charles VII of Valois. The proverbial savvy businessman, he knows a good thing when he sees it, so he is quick to see how Joan’s capture is an unprecedented opportunity to make a windfall. In guiding his comrade Luxembourg he makes the best possible “deal” in selling the captured Joan thru the medieval tradition of ransom not to Charles VII but to the English. Also of great note is the over-riding fact of his ongoing personal struggle with his cousin Charles VII. This “intrigue” has put great distance between the two of them, personally and politically – and as such it is the sole reason why the royal house of France is divided.
• Duke John of Luxembourg
The youngest of several boys his greatest claim to wealth has been marrying the rich heiress of Beaurevoir. However, the somewhat oafish and slow Luxembourg has a great many debts and when we meet him his need for a financial windfall is quite pronounced. Since Burgundy is his liege-lord he naturally follows his lord’s lead in advertising the capture of Joan to the end that the best deal might be made of Joan’s sale and a great sum will be exchanged for her. And so it is precisely with Joan’s capture that his financial affairs turn favorable and the newfound wealth quickly causes him to become arrogant, mocking and irreverent.
• Bishop of Beauvais, Pierre Cauchon
When we meet the Bishop Joan and her forces have just succeeded in turning his Burgundian diocese of Beauvais back to the loyalist cause of Charles VII. Thus Joan has in effect booted him out of his own diocese and he is none too happy about it. As a partisan of England, a French cleric with numerous benefices from which he is a very wealthy man, the Bishop believes whole-heartedly that the boy-king Henry VI of England is in fact the rightful ruler of both France and England. Therefore, he champions the demise of Charles VII’s most powerful change agent, Joan the Maid, whom he desires to prove is a tool of the devil – spreading her heresy thru-out Christendom to the destruction of good Catholic-Christian souls everywhere. Along with the Counselor, his close friend and colleague, he brokers the “ransom” whereby Burgundy and Luxembourg sell Joan to the English (in the hands of Warwick) and have her trial take place in the northern French-Norman city of Rouen, where, because Joan is held so far north and far away from the military lines of the south, a coup of her loyalist soldiers to free her is not likely to occur.
• Counselor Jean d’Estivet of the Diocese of Beauvais
Canon Lawyer and Professor at the University of Paris; 50’s; The Counselor is virulently partisan and legalistic to an extreme. From the moment Joan steps upon the military stage he sees Joan as a rebel troublemaker, quite possibly the greatest embodiment of evil in the world to date. For this reason he believes Joan deserves all the vitriol he can give her. Terribly passionate about the Plantagenet/Lancastrian rule over France, when tapped by his close confidante and colleague the Bishop of Beauvais to preside as Promoter (Prosecutor) over Joan’s trial for witchcraft and heresy, he is absolutely on fire with zeal to fulfill the role. Along with the Bishop of Beauvais, his close friend and colleague, he brokers the “ransom” whereby Burgundy and Luxembourg sell Joan to the English (in the hands of Warwick) and have her trial take place in the northern French-Norman city of Rouen, where, because Joan is held so far north and far away from the military lines of the south, a coup of her loyalist soldiers to free her is not likely to occur.
• Warwick, the Earl of, Richard Beauchamp
Warwick enjoys administering the war as Regent of France in the English boy-king Henry VI’s (the Sixth’s) youth, but dislikes the constant and ever present lack of funds in his war coffers as dismally allocated by Parliament. A gifted and natural leader Warwick commands great respect from one and all, including the Judges at Joan’s final trial who are French clerics in the employ of England – and this is not just because he is the one signing the documents that pay them, but because the Judges themselves see the Earl as the extension of God’s will that the English royal house of Lancaster/Plantagenet rule over all England and France. One of the two most powerful English men ruling war affairs in France (the Duke of Bedford handling all military affairs in the field) Warwick handles all administrative duties from the Normandy town of Rouen.
• Thomas de Courcelles, Warwick’s Assistant
A faithful follower and servant of his lord the Earl of Warwick, Thomas has been with his lord long enough and has earned enough respect from his lord to freely offer suggestions, that is, within reason. For example, when his master dictates policy thru correspondence regarding Joan’s capture, Thomas is quick to admonish his lord to end the missive on a positive note.
• Pierre, Isambard, Inquisitorial Assistant
Ironically, although the purpose of Pierre’s presence at Joan’s trial is to enforce the “new” “orthodoxy” and “rules” of the Inquisition, he is singlehandedly the most sympathetic cleric to Joan present. By the time we meet him, he has become Joan’s unofficial counsel of sorts. Seeing the trial for what it is, a political show trial designed to cast aspersions on the legitimacy of the king she helped to crown (Charles VII), more than any other churchman present he treats Joan with respect, mercy and with sincere unaffected kindness.
• Executioner
ironically, in the light of and performance of his dark office, the Executioner is a practical, even a merciful man. In Joan’s hour of passion he looks for a way to lessen, shorten and end Joan’s pain. However, he is unable to do so due to the way the English built the scaffold and pyre, which, as he ruefully observes, has assured that Joan’s death will be a particularly excruciating and cruel one. As he remarks, in burnings at the stake when the victim is approaching the height of agony he always makes it his practice to make his way to them to strangle them so that the worst of their suffering may end.
Through all she encounters Joan never complains. Pain, setbacks of temporary military defeat, courtiers who doubt and challenge her – none of these cause her to waiver in her dogged and determined desire to defeat the enemy and successfully escort her dauphin to his coronation – through and in enemy-held territory no less!
Twice in her military career Joan receives wounds that would cause most men to feint or, worse yet, quit. Yet in each instance she recovers (miraculously?) and heads back into melee. Facing the harsh realities of the medieval soldier’s life whether it be on the march, sleeping in armor, going without food for long spells, or charging before a besieged battlement, dodging enemy arrows and climbing vulnerably exposed scaling ladders set against the enemy’s curtain’s walls – Joan makes no complaint whatsoever! None of these discourage or cause her to waiver in her dogged desire to defeat the enemy.
When captured by her Burgundian enemies, imprisoned for a year, and braving a tortuous five-month trial, incredibly, Joan remains resilient and cheerful. Only at the very end does she break and deny her Heavenly inspiration – and this she does at the threat of death by fire. But conscience and her Angels quickly convict her of this error and she mends it with great sorrow and penitence, paying the ultimate price and choosing to do her penance once and for all rather than suffer perpetual imprisonment at the hands of her English tormentors.
In summary, Joan is a study in paradox. She is a dutiful daughter and yet she is completely independent – in her thinking and in her deeds. She is very much a female and yet she is completely comfortable with, and even excels at, performing masculine deeds. She is illiterate yet she possesses a knowledge and a wisdom (even a nobility) far superior to the “noble” nobility of the loyalist French court. She is very much a youth, with all the impulsive, fast-acting, high-charged energy that phase of life offers, and yet, once she comes to court she comports herself with a great dignity and serenity born of other-worldly control, as if she were a trained and highly experienced professional commander. And how does one clearly describe that? She is, in fact, very simple and yet very complex.
From the moment she learned her Credo her greatest desire has always been to please God so that she may someday be deemed worthy enough to go where the “Dawn Becomes the Day.”
• Saint Catherine of Siena, an angel
Along with Saint Margaret, Catherine is in charge of encouraging Joan in her religious devotion and guiding her in all piety and godliness. In contrast to Margaret, Catherine is a bit more classically feminine than Margaret, nevertheless, she and Margaret work as a perfect team in counseling, motivating and assisting Joan.
• Saint Margaret of Antioch, an angel
Along with Saint Catherine, Margaret is in charge of encouraging Joan in her religious devotion and guiding her in all piety and godliness. In contrast to Catherine, Margaret is a bit more aggressive than Catherine, nevertheless, she and Catherine work as a perfect team in counseling, motivating and assisting Joan.
• Saint Michael, Archangel of God
Michael is the highly dignified heavenly personage who presides as a kind of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff over Heaven’s military host. When Joan was in her thirteenth year, three years before the outset of the play, Michael first appeared to her, and as such he was her first heavenly visitor. As Joan’s initial sponsor he is the number one connection between she and God, and it is he who appoints Joan’s two Lady Saints to become her guides and mentors in holiness. The three of them collectively constitute Joan’s heavenly counsel and are referred to as Joan’s Angels. As messengers of God – and from God – is is they who communicate to Joan God’s will for her which thru-out the play becomes her mission.
• Romee, Isabeau, Joan’s mother
Joan’s Mother normally goes along to get along. This is not to say that she has no morals, scruples or convictions, just that she is the quintessential peacemaker – one who, when sensing domestic social discord, spends a very minimum of time analyzing it before she has confidently decided how to bring about peace for all concerned, and in the quickest and most effective way. When it comes to Joan, Mama Romee’s love for her daughter is deep and devoted – so when Romee enters into a plot with her husband Jacques and Joan’s childhood friend Colin, to get Joan married, Romee truly believes she is doing what is best for Joan.
• Mayor of Domremy
A jocular person, the Mayor has a natural charm and charisma that makes him the logical representative of and spokesperson for the God-honoring, idyllic, yet earthy and productive folk that reside in the humble little town of Domremy. A bit “over the top” and “larger-than-life” his inflated self importance is completely at home and accepted in Domremy. Even though he and his fellow townsfolk are well aware that he, as Mayor, merely presides over a humble little hamlet, whenever he speaks and waxes philosophical on a subject there is also a very real sense in which he feels and thinks himself to be a spokesman on a much larger scale – as if he were a great Roman orator, a high profile diplomat, or perhaps even a king himself.
• Jacques d’Arc, Joan’s father
Jacques is usually long-suffering and patient, and willing to give most folks the benefit of the doubt. Naturally protective of his daughter, steadily over the past three years he has been plagued by nightmares of his daughter in highly unfavorable and compromised situations with men. As a result he is tremendously edgy, jumpy, and impatient to a fault, to the extent that he is now terribly suspicious of all young men, particularly soldiers, who come thru Domremy with news and talk of the French war with England and Burgundy.
• Nicholas, loyalist Soldier
Squire / Knight-errant of Robert di Baudricourt the Captain Governor of the market town of Vaucouleurs, the nearest market town to Joan’s hometown of Domremy. Due to Joan’s persistent efforts to get permission to meet Charles VII, Baudricourt assigns Nicholas to escort her across enemy-held territory to the court of Charles VII of Valois in Chinon on the Vienne. Nicholas is the first loyalist soldier to believe in Joan and her cause. Impressed by her spirit and energy he quickly comes to support her in full and unconditionally. Nicholas is a career soldier and fighting against the English and the Burgundians is the only thing he’s wanted to do his whole life. This is why Joan’s engaging confidence strikes such a sympathetic chord in him causing him to see her as a veritable enigma and as the hope of France.
• Colin of Greux, Joan’s “Suitor”
has been Joan’s friend from childhood on. When we meet him he fully intends to make her his wife. In the court action he brings against Joan for what he claims is a Breach of Promise, and as her suitor, Colin is lovestruck, over-bearing, over-confidant, and a bit cocky. Adding to his “confidence” in no small way and leading him to believe that his suit is impregnable is his knowledge that he has Joan’s parents’ unequivocal consent of the match, even their endorsement, as well as the complicity of all Joan’s godparents.
• Judge, of Toul
Level-headed, fair, and highly intelligent the Judge is that rare weigher of personalitieswho can spot and recognize the extremely gifted individual (Joan) at once, and not only accept her but endorse her as well – to what may often be the surprise of less discerning, less observant eyes. As such, from the very first moment he encounters her the Judge clearly discerns Joan’s dignity, integrity and natural gift for rhetoric, each for the novel aspects they are, and that in one so very young! Far from condemning her for being a woman and an extremely young one at that, and far from sympathizing with her suitor and opponent Colin in the legal action against her, the Judge immediately appreciates Joan for the rare, well-spoken and charismatic being she is. Far from your average, run-of-the-mill rural justice the Judge is, quite to the contrary, an excellent appraiser of character, amazingly unbiased and exceptionally open to the remarkable girl that he finds speaking before him arguing her case.
• Charles VII of Valois; Dauphin “King” of France
Charles the Seventh is the eccentrically insecure, mercurial son of Isabeau of Bavaria and Charles VI (the Sixth) of France. A depressing anxiety regarding his own legitimacy has all but mastered him, and it stems from two historical facts: First, that in his (Charles’ own) youth, his deceased father Charles the Sixth was completely mad for nearly all of his adult life, and the fact that his mother the Queen, unable to remain faithful to a husband who was insane, took many different lovers; Second, in a contract between the royal houses of France and England (The Treaty of Troyes) his mother the French Queen and his (alleged) father the King of France Charles the Sixth, legally disinherited him bequeathed all of France not to him but to the infant son of Henry V of England and his French Queen, Katherine of Valois (Charles’ sister). What’s more, in the eight years since the Treaty disinheriting Charles had been proclaimed in the streets thru-out the realm, rumor of Charles’ not being the true heir has made its way back to his own ears and caused him much anxiety. Charles’ monarchy weighs even more heavily upon him because he is well aware of the suffering the war in his name causes all his subjects, the people of his realm – and if his cause is not legitimate, if he is not the true son of Charles VI, then the entire war effort is also not legitimate and thousands upon thousands of people have been suffering and dying for naught. For he well knows that his war with England and England’s ally Burgundy is all about contesting the Treaty of Troyes and attempting to regain what may be his rightful kingdom. It is this, the rightfulness or the wrongfulness of his claim to legitimate rulership that weighs most heavily upon him. So whether he is or is not rightful ruler of France and the heir to Charles VI or simply a bastard spawned of any one of his mother’s many extra-marital liaisons, well… this is simply beyond Charles’ human ability to know with any reasonable measure of accuracy, that is, shy of some supernatural clue, say, such as a sign from God.
• Louis Coutes, Page boy to Charles VII, then Squire/Soldier
Louis becomes a squire, that is to say a soldier, during Joan’s rise to leadership at the head of the dauphin’s military force. Intensely loyal to his Dauphin that same loyalty is transferred in whole to Joan when he follows her to war. Having come from aristocratic parents he has been sheltered thru-out his young life and as such he is completely out of his element when interacting with the “lower” class of men which comprise the dauphin’s army. Tending to be a bit of a braggart where his elite social connections are and carrying, as he proudly does, a somewhat self-righteous, arrogant spirit about him he finds himself in dire circumstances when he goes on too long about his knowledge of the Dauphin.
• Queen Mother, Yolande of Aragorn
A “Spanish” Queen, Charles VII’s mother-in-law is the most powerful female at Charles’ court, even more wealthy than the Constable. Nevertheless, the bulk of her wealth is centered in Aragorn (a region south of the Pyrenees in medieval Spain) and as such it is not immediately available or easily transferable to her during her long stay in France with her son-in-law. And where sons vis a vis their mothers down thru the ages are expected to be close to their own blood mothers and somewhat estranged from their mother-in-laws, just the exact opposite is the case with the Queen Mother and Charles. So it is quite a note of grand irony that in complete contrast to Charles’ own blood mother, Isabeau of Bavaria, who never really loved him and who not only legally disowned and disinherited him but did everything she could to make him a social pariah in his own country, Charles’ mother-in-law the Queen Mother has been, down thru the years since his wedding to her daughter, more of a real mother to him than his own. Significantly, Charles VII is indeed the Queen Mother’s greatest “investment” in that she married off her daughter to him in order to multiply her political influence, in addition to always lending him financial help when his needs are dire and when she is able to do so. And yet, putting aside the emotional investment of granting her daughter’s hand in marriage to Charles and the periodic financial investment she makes in granting him various types of loans, she truly loves and cares for him not only as the king, but as a son (as if he were her own), as a man and as a human being. Charles, in response, is always aware of the Queen Mother’s great natural love for him and it’s what makes her influence on him, if not thee most powerful influence on him, then perhaps one of the most powerful of all influences. Finally, when Joan comes to Charles VII’s court in Chinon the Queen is the first of the nobility to befriend her – and the two of them immediately become fast friends.
• His Grace, Archbishop of Reims, Regnault des Chartres
His Grace is the highest ecclesiastical personage in not only Charles VII’s realm of France but in all France. His Grace is Bishop Pierre Cauchon’s metropolitan, meaning that His Grace is a higher Catholic church-dignitary than the Bishop. So His Grace’s opinion of Joan matters more from the medieval church’s perspective than Bishop Cauchon who ultimately tries Joan for witchcraft and heresy. And yet, His Grace never accuses Joan for crimes against the Catholic church or the Catholic faith, he merely believes that she is all puffed up with pride and that she deserves the fall that is ultimately coming to all who, as he sees it, lift themselves up for all to see and adore. Unfortunately for Joan, the French church that sided with Charles VII in believing him to be the true king of France needs money to function, and though the church may consider itself an ally with the poor (at least in theory (“Blessed are the poor” etc.), in practice this doesn’t work so well because running the Church takes great financial resources. For this reason His Grace must ally himself with the rich and powerful nobility. The natural outcome of this situation is that His Grace’s relationship with the ultra wealthy Constable is his strongest friendship at Charles VII’s court, and as such the two men’s political interests completely merge as one.
• Constable of France, Georges de la Tremouille
the Constable is the richest and most powerful man at Charles VII’s court. He acquired most of his wealth by marrying rich heiresses who soon died after marrying him. Did he have them murdered? It is anyone’s guess. But since Charles is always needing money to run his kingdom, money which he does not have due to the madness of his erstwhile father’s wastefulness, the Constable is ready and willing to offer the king numerous loans, whenever a financial need arises, which it always does and with great regularity. Thus, the Constable’s great wealth has endured him to the king and earned him the nickname the “Favorite.” He is, therefore, the number one go-to-person when it comes to coming up with means with which to solve Charles’ financial problems. But mark this: Power and Control over Charles are the Constable’s main objectives, and so it follows that he is terribly jealous of Charles’ attention to whatever or whomever, and he will therefore not suffer others who challenge his monopoly over it. So although Joan and the Constable are both loyalists and believe that Charles is the legitimate son of his father Charles VI, and therefore rightful ruler over all of France – though Joan and the Constable are on the same political side vis a vis the king, they are not on the same side when it comes to their individual objectives for the king. In this way they completely clash. Thus it is that from the moment Joan comes to Charles’ court she is seen by the Constable to be a threat and an enemy.
• Alencon, Duke of; French commander
The cousin of the Dauphin Charles VII of Valois, he is of the same general physical build and size as his royal cousin. Though not possessing his royal relative’s timidity in matters of war he is by contrast quite the accomplished warrior, as well as an experienced and seasoned leader of men. When we first meet him at the court of Chinon he has just recently endured and survived the aristocratic medieval ordeal of ransom, whereby a large sum of wealth was raised (mostly from his family’s dukedom) to pay for his release from his English captors. After first trying to deceive Joan in a game of switched identity he and the entire court of Chinon play on her, Alencon soon becomes Joan’s faithful friend, and in time comes to believe that she has been sent by God to aid a war-torn France.
Men-at-Arms
• Rene, Man-at-Arms and cook
He is the quintessential team player among the men-at-arms. As such he is also the least argumentative, always wanting to make the best out of the ugly reality that is war. A craftsman’s apprentice for nearly twenty years he is just shy of becoming a master carpenter, although the financial investment made toward this goal has saddled him with a great deal of personal debt. In serving in the Dauphin’s army Rene is also serving his liege lord, who is his master carpenter.
• Giles, Man-at-Arms
Farmer Giles is a plowman who works for the lord of a castle manor south of Poitiers, He is married and has two sons, an elder son who is out in the world and a sixteen-year old who is fulfilling his father’s manorial duties while his father is away at the war. Giles as such is practical but skeptical. He doesn’t believe in quick fixes or easy answers to life’s (and war’s) numerous troubles. Having, in the last ten years, fought in a number of campaigns against the English and the Burgundians and having had the chance to go up against them on a number of occasions, Giles is highly doubtful that anything of import will change nor does he believe the French have any chance at being victorious this time out. In his mind a French victory would take a miracle.
•Thevenin, Man-at-Arms
‘Thev’ works his own stretch of land (just south of Poitiers), and like Joan’s Papa Jacques, he and his fellow townsfolk also tend sheep and cattle. Though ‘Thev’ complains just as much as his fellow men-at-arms, ironically, he is present in the army for no other reason but that he feels it is the right and honorable thing to do, though he cannot exactly identify the sense of obligation he feels. He simply does not really know why it is the right and honorable thing to do. He just feels that way. Not believing in Charles VII’s cause, legitimacy or God’s backing of Valois, loyalist France, nor any sense of French independence from the English, he nevertheless feels ethical, moral compulsion to respond to Charles VII’s call to arms. Having no sons and only two daughters, both married and out of the nest with lives of their own, in his absence from home and away at the war he relies on his fellow townsmen to tend his fields. What’s more, on some level, the fact that Thevenin has no sons, he feels that his contribution to the war effort is all the more important as he has no offspring to offer to the next generation of the French military.
• Raymond, Man-at-Arms
Raymond is the youngest of the men in camp. Up until the moment we first meet him he has simply been a member of Charles VII’s military out of a desire for adventure and money. A native of Chinon, having come from a large family of six sisters as the only boy and the youngest sibling he was quick to leave home when the opportunity offered itself only five weeks earlier. As a youth he thought he might like to be a priest but then adolescence came along and he found himself wanting to learn a more “masculine” trade, as he thought of it. So for the last several years he has tried to become the apprentice of a local blacksmith. Looking to raise fast money toward that end he answered the call to Charles VII’s military. However, the pay has not been nearly as good or as consistent as he had come to believe it would be, and the tales he’s been hearing his fellow men-at-arms tell as of late as to the natural prowess and superiority of the English soldiers has caused him for several nights now to seriously consider going absent without leave. The only factor keeping him from doing so has been that he used his real name to enlist and he thinks quite logically that he won’t be able to become a blacksmith using his own name if he goes absent without leave. For as he sees it, half of the pride in learning a respectable trade is making your family proud of you. But had he used a false name, no matter how the war turned out, there would likely be a stigma associated with his name, a stigma that he knows would keep any God-fearing blacksmith from taking him on, never mind how much money he may be able to pay. In the present, because of his growing fear of the English and because he wished he’d used a false name when he enlisted so that he could now go AWOL without having his conscience sting him mightily, he now dreads what he thought only weeks before would be a grand adventure, and that is being a part of the French loyalist army.
•Tiphaine, Man-at-Arms and gambler
he is the one soldier in camp most happy to be present during a military campaign, and not because he wants to fight, but on the contrary, because being on the march and in camp with an ample supply of naive, gullible men he has a full and ready supply of marks, men he can practice his art of subterfuge and fraud upon. A natural coward he is not looking forward to any kind of a real and physical confrontation with the English or the Burgundians. Although once upon a time he was married with little ones he is now divorced and hasn’t seen the little ones for years, and has since lived in sin with many different women. Currently he could be said to be “playing the field.” In his capacity as a volunteer in the Dauphin’s army he is the conniving Sergeant Bilko of the camp, always looking for a way to finagle something out of every situation. In private life he has had experience as a minor artisan, having been apprenticed from time to time in a number of different disciplines to a number of different masters, but unlike Rene he has never stuck to one long enough to master it. When all is said and done, the one craft he may be said to have decently mastered is the art of the slight of hand, street magic, or, to put it in other words, in the art of duping the dupes.
•Maugier, a gunner
A natural trouble-maker, of all the men-at-arms he is the only one who has been a mercenary, that is to say, a professional soldier paid for hire – unrelated to any allegiance to king, lord or country. This took place twenty years ago when he was in his youth and tramping about Italy. Having a reckless nature he is drawn to that aspect of medieval warfare which by its nature is most risky: gunnery – for gunners risk their lives every time they put fire to wick, for the simple reason that cannons were not perfected in that day and they could, and often did, blow up in their operator’s face, often taking the gunner’s life or limb in the explosion. In his social contacts he has many friends who could be considered criminals and who, along with Maugier, constitute the dangerous side of life in the big city. When honestly employed he often works jobs that require manual labor. As a result, his recent liege lord is the head of the bricklayers guild in Poitiers, and it is for this man that Maugier is doing military service.
•Gerard, Man-at-Arms
Gerard, along with his brother Martin, runs a combination tavern and inn in Poitiers and was forced to “take to the field” and respond to Charles VII’s call to arms when only five weeks previous, Charles VII’s recruiting men chanced to stay at his tavern-inn for several nights. Charles VII’s men, learning that Gerard ran the business with his brother, insisted that it only took one man to run an establishment of that order and further insisted that one of the brothers serve in Charles’ army. The brothers had then drawn lots and Gerard lost, hence his presence in camp with the military force. Unmarried, unlike his married brother, though constantly loaded down with responsibility at home and goaded by his brother and sister-in-law to run a respectable business, the only thing Gerard likes about military service is the easy availability of women folk (bawds, camp-followers) with which he can freely fraternize, and without his sister-in-law’s moral indignation and constant sermonizing.
•Friar Leo
As a gift to Joan from Charles VII, the friar is in camp with her having been bequeathed to her as her personal confessor. Having been with Joan on the march toward Orleans for about a month, when we meet him his belief in Joan and her mission is whole-hearted and complete, although when he is questioned by the men-at-arms as to whether God is or is not behind Joan he responds with probing, Socratic, dialectical reasoning, in effect eschewing all easy, cut and dried answers, and says “perhaps,” challenging one and all to think for themselves and weigh all such weighty matters in their own way.
Second Act Characters
• Burgundy, Philip “the Good,” the duke of
The richest man in all of France, richer than the Constable due to his wealth coming in large part from his dominance of the European cloth trade, Burgundy is a staunch ally of the English, as are all towns loyal to him. When we meet him his alliance with the English has been active for eight full years, ever since the writing of the Treaty of Troyes, and together, Burgundy and England have succeeded at eroding the lands of the Dauphin Charles VII of Valois. The proverbial savvy businessman, he knows a good thing when he sees it, so he is quick to see how Joan’s capture is an unprecedented opportunity to make a windfall. In guiding his comrade Luxembourg he makes the best possible “deal” in selling the captured Joan thru the medieval tradition of ransom not to Charles VII but to the English. Also of great note is the over-riding fact of his ongoing personal struggle with his cousin Charles VII. This “intrigue” has put great distance between the two of them, personally and politically – and as such it is the sole reason why the royal house of France is divided.
• Duke John of Luxembourg
The youngest of several boys his greatest claim to wealth has been marrying the rich heiress of Beaurevoir. However, the somewhat oafish and slow Luxembourg has a great many debts and when we meet him his need for a financial windfall is quite pronounced. Since Burgundy is his liege-lord he naturally follows his lord’s lead in advertising the capture of Joan to the end that the best deal might be made of Joan’s sale and a great sum will be exchanged for her. And so it is precisely with Joan’s capture that his financial affairs turn favorable and the newfound wealth quickly causes him to become arrogant, mocking and irreverent.
• Bishop of Beauvais, Pierre Cauchon
When we meet the Bishop Joan and her forces have just succeeded in turning his Burgundian diocese of Beauvais back to the loyalist cause of Charles VII. Thus Joan has in effect booted him out of his own diocese and he is none too happy about it. As a partisan of England, a French cleric with numerous benefices from which he is a very wealthy man, the Bishop believes whole-heartedly that the boy-king Henry VI of England is in fact the rightful ruler of both France and England. Therefore, he champions the demise of Charles VII’s most powerful change agent, Joan the Maid, whom he desires to prove is a tool of the devil – spreading her heresy thru-out Christendom to the destruction of good Catholic-Christian souls everywhere. Along with the Counselor, his close friend and colleague, he brokers the “ransom” whereby Burgundy and Luxembourg sell Joan to the English (in the hands of Warwick) and have her trial take place in the northern French-Norman city of Rouen, where, because Joan is held so far north and far away from the military lines of the south, a coup of her loyalist soldiers to free her is not likely to occur.
• Counselor Jean d’Estivet of the Diocese of Beauvais
Canon Lawyer and Professor at the University of Paris; 50’s; The Counselor is virulently partisan and legalistic to an extreme. From the moment Joan steps upon the military stage he sees Joan as a rebel troublemaker, quite possibly the greatest embodiment of evil in the world to date. For this reason he believes Joan deserves all the vitriol he can give her. Terribly passionate about the Plantagenet/Lancastrian rule over France, when tapped by his close confidante and colleague the Bishop of Beauvais to preside as Promoter (Prosecutor) over Joan’s trial for witchcraft and heresy, he is absolutely on fire with zeal to fulfill the role. Along with the Bishop of Beauvais, his close friend and colleague, he brokers the “ransom” whereby Burgundy and Luxembourg sell Joan to the English (in the hands of Warwick) and have her trial take place in the northern French-Norman city of Rouen, where, because Joan is held so far north and far away from the military lines of the south, a coup of her loyalist soldiers to free her is not likely to occur.
• Warwick, the Earl of, Richard Beauchamp
Warwick enjoys administering the war as Regent of France in the English boy-king Henry VI’s (the Sixth’s) youth, but dislikes the constant and ever present lack of funds in his war coffers as dismally allocated by Parliament. A gifted and natural leader Warwick commands great respect from one and all, including the Judges at Joan’s final trial who are French clerics in the employ of England – and this is not just because he is the one signing the documents that pay them, but because the Judges themselves see the Earl as the extension of God’s will that the English royal house of Lancaster/Plantagenet rule over all England and France. One of the two most powerful English men ruling war affairs in France (the Duke of Bedford handling all military affairs in the field) Warwick handles all administrative duties from the Normandy town of Rouen.
• Thomas de Courcelles, Warwick’s Assistant
A faithful follower and servant of his lord the Earl of Warwick, Thomas has been with his lord long enough and has earned enough respect from his lord to freely offer suggestions, that is, within reason. For example, when his master dictates policy thru correspondence regarding Joan’s capture, Thomas is quick to admonish his lord to end the missive on a positive note.
• Pierre, Isambard, Inquisitorial Assistant
Ironically, although the purpose of Pierre’s presence at Joan’s trial is to enforce the “new” “orthodoxy” and “rules” of the Inquisition, he is singlehandedly the most sympathetic cleric to Joan present. By the time we meet him, he has become Joan’s unofficial counsel of sorts. Seeing the trial for what it is, a political show trial designed to cast aspersions on the legitimacy of the king she helped to crown (Charles VII), more than any other churchman present he treats Joan with respect, mercy and with sincere unaffected kindness.
• Executioner
ironically, in the light of and performance of his dark office, the Executioner is a practical, even a merciful man. In Joan’s hour of passion he looks for a way to lessen, shorten and end Joan’s pain. However, he is unable to do so due to the way the English built the scaffold and pyre, which, as he ruefully observes, has assured that Joan’s death will be a particularly excruciating and cruel one. As he remarks, in burnings at the stake when the victim is approaching the height of agony he always makes it his practice to make his way to them to strangle them so that the worst of their suffering may end.
When captured by her Burgundian enemies, imprisoned for a year, and braving a tortuous five-month trial, incredibly, Joan remains resilient and cheerful. Only at the very end does she break and deny her Heavenly inspiration – and this she does at the threat of death by fire. But conscience and her Angels quickly convict her of this error and she mends it with great sorrow and penitence, paying the ultimate price and choosing to do her penance once and for all rather than suffer perpetual imprisonment at the hands of her English tormentors.
In summary, Joan is a study in paradox. She is a dutiful daughter and yet she is completely independent – in her thinking and in her deeds. She is very much a female and yet she is completely comfortable with, and even excels at, performing masculine deeds. She is illiterate yet she possesses a knowledge and a wisdom (even a nobility) far superior to the “noble” nobility of the loyalist French court. She is very much a youth, with all the impulsive, fast-acting, high-charged energy that phase of life offers, and yet, once she comes to court she comports herself with a great dignity and serenity born of other-worldly control, as if she were a trained and highly experienced professional commander. And how does one clearly describe that? She is, in fact, very simple and yet very complex.
From the moment she learned her Credo her greatest desire has always been to please God so that she may someday be deemed worthy enough to go where the “Dawn Becomes the Day.”
• Saint Catherine of Siena, an angel
Along with Saint Margaret, Catherine is in charge of encouraging Joan in her religious devotion and guiding her in all piety and godliness. In contrast to Margaret, Catherine is a bit more classically feminine than Margaret, nevertheless, she and Margaret work as a perfect team in counseling, motivating and assisting Joan.
• Saint Margaret of Antioch, an angel
Along with Saint Catherine, Margaret is in charge of encouraging Joan in her religious devotion and guiding her in all piety and godliness. In contrast to Catherine, Margaret is a bit more aggressive than Catherine, nevertheless, she and Catherine work as a perfect team in counseling, motivating and assisting Joan.
• Saint Michael, Archangel of God
Michael is the highly dignified heavenly personage who presides as a kind of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff over Heaven’s military host. When Joan was in her thirteenth year, three years before the outset of the play, Michael first appeared to her, and as such he was her first heavenly visitor. As Joan’s initial sponsor he is the number one connection between she and God, and it is he who appoints Joan’s two Lady Saints to become her guides and mentors in holiness. The three of them collectively constitute Joan’s heavenly counsel and are referred to as Joan’s Angels. As messengers of God – and from God – is is they who communicate to Joan God’s will for her which thru-out the play becomes her mission.
• Romee, Isabeau, Joan’s mother
Joan’s Mother normally goes along to get along. This is not to say that she has no morals, scruples or convictions, just that she is the quintessential peacemaker – one who, when sensing domestic social discord, spends a very minimum of time analyzing it before she has confidently decided how to bring about peace for all concerned, and in the quickest and most effective way. When it comes to Joan, Mama Romee’s love for her daughter is deep and devoted – so when Romee enters into a plot with her husband Jacques and Joan’s childhood friend Colin, to get Joan married, Romee truly believes she is doing what is best for Joan.
• Mayor of Domremy
A jocular person, the Mayor has a natural charm and charisma that makes him the logical representative of and spokesperson for the God-honoring, idyllic, yet earthy and productive folk that reside in the humble little town of Domremy. A bit “over the top” and “larger-than-life” his inflated self importance is completely at home and accepted in Domremy. Even though he and his fellow townsfolk are well aware that he, as Mayor, merely presides over a humble little hamlet, whenever he speaks and waxes philosophical on a subject there is also a very real sense in which he feels and thinks himself to be a spokesman on a much larger scale – as if he were a great Roman orator, a high profile diplomat, or perhaps even a king himself.
• Jacques d’Arc, Joan’s father
Jacques is usually long-suffering and patient, and willing to give most folks the benefit of the doubt. Naturally protective of his daughter, steadily over the past three years he has been plagued by nightmares of his daughter in highly unfavorable and compromised situations with men. As a result he is tremendously edgy, jumpy, and impatient to a fault, to the extent that he is now terribly suspicious of all young men, particularly soldiers, who come thru Domremy with news and talk of the French war with England and Burgundy.
• Nicholas, loyalist Soldier
Squire / Knight-errant of Robert di Baudricourt the Captain Governor of the market town of Vaucouleurs, the nearest market town to Joan’s hometown of Domremy. Due to Joan’s persistent efforts to get permission to meet Charles VII, Baudricourt assigns Nicholas to escort her across enemy-held territory to the court of Charles VII of Valois in Chinon on the Vienne. Nicholas is the first loyalist soldier to believe in Joan and her cause. Impressed by her spirit and energy he quickly comes to support her in full and unconditionally. Nicholas is a career soldier and fighting against the English and the Burgundians is the only thing he’s wanted to do his whole life. This is why Joan’s engaging confidence strikes such a sympathetic chord in him causing him to see her as a veritable enigma and as the hope of France.
• Colin of Greux, Joan’s “Suitor”
has been Joan’s friend from childhood on. When we meet him he fully intends to make her his wife. In the court action he brings against Joan for what he claims is a Breach of Promise, and as her suitor, Colin is lovestruck, over-bearing, over-confidant, and a bit cocky. Adding to his “confidence” in no small way and leading him to believe that his suit is impregnable is his knowledge that he has Joan’s parents’ unequivocal consent of the match, even their endorsement, as well as the complicity of all Joan’s godparents.
• Judge, of Toul
Level-headed, fair, and highly intelligent the Judge is that rare weigher of personalitieswho can spot and recognize the extremely gifted individual (Joan) at once, and not only accept her but endorse her as well – to what may often be the surprise of less discerning, less observant eyes. As such, from the very first moment he encounters her the Judge clearly discerns Joan’s dignity, integrity and natural gift for rhetoric, each for the novel aspects they are, and that in one so very young! Far from condemning her for being a woman and an extremely young one at that, and far from sympathizing with her suitor and opponent Colin in the legal action against her, the Judge immediately appreciates Joan for the rare, well-spoken and charismatic being she is. Far from your average, run-of-the-mill rural justice the Judge is, quite to the contrary, an excellent appraiser of character, amazingly unbiased and exceptionally open to the remarkable girl that he finds speaking before him arguing her case.
• Charles VII of Valois; Dauphin “King” of France
Charles the Seventh is the eccentrically insecure, mercurial son of Isabeau of Bavaria and Charles VI (the Sixth) of France. A depressing anxiety regarding his own legitimacy has all but mastered him, and it stems from two historical facts: First, that in his (Charles’ own) youth, his deceased father Charles the Sixth was completely mad for nearly all of his adult life, and the fact that his mother the Queen, unable to remain faithful to a husband who was insane, took many different lovers; Second, in a contract between the royal houses of France and England (The Treaty of Troyes) his mother the French Queen and his (alleged) father the King of France Charles the Sixth, legally disinherited him bequeathed all of France not to him but to the infant son of Henry V of England and his French Queen, Katherine of Valois (Charles’ sister). What’s more, in the eight years since the Treaty disinheriting Charles had been proclaimed in the streets thru-out the realm, rumor of Charles’ not being the true heir has made its way back to his own ears and caused him much anxiety. Charles’ monarchy weighs even more heavily upon him because he is well aware of the suffering the war in his name causes all his subjects, the people of his realm – and if his cause is not legitimate, if he is not the true son of Charles VI, then the entire war effort is also not legitimate and thousands upon thousands of people have been suffering and dying for naught. For he well knows that his war with England and England’s ally Burgundy is all about contesting the Treaty of Troyes and attempting to regain what may be his rightful kingdom. It is this, the rightfulness or the wrongfulness of his claim to legitimate rulership that weighs most heavily upon him. So whether he is or is not rightful ruler of France and the heir to Charles VI or simply a bastard spawned of any one of his mother’s many extra-marital liaisons, well… this is simply beyond Charles’ human ability to know with any reasonable measure of accuracy, that is, shy of some supernatural clue, say, such as a sign from God.
• Louis Coutes, Page boy to Charles VII, then Squire/Soldier
Louis becomes a squire, that is to say a soldier, during Joan’s rise to leadership at the head of the dauphin’s military force. Intensely loyal to his Dauphin that same loyalty is transferred in whole to Joan when he follows her to war. Having come from aristocratic parents he has been sheltered thru-out his young life and as such he is completely out of his element when interacting with the “lower” class of men which comprise the dauphin’s army. Tending to be a bit of a braggart where his elite social connections are and carrying, as he proudly does, a somewhat self-righteous, arrogant spirit about him he finds himself in dire circumstances when he goes on too long about his knowledge of the Dauphin.
• Queen Mother, Yolande of Aragorn
A “Spanish” Queen, Charles VII’s mother-in-law is the most powerful female at Charles’ court, even more wealthy than the Constable. Nevertheless, the bulk of her wealth is centered in Aragorn (a region south of the Pyrenees in medieval Spain) and as such it is not immediately available or easily transferable to her during her long stay in France with her son-in-law. And where sons vis a vis their mothers down thru the ages are expected to be close to their own blood mothers and somewhat estranged from their mother-in-laws, just the exact opposite is the case with the Queen Mother and Charles. So it is quite a note of grand irony that in complete contrast to Charles’ own blood mother, Isabeau of Bavaria, who never really loved him and who not only legally disowned and disinherited him but did everything she could to make him a social pariah in his own country, Charles’ mother-in-law the Queen Mother has been, down thru the years since his wedding to her daughter, more of a real mother to him than his own. Significantly, Charles VII is indeed the Queen Mother’s greatest “investment” in that she married off her daughter to him in order to multiply her political influence, in addition to always lending him financial help when his needs are dire and when she is able to do so. And yet, putting aside the emotional investment of granting her daughter’s hand in marriage to Charles and the periodic financial investment she makes in granting him various types of loans, she truly loves and cares for him not only as the king, but as a son (as if he were her own), as a man and as a human being. Charles, in response, is always aware of the Queen Mother’s great natural love for him and it’s what makes her influence on him, if not thee most powerful influence on him, then perhaps one of the most powerful of all influences. Finally, when Joan comes to Charles VII’s court in Chinon the Queen is the first of the nobility to befriend her – and the two of them immediately become fast friends.
• His Grace, Archbishop of Reims, Regnault des Chartres
His Grace is the highest ecclesiastical personage in not only Charles VII’s realm of France but in all France. His Grace is Bishop Pierre Cauchon’s metropolitan, meaning that His Grace is a higher Catholic church-dignitary than the Bishop. So His Grace’s opinion of Joan matters more from the medieval church’s perspective than Bishop Cauchon who ultimately tries Joan for witchcraft and heresy. And yet, His Grace never accuses Joan for crimes against the Catholic church or the Catholic faith, he merely believes that she is all puffed up with pride and that she deserves the fall that is ultimately coming to all who, as he sees it, lift themselves up for all to see and adore. Unfortunately for Joan, the French church that sided with Charles VII in believing him to be the true king of France needs money to function, and though the church may consider itself an ally with the poor (at least in theory (“Blessed are the poor” etc.), in practice this doesn’t work so well because running the Church takes great financial resources. For this reason His Grace must ally himself with the rich and powerful nobility. The natural outcome of this situation is that His Grace’s relationship with the ultra wealthy Constable is his strongest friendship at Charles VII’s court, and as such the two men’s political interests completely merge as one.
• Constable of France, Georges de la Tremouille
the Constable is the richest and most powerful man at Charles VII’s court. He acquired most of his wealth by marrying rich heiresses who soon died after marrying him. Did he have them murdered? It is anyone’s guess. But since Charles is always needing money to run his kingdom, money which he does not have due to the madness of his erstwhile father’s wastefulness, the Constable is ready and willing to offer the king numerous loans, whenever a financial need arises, which it always does and with great regularity. Thus, the Constable’s great wealth has endured him to the king and earned him the nickname the “Favorite.” He is, therefore, the number one go-to-person when it comes to coming up with means with which to solve Charles’ financial problems. But mark this: Power and Control over Charles are the Constable’s main objectives, and so it follows that he is terribly jealous of Charles’ attention to whatever or whomever, and he will therefore not suffer others who challenge his monopoly over it. So although Joan and the Constable are both loyalists and believe that Charles is the legitimate son of his father Charles VI, and therefore rightful ruler over all of France – though Joan and the Constable are on the same political side vis a vis the king, they are not on the same side when it comes to their individual objectives for the king. In this way they completely clash. Thus it is that from the moment Joan comes to Charles’ court she is seen by the Constable to be a threat and an enemy.
• Alencon, Duke of; French commander
The cousin of the Dauphin Charles VII of Valois, he is of the same general physical build and size as his royal cousin. Though not possessing his royal relative’s timidity in matters of war he is by contrast quite the accomplished warrior, as well as an experienced and seasoned leader of men. When we first meet him at the court of Chinon he has just recently endured and survived the aristocratic medieval ordeal of ransom, whereby a large sum of wealth was raised (mostly from his family’s dukedom) to pay for his release from his English captors. After first trying to deceive Joan in a game of switched identity he and the entire court of Chinon play on her, Alencon soon becomes Joan’s faithful friend, and in time comes to believe that she has been sent by God to aid a war-torn France.
Men-at-Arms
• Rene, Man-at-Arms and cook
He is the quintessential team player among the men-at-arms. As such he is also the least argumentative, always wanting to make the best out of the ugly reality that is war. A craftsman’s apprentice for nearly twenty years he is just shy of becoming a master carpenter, although the financial investment made toward this goal has saddled him with a great deal of personal debt. In serving in the Dauphin’s army Rene is also serving his liege lord, who is his master carpenter.
• Giles, Man-at-Arms
Farmer Giles is a plowman who works for the lord of a castle manor south of Poitiers, He is married and has two sons, an elder son who is out in the world and a sixteen-year old who is fulfilling his father’s manorial duties while his father is away at the war. Giles as such is practical but skeptical. He doesn’t believe in quick fixes or easy answers to life’s (and war’s) numerous troubles. Having, in the last ten years, fought in a number of campaigns against the English and the Burgundians and having had the chance to go up against them on a number of occasions, Giles is highly doubtful that anything of import will change nor does he believe the French have any chance at being victorious this time out. In his mind a French victory would take a miracle.
•Thevenin, Man-at-Arms
‘Thev’ works his own stretch of land (just south of Poitiers), and like Joan’s Papa Jacques, he and his fellow townsfolk also tend sheep and cattle. Though ‘Thev’ complains just as much as his fellow men-at-arms, ironically, he is present in the army for no other reason but that he feels it is the right and honorable thing to do, though he cannot exactly identify the sense of obligation he feels. He simply does not really know why it is the right and honorable thing to do. He just feels that way. Not believing in Charles VII’s cause, legitimacy or God’s backing of Valois, loyalist France, nor any sense of French independence from the English, he nevertheless feels ethical, moral compulsion to respond to Charles VII’s call to arms. Having no sons and only two daughters, both married and out of the nest with lives of their own, in his absence from home and away at the war he relies on his fellow townsmen to tend his fields. What’s more, on some level, the fact that Thevenin has no sons, he feels that his contribution to the war effort is all the more important as he has no offspring to offer to the next generation of the French military.
• Raymond, Man-at-Arms
Raymond is the youngest of the men in camp. Up until the moment we first meet him he has simply been a member of Charles VII’s military out of a desire for adventure and money. A native of Chinon, having come from a large family of six sisters as the only boy and the youngest sibling he was quick to leave home when the opportunity offered itself only five weeks earlier. As a youth he thought he might like to be a priest but then adolescence came along and he found himself wanting to learn a more “masculine” trade, as he thought of it. So for the last several years he has tried to become the apprentice of a local blacksmith. Looking to raise fast money toward that end he answered the call to Charles VII’s military. However, the pay has not been nearly as good or as consistent as he had come to believe it would be, and the tales he’s been hearing his fellow men-at-arms tell as of late as to the natural prowess and superiority of the English soldiers has caused him for several nights now to seriously consider going absent without leave. The only factor keeping him from doing so has been that he used his real name to enlist and he thinks quite logically that he won’t be able to become a blacksmith using his own name if he goes absent without leave. For as he sees it, half of the pride in learning a respectable trade is making your family proud of you. But had he used a false name, no matter how the war turned out, there would likely be a stigma associated with his name, a stigma that he knows would keep any God-fearing blacksmith from taking him on, never mind how much money he may be able to pay. In the present, because of his growing fear of the English and because he wished he’d used a false name when he enlisted so that he could now go AWOL without having his conscience sting him mightily, he now dreads what he thought only weeks before would be a grand adventure, and that is being a part of the French loyalist army.
•Tiphaine, Man-at-Arms and gambler
he is the one soldier in camp most happy to be present during a military campaign, and not because he wants to fight, but on the contrary, because being on the march and in camp with an ample supply of naive, gullible men he has a full and ready supply of marks, men he can practice his art of subterfuge and fraud upon. A natural coward he is not looking forward to any kind of a real and physical confrontation with the English or the Burgundians. Although once upon a time he was married with little ones he is now divorced and hasn’t seen the little ones for years, and has since lived in sin with many different women. Currently he could be said to be “playing the field.” In his capacity as a volunteer in the Dauphin’s army he is the conniving Sergeant Bilko of the camp, always looking for a way to finagle something out of every situation. In private life he has had experience as a minor artisan, having been apprenticed from time to time in a number of different disciplines to a number of different masters, but unlike Rene he has never stuck to one long enough to master it. When all is said and done, the one craft he may be said to have decently mastered is the art of the slight of hand, street magic, or, to put it in other words, in the art of duping the dupes.
•Maugier, a gunner
A natural trouble-maker, of all the men-at-arms he is the only one who has been a mercenary, that is to say, a professional soldier paid for hire – unrelated to any allegiance to king, lord or country. This took place twenty years ago when he was in his youth and tramping about Italy. Having a reckless nature he is drawn to that aspect of medieval warfare which by its nature is most risky: gunnery – for gunners risk their lives every time they put fire to wick, for the simple reason that cannons were not perfected in that day and they could, and often did, blow up in their operator’s face, often taking the gunner’s life or limb in the explosion. In his social contacts he has many friends who could be considered criminals and who, along with Maugier, constitute the dangerous side of life in the big city. When honestly employed he often works jobs that require manual labor. As a result, his recent liege lord is the head of the bricklayers guild in Poitiers, and it is for this man that Maugier is doing military service.
•Gerard, Man-at-Arms
Gerard, along with his brother Martin, runs a combination tavern and inn in Poitiers and was forced to “take to the field” and respond to Charles VII’s call to arms when only five weeks previous, Charles VII’s recruiting men chanced to stay at his tavern-inn for several nights. Charles VII’s men, learning that Gerard ran the business with his brother, insisted that it only took one man to run an establishment of that order and further insisted that one of the brothers serve in Charles’ army. The brothers had then drawn lots and Gerard lost, hence his presence in camp with the military force. Unmarried, unlike his married brother, though constantly loaded down with responsibility at home and goaded by his brother and sister-in-law to run a respectable business, the only thing Gerard likes about military service is the easy availability of women folk (bawds, camp-followers) with which he can freely fraternize, and without his sister-in-law’s moral indignation and constant sermonizing.
•Friar Leo
As a gift to Joan from Charles VII, the friar is in camp with her having been bequeathed to her as her personal confessor. Having been with Joan on the march toward Orleans for about a month, when we meet him his belief in Joan and her mission is whole-hearted and complete, although when he is questioned by the men-at-arms as to whether God is or is not behind Joan he responds with probing, Socratic, dialectical reasoning, in effect eschewing all easy, cut and dried answers, and says “perhaps,” challenging one and all to think for themselves and weigh all such weighty matters in their own way.
Second Act Characters
• Burgundy, Philip “the Good,” the duke of
The richest man in all of France, richer than the Constable due to his wealth coming in large part from his dominance of the European cloth trade, Burgundy is a staunch ally of the English, as are all towns loyal to him. When we meet him his alliance with the English has been active for eight full years, ever since the writing of the Treaty of Troyes, and together, Burgundy and England have succeeded at eroding the lands of the Dauphin Charles VII of Valois. The proverbial savvy businessman, he knows a good thing when he sees it, so he is quick to see how Joan’s capture is an unprecedented opportunity to make a windfall. In guiding his comrade Luxembourg he makes the best possible “deal” in selling the captured Joan thru the medieval tradition of ransom not to Charles VII but to the English. Also of great note is the over-riding fact of his ongoing personal struggle with his cousin Charles VII. This “intrigue” has put great distance between the two of them, personally and politically – and as such it is the sole reason why the royal house of France is divided.
• Duke John of Luxembourg
The youngest of several boys his greatest claim to wealth has been marrying the rich heiress of Beaurevoir. However, the somewhat oafish and slow Luxembourg has a great many debts and when we meet him his need for a financial windfall is quite pronounced. Since Burgundy is his liege-lord he naturally follows his lord’s lead in advertising the capture of Joan to the end that the best deal might be made of Joan’s sale and a great sum will be exchanged for her. And so it is precisely with Joan’s capture that his financial affairs turn favorable and the newfound wealth quickly causes him to become arrogant, mocking and irreverent.
• Bishop of Beauvais, Pierre Cauchon
When we meet the Bishop Joan and her forces have just succeeded in turning his Burgundian diocese of Beauvais back to the loyalist cause of Charles VII. Thus Joan has in effect booted him out of his own diocese and he is none too happy about it. As a partisan of England, a French cleric with numerous benefices from which he is a very wealthy man, the Bishop believes whole-heartedly that the boy-king Henry VI of England is in fact the rightful ruler of both France and England. Therefore, he champions the demise of Charles VII’s most powerful change agent, Joan the Maid, whom he desires to prove is a tool of the devil – spreading her heresy thru-out Christendom to the destruction of good Catholic-Christian souls everywhere. Along with the Counselor, his close friend and colleague, he brokers the “ransom” whereby Burgundy and Luxembourg sell Joan to the English (in the hands of Warwick) and have her trial take place in the northern French-Norman city of Rouen, where, because Joan is held so far north and far away from the military lines of the south, a coup of her loyalist soldiers to free her is not likely to occur.
• Counselor Jean d’Estivet of the Diocese of Beauvais
Canon Lawyer and Professor at the University of Paris; 50’s; The Counselor is virulently partisan and legalistic to an extreme. From the moment Joan steps upon the military stage he sees Joan as a rebel troublemaker, quite possibly the greatest embodiment of evil in the world to date. For this reason he believes Joan deserves all the vitriol he can give her. Terribly passionate about the Plantagenet/Lancastrian rule over France, when tapped by his close confidante and colleague the Bishop of Beauvais to preside as Promoter (Prosecutor) over Joan’s trial for witchcraft and heresy, he is absolutely on fire with zeal to fulfill the role. Along with the Bishop of Beauvais, his close friend and colleague, he brokers the “ransom” whereby Burgundy and Luxembourg sell Joan to the English (in the hands of Warwick) and have her trial take place in the northern French-Norman city of Rouen, where, because Joan is held so far north and far away from the military lines of the south, a coup of her loyalist soldiers to free her is not likely to occur.
• Warwick, the Earl of, Richard Beauchamp
Warwick enjoys administering the war as Regent of France in the English boy-king Henry VI’s (the Sixth’s) youth, but dislikes the constant and ever present lack of funds in his war coffers as dismally allocated by Parliament. A gifted and natural leader Warwick commands great respect from one and all, including the Judges at Joan’s final trial who are French clerics in the employ of England – and this is not just because he is the one signing the documents that pay them, but because the Judges themselves see the Earl as the extension of God’s will that the English royal house of Lancaster/Plantagenet rule over all England and France. One of the two most powerful English men ruling war affairs in France (the Duke of Bedford handling all military affairs in the field) Warwick handles all administrative duties from the Normandy town of Rouen.
• Thomas de Courcelles, Warwick’s Assistant
A faithful follower and servant of his lord the Earl of Warwick, Thomas has been with his lord long enough and has earned enough respect from his lord to freely offer suggestions, that is, within reason. For example, when his master dictates policy thru correspondence regarding Joan’s capture, Thomas is quick to admonish his lord to end the missive on a positive note.
• Pierre, Isambard, Inquisitorial Assistant
Ironically, although the purpose of Pierre’s presence at Joan’s trial is to enforce the “new” “orthodoxy” and “rules” of the Inquisition, he is singlehandedly the most sympathetic cleric to Joan present. By the time we meet him, he has become Joan’s unofficial counsel of sorts. Seeing the trial for what it is, a political show trial designed to cast aspersions on the legitimacy of the king she helped to crown (Charles VII), more than any other churchman present he treats Joan with respect, mercy and with sincere unaffected kindness.
• Executioner
ironically, in the light of and performance of his dark office, the Executioner is a practical, even a merciful man. In Joan’s hour of passion he looks for a way to lessen, shorten and end Joan’s pain. However, he is unable to do so due to the way the English built the scaffold and pyre, which, as he ruefully observes, has assured that Joan’s death will be a particularly excruciating and cruel one. As he remarks, in burnings at the stake when the victim is approaching the height of agony he always makes it his practice to make his way to them to strangle them so that the worst of their suffering may end.
From the moment she learned her Credo her greatest desire has always been to please God so that she may someday be deemed worthy enough to go where the “Dawn Becomes the Day.”
• Saint Catherine of Siena, an angel
Along with Saint Margaret, Catherine is in charge of encouraging Joan in her religious devotion and guiding her in all piety and godliness. In contrast to Margaret, Catherine is a bit more classically feminine than Margaret, nevertheless, she and Margaret work as a perfect team in counseling, motivating and assisting Joan.
• Saint Margaret of Antioch, an angel
Along with Saint Catherine, Margaret is in charge of encouraging Joan in her religious devotion and guiding her in all piety and godliness. In contrast to Catherine, Margaret is a bit more aggressive than Catherine, nevertheless, she and Catherine work as a perfect team in counseling, motivating and assisting Joan.
• Saint Michael, Archangel of God
Michael is the highly dignified heavenly personage who presides as a kind of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff over Heaven’s military host. When Joan was in her thirteenth year, three years before the outset of the play, Michael first appeared to her, and as such he was her first heavenly visitor. As Joan’s initial sponsor he is the number one connection between she and God, and it is he who appoints Joan’s two Lady Saints to become her guides and mentors in holiness. The three of them collectively constitute Joan’s heavenly counsel and are referred to as Joan’s Angels. As messengers of God – and from God – is is they who communicate to Joan God’s will for her which thru-out the play becomes her mission.
• Romee, Isabeau, Joan’s mother
Joan’s Mother normally goes along to get along. This is not to say that she has no morals, scruples or convictions, just that she is the quintessential peacemaker – one who, when sensing domestic social discord, spends a very minimum of time analyzing it before she has confidently decided how to bring about peace for all concerned, and in the quickest and most effective way. When it comes to Joan, Mama Romee’s love for her daughter is deep and devoted – so when Romee enters into a plot with her husband Jacques and Joan’s childhood friend Colin, to get Joan married, Romee truly believes she is doing what is best for Joan.
• Mayor of Domremy
A jocular person, the Mayor has a natural charm and charisma that makes him the logical representative of and spokesperson for the God-honoring, idyllic, yet earthy and productive folk that reside in the humble little town of Domremy. A bit “over the top” and “larger-than-life” his inflated self importance is completely at home and accepted in Domremy. Even though he and his fellow townsfolk are well aware that he, as Mayor, merely presides over a humble little hamlet, whenever he speaks and waxes philosophical on a subject there is also a very real sense in which he feels and thinks himself to be a spokesman on a much larger scale – as if he were a great Roman orator, a high profile diplomat, or perhaps even a king himself.
• Jacques d’Arc, Joan’s father
Jacques is usually long-suffering and patient, and willing to give most folks the benefit of the doubt. Naturally protective of his daughter, steadily over the past three years he has been plagued by nightmares of his daughter in highly unfavorable and compromised situations with men. As a result he is tremendously edgy, jumpy, and impatient to a fault, to the extent that he is now terribly suspicious of all young men, particularly soldiers, who come thru Domremy with news and talk of the French war with England and Burgundy.
• Nicholas, loyalist Soldier
Squire / Knight-errant of Robert di Baudricourt the Captain Governor of the market town of Vaucouleurs, the nearest market town to Joan’s hometown of Domremy. Due to Joan’s persistent efforts to get permission to meet Charles VII, Baudricourt assigns Nicholas to escort her across enemy-held territory to the court of Charles VII of Valois in Chinon on the Vienne. Nicholas is the first loyalist soldier to believe in Joan and her cause. Impressed by her spirit and energy he quickly comes to support her in full and unconditionally. Nicholas is a career soldier and fighting against the English and the Burgundians is the only thing he’s wanted to do his whole life. This is why Joan’s engaging confidence strikes such a sympathetic chord in him causing him to see her as a veritable enigma and as the hope of France.
• Colin of Greux, Joan’s “Suitor”
has been Joan’s friend from childhood on. When we meet him he fully intends to make her his wife. In the court action he brings against Joan for what he claims is a Breach of Promise, and as her suitor, Colin is lovestruck, over-bearing, over-confidant, and a bit cocky. Adding to his “confidence” in no small way and leading him to believe that his suit is impregnable is his knowledge that he has Joan’s parents’ unequivocal consent of the match, even their endorsement, as well as the complicity of all Joan’s godparents.
• Judge, of Toul
Level-headed, fair, and highly intelligent the Judge is that rare weigher of personalitieswho can spot and recognize the extremely gifted individual (Joan) at once, and not only accept her but endorse her as well – to what may often be the surprise of less discerning, less observant eyes. As such, from the very first moment he encounters her the Judge clearly discerns Joan’s dignity, integrity and natural gift for rhetoric, each for the novel aspects they are, and that in one so very young! Far from condemning her for being a woman and an extremely young one at that, and far from sympathizing with her suitor and opponent Colin in the legal action against her, the Judge immediately appreciates Joan for the rare, well-spoken and charismatic being she is. Far from your average, run-of-the-mill rural justice the Judge is, quite to the contrary, an excellent appraiser of character, amazingly unbiased and exceptionally open to the remarkable girl that he finds speaking before him arguing her case.
• Charles VII of Valois; Dauphin “King” of France
Charles the Seventh is the eccentrically insecure, mercurial son of Isabeau of Bavaria and Charles VI (the Sixth) of France. A depressing anxiety regarding his own legitimacy has all but mastered him, and it stems from two historical facts: First, that in his (Charles’ own) youth, his deceased father Charles the Sixth was completely mad for nearly all of his adult life, and the fact that his mother the Queen, unable to remain faithful to a husband who was insane, took many different lovers; Second, in a contract between the royal houses of France and England (The Treaty of Troyes) his mother the French Queen and his (alleged) father the King of France Charles the Sixth, legally disinherited him bequeathed all of France not to him but to the infant son of Henry V of England and his French Queen, Katherine of Valois (Charles’ sister). What’s more, in the eight years since the Treaty disinheriting Charles had been proclaimed in the streets thru-out the realm, rumor of Charles’ not being the true heir has made its way back to his own ears and caused him much anxiety. Charles’ monarchy weighs even more heavily upon him because he is well aware of the suffering the war in his name causes all his subjects, the people of his realm – and if his cause is not legitimate, if he is not the true son of Charles VI, then the entire war effort is also not legitimate and thousands upon thousands of people have been suffering and dying for naught. For he well knows that his war with England and England’s ally Burgundy is all about contesting the Treaty of Troyes and attempting to regain what may be his rightful kingdom. It is this, the rightfulness or the wrongfulness of his claim to legitimate rulership that weighs most heavily upon him. So whether he is or is not rightful ruler of France and the heir to Charles VI or simply a bastard spawned of any one of his mother’s many extra-marital liaisons, well… this is simply beyond Charles’ human ability to know with any reasonable measure of accuracy, that is, shy of some supernatural clue, say, such as a sign from God.
• Louis Coutes, Page boy to Charles VII, then Squire/Soldier
Louis becomes a squire, that is to say a soldier, during Joan’s rise to leadership at the head of the dauphin’s military force. Intensely loyal to his Dauphin that same loyalty is transferred in whole to Joan when he follows her to war. Having come from aristocratic parents he has been sheltered thru-out his young life and as such he is completely out of his element when interacting with the “lower” class of men which comprise the dauphin’s army. Tending to be a bit of a braggart where his elite social connections are and carrying, as he proudly does, a somewhat self-righteous, arrogant spirit about him he finds himself in dire circumstances when he goes on too long about his knowledge of the Dauphin.
• Queen Mother, Yolande of Aragorn
A “Spanish” Queen, Charles VII’s mother-in-law is the most powerful female at Charles’ court, even more wealthy than the Constable. Nevertheless, the bulk of her wealth is centered in Aragorn (a region south of the Pyrenees in medieval Spain) and as such it is not immediately available or easily transferable to her during her long stay in France with her son-in-law. And where sons vis a vis their mothers down thru the ages are expected to be close to their own blood mothers and somewhat estranged from their mother-in-laws, just the exact opposite is the case with the Queen Mother and Charles. So it is quite a note of grand irony that in complete contrast to Charles’ own blood mother, Isabeau of Bavaria, who never really loved him and who not only legally disowned and disinherited him but did everything she could to make him a social pariah in his own country, Charles’ mother-in-law the Queen Mother has been, down thru the years since his wedding to her daughter, more of a real mother to him than his own. Significantly, Charles VII is indeed the Queen Mother’s greatest “investment” in that she married off her daughter to him in order to multiply her political influence, in addition to always lending him financial help when his needs are dire and when she is able to do so. And yet, putting aside the emotional investment of granting her daughter’s hand in marriage to Charles and the periodic financial investment she makes in granting him various types of loans, she truly loves and cares for him not only as the king, but as a son (as if he were her own), as a man and as a human being. Charles, in response, is always aware of the Queen Mother’s great natural love for him and it’s what makes her influence on him, if not thee most powerful influence on him, then perhaps one of the most powerful of all influences. Finally, when Joan comes to Charles VII’s court in Chinon the Queen is the first of the nobility to befriend her – and the two of them immediately become fast friends.
• His Grace, Archbishop of Reims, Regnault des Chartres
His Grace is the highest ecclesiastical personage in not only Charles VII’s realm of France but in all France. His Grace is Bishop Pierre Cauchon’s metropolitan, meaning that His Grace is a higher Catholic church-dignitary than the Bishop. So His Grace’s opinion of Joan matters more from the medieval church’s perspective than Bishop Cauchon who ultimately tries Joan for witchcraft and heresy. And yet, His Grace never accuses Joan for crimes against the Catholic church or the Catholic faith, he merely believes that she is all puffed up with pride and that she deserves the fall that is ultimately coming to all who, as he sees it, lift themselves up for all to see and adore. Unfortunately for Joan, the French church that sided with Charles VII in believing him to be the true king of France needs money to function, and though the church may consider itself an ally with the poor (at least in theory (“Blessed are the poor” etc.), in practice this doesn’t work so well because running the Church takes great financial resources. For this reason His Grace must ally himself with the rich and powerful nobility. The natural outcome of this situation is that His Grace’s relationship with the ultra wealthy Constable is his strongest friendship at Charles VII’s court, and as such the two men’s political interests completely merge as one.
• Constable of France, Georges de la Tremouille
the Constable is the richest and most powerful man at Charles VII’s court. He acquired most of his wealth by marrying rich heiresses who soon died after marrying him. Did he have them murdered? It is anyone’s guess. But since Charles is always needing money to run his kingdom, money which he does not have due to the madness of his erstwhile father’s wastefulness, the Constable is ready and willing to offer the king numerous loans, whenever a financial need arises, which it always does and with great regularity. Thus, the Constable’s great wealth has endured him to the king and earned him the nickname the “Favorite.” He is, therefore, the number one go-to-person when it comes to coming up with means with which to solve Charles’ financial problems. But mark this: Power and Control over Charles are the Constable’s main objectives, and so it follows that he is terribly jealous of Charles’ attention to whatever or whomever, and he will therefore not suffer others who challenge his monopoly over it. So although Joan and the Constable are both loyalists and believe that Charles is the legitimate son of his father Charles VI, and therefore rightful ruler over all of France – though Joan and the Constable are on the same political side vis a vis the king, they are not on the same side when it comes to their individual objectives for the king. In this way they completely clash. Thus it is that from the moment Joan comes to Charles’ court she is seen by the Constable to be a threat and an enemy.
• Alencon, Duke of; French commander
The cousin of the Dauphin Charles VII of Valois, he is of the same general physical build and size as his royal cousin. Though not possessing his royal relative’s timidity in matters of war he is by contrast quite the accomplished warrior, as well as an experienced and seasoned leader of men. When we first meet him at the court of Chinon he has just recently endured and survived the aristocratic medieval ordeal of ransom, whereby a large sum of wealth was raised (mostly from his family’s dukedom) to pay for his release from his English captors. After first trying to deceive Joan in a game of switched identity he and the entire court of Chinon play on her, Alencon soon becomes Joan’s faithful friend, and in time comes to believe that she has been sent by God to aid a war-torn France.
Men-at-Arms
• Rene, Man-at-Arms and cook
He is the quintessential team player among the men-at-arms. As such he is also the least argumentative, always wanting to make the best out of the ugly reality that is war. A craftsman’s apprentice for nearly twenty years he is just shy of becoming a master carpenter, although the financial investment made toward this goal has saddled him with a great deal of personal debt. In serving in the Dauphin’s army Rene is also serving his liege lord, who is his master carpenter.
• Giles, Man-at-Arms
Farmer Giles is a plowman who works for the lord of a castle manor south of Poitiers, He is married and has two sons, an elder son who is out in the world and a sixteen-year old who is fulfilling his father’s manorial duties while his father is away at the war. Giles as such is practical but skeptical. He doesn’t believe in quick fixes or easy answers to life’s (and war’s) numerous troubles. Having, in the last ten years, fought in a number of campaigns against the English and the Burgundians and having had the chance to go up against them on a number of occasions, Giles is highly doubtful that anything of import will change nor does he believe the French have any chance at being victorious this time out. In his mind a French victory would take a miracle.
•Thevenin, Man-at-Arms
‘Thev’ works his own stretch of land (just south of Poitiers), and like Joan’s Papa Jacques, he and his fellow townsfolk also tend sheep and cattle. Though ‘Thev’ complains just as much as his fellow men-at-arms, ironically, he is present in the army for no other reason but that he feels it is the right and honorable thing to do, though he cannot exactly identify the sense of obligation he feels. He simply does not really know why it is the right and honorable thing to do. He just feels that way. Not believing in Charles VII’s cause, legitimacy or God’s backing of Valois, loyalist France, nor any sense of French independence from the English, he nevertheless feels ethical, moral compulsion to respond to Charles VII’s call to arms. Having no sons and only two daughters, both married and out of the nest with lives of their own, in his absence from home and away at the war he relies on his fellow townsmen to tend his fields. What’s more, on some level, the fact that Thevenin has no sons, he feels that his contribution to the war effort is all the more important as he has no offspring to offer to the next generation of the French military.
• Raymond, Man-at-Arms
Raymond is the youngest of the men in camp. Up until the moment we first meet him he has simply been a member of Charles VII’s military out of a desire for adventure and money. A native of Chinon, having come from a large family of six sisters as the only boy and the youngest sibling he was quick to leave home when the opportunity offered itself only five weeks earlier. As a youth he thought he might like to be a priest but then adolescence came along and he found himself wanting to learn a more “masculine” trade, as he thought of it. So for the last several years he has tried to become the apprentice of a local blacksmith. Looking to raise fast money toward that end he answered the call to Charles VII’s military. However, the pay has not been nearly as good or as consistent as he had come to believe it would be, and the tales he’s been hearing his fellow men-at-arms tell as of late as to the natural prowess and superiority of the English soldiers has caused him for several nights now to seriously consider going absent without leave. The only factor keeping him from doing so has been that he used his real name to enlist and he thinks quite logically that he won’t be able to become a blacksmith using his own name if he goes absent without leave. For as he sees it, half of the pride in learning a respectable trade is making your family proud of you. But had he used a false name, no matter how the war turned out, there would likely be a stigma associated with his name, a stigma that he knows would keep any God-fearing blacksmith from taking him on, never mind how much money he may be able to pay. In the present, because of his growing fear of the English and because he wished he’d used a false name when he enlisted so that he could now go AWOL without having his conscience sting him mightily, he now dreads what he thought only weeks before would be a grand adventure, and that is being a part of the French loyalist army.
•Tiphaine, Man-at-Arms and gambler
he is the one soldier in camp most happy to be present during a military campaign, and not because he wants to fight, but on the contrary, because being on the march and in camp with an ample supply of naive, gullible men he has a full and ready supply of marks, men he can practice his art of subterfuge and fraud upon. A natural coward he is not looking forward to any kind of a real and physical confrontation with the English or the Burgundians. Although once upon a time he was married with little ones he is now divorced and hasn’t seen the little ones for years, and has since lived in sin with many different women. Currently he could be said to be “playing the field.” In his capacity as a volunteer in the Dauphin’s army he is the conniving Sergeant Bilko of the camp, always looking for a way to finagle something out of every situation. In private life he has had experience as a minor artisan, having been apprenticed from time to time in a number of different disciplines to a number of different masters, but unlike Rene he has never stuck to one long enough to master it. When all is said and done, the one craft he may be said to have decently mastered is the art of the slight of hand, street magic, or, to put it in other words, in the art of duping the dupes.
•Maugier, a gunner
A natural trouble-maker, of all the men-at-arms he is the only one who has been a mercenary, that is to say, a professional soldier paid for hire – unrelated to any allegiance to king, lord or country. This took place twenty years ago when he was in his youth and tramping about Italy. Having a reckless nature he is drawn to that aspect of medieval warfare which by its nature is most risky: gunnery – for gunners risk their lives every time they put fire to wick, for the simple reason that cannons were not perfected in that day and they could, and often did, blow up in their operator’s face, often taking the gunner’s life or limb in the explosion. In his social contacts he has many friends who could be considered criminals and who, along with Maugier, constitute the dangerous side of life in the big city. When honestly employed he often works jobs that require manual labor. As a result, his recent liege lord is the head of the bricklayers guild in Poitiers, and it is for this man that Maugier is doing military service.
•Gerard, Man-at-Arms
Gerard, along with his brother Martin, runs a combination tavern and inn in Poitiers and was forced to “take to the field” and respond to Charles VII’s call to arms when only five weeks previous, Charles VII’s recruiting men chanced to stay at his tavern-inn for several nights. Charles VII’s men, learning that Gerard ran the business with his brother, insisted that it only took one man to run an establishment of that order and further insisted that one of the brothers serve in Charles’ army. The brothers had then drawn lots and Gerard lost, hence his presence in camp with the military force. Unmarried, unlike his married brother, though constantly loaded down with responsibility at home and goaded by his brother and sister-in-law to run a respectable business, the only thing Gerard likes about military service is the easy availability of women folk (bawds, camp-followers) with which he can freely fraternize, and without his sister-in-law’s moral indignation and constant sermonizing.
•Friar Leo
As a gift to Joan from Charles VII, the friar is in camp with her having been bequeathed to her as her personal confessor. Having been with Joan on the march toward Orleans for about a month, when we meet him his belief in Joan and her mission is whole-hearted and complete, although when he is questioned by the men-at-arms as to whether God is or is not behind Joan he responds with probing, Socratic, dialectical reasoning, in effect eschewing all easy, cut and dried answers, and says “perhaps,” challenging one and all to think for themselves and weigh all such weighty matters in their own way.
Second Act Characters
• Burgundy, Philip “the Good,” the duke of
The richest man in all of France, richer than the Constable due to his wealth coming in large part from his dominance of the European cloth trade, Burgundy is a staunch ally of the English, as are all towns loyal to him. When we meet him his alliance with the English has been active for eight full years, ever since the writing of the Treaty of Troyes, and together, Burgundy and England have succeeded at eroding the lands of the Dauphin Charles VII of Valois. The proverbial savvy businessman, he knows a good thing when he sees it, so he is quick to see how Joan’s capture is an unprecedented opportunity to make a windfall. In guiding his comrade Luxembourg he makes the best possible “deal” in selling the captured Joan thru the medieval tradition of ransom not to Charles VII but to the English. Also of great note is the over-riding fact of his ongoing personal struggle with his cousin Charles VII. This “intrigue” has put great distance between the two of them, personally and politically – and as such it is the sole reason why the royal house of France is divided.
• Duke John of Luxembourg
The youngest of several boys his greatest claim to wealth has been marrying the rich heiress of Beaurevoir. However, the somewhat oafish and slow Luxembourg has a great many debts and when we meet him his need for a financial windfall is quite pronounced. Since Burgundy is his liege-lord he naturally follows his lord’s lead in advertising the capture of Joan to the end that the best deal might be made of Joan’s sale and a great sum will be exchanged for her. And so it is precisely with Joan’s capture that his financial affairs turn favorable and the newfound wealth quickly causes him to become arrogant, mocking and irreverent.
• Bishop of Beauvais, Pierre Cauchon
When we meet the Bishop Joan and her forces have just succeeded in turning his Burgundian diocese of Beauvais back to the loyalist cause of Charles VII. Thus Joan has in effect booted him out of his own diocese and he is none too happy about it. As a partisan of England, a French cleric with numerous benefices from which he is a very wealthy man, the Bishop believes whole-heartedly that the boy-king Henry VI of England is in fact the rightful ruler of both France and England. Therefore, he champions the demise of Charles VII’s most powerful change agent, Joan the Maid, whom he desires to prove is a tool of the devil – spreading her heresy thru-out Christendom to the destruction of good Catholic-Christian souls everywhere. Along with the Counselor, his close friend and colleague, he brokers the “ransom” whereby Burgundy and Luxembourg sell Joan to the English (in the hands of Warwick) and have her trial take place in the northern French-Norman city of Rouen, where, because Joan is held so far north and far away from the military lines of the south, a coup of her loyalist soldiers to free her is not likely to occur.
• Counselor Jean d’Estivet of the Diocese of Beauvais
Canon Lawyer and Professor at the University of Paris; 50’s; The Counselor is virulently partisan and legalistic to an extreme. From the moment Joan steps upon the military stage he sees Joan as a rebel troublemaker, quite possibly the greatest embodiment of evil in the world to date. For this reason he believes Joan deserves all the vitriol he can give her. Terribly passionate about the Plantagenet/Lancastrian rule over France, when tapped by his close confidante and colleague the Bishop of Beauvais to preside as Promoter (Prosecutor) over Joan’s trial for witchcraft and heresy, he is absolutely on fire with zeal to fulfill the role. Along with the Bishop of Beauvais, his close friend and colleague, he brokers the “ransom” whereby Burgundy and Luxembourg sell Joan to the English (in the hands of Warwick) and have her trial take place in the northern French-Norman city of Rouen, where, because Joan is held so far north and far away from the military lines of the south, a coup of her loyalist soldiers to free her is not likely to occur.
• Warwick, the Earl of, Richard Beauchamp
Warwick enjoys administering the war as Regent of France in the English boy-king Henry VI’s (the Sixth’s) youth, but dislikes the constant and ever present lack of funds in his war coffers as dismally allocated by Parliament. A gifted and natural leader Warwick commands great respect from one and all, including the Judges at Joan’s final trial who are French clerics in the employ of England – and this is not just because he is the one signing the documents that pay them, but because the Judges themselves see the Earl as the extension of God’s will that the English royal house of Lancaster/Plantagenet rule over all England and France. One of the two most powerful English men ruling war affairs in France (the Duke of Bedford handling all military affairs in the field) Warwick handles all administrative duties from the Normandy town of Rouen.
• Thomas de Courcelles, Warwick’s Assistant
A faithful follower and servant of his lord the Earl of Warwick, Thomas has been with his lord long enough and has earned enough respect from his lord to freely offer suggestions, that is, within reason. For example, when his master dictates policy thru correspondence regarding Joan’s capture, Thomas is quick to admonish his lord to end the missive on a positive note.
• Pierre, Isambard, Inquisitorial Assistant
Ironically, although the purpose of Pierre’s presence at Joan’s trial is to enforce the “new” “orthodoxy” and “rules” of the Inquisition, he is singlehandedly the most sympathetic cleric to Joan present. By the time we meet him, he has become Joan’s unofficial counsel of sorts. Seeing the trial for what it is, a political show trial designed to cast aspersions on the legitimacy of the king she helped to crown (Charles VII), more than any other churchman present he treats Joan with respect, mercy and with sincere unaffected kindness.