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I was just reading that in March 1429, after failing to capture an English resupply mission in the "Battle of the Herrings," the city of Orleans offered to surrender to the Duke of Burgundy, an English ally. The English regent John Duke of Bedford refused to accept that surrender, and the siege continued until raised by Joan of Arc.

Suppose it was accepted, though? Despite the risks of leaving Orleans in an unstable ally's hands, Bedford had opposed the siege at the beginning and might have been glad to end it with something that could be spun as a victory. Perhaps more significantly, this might have longer-term impacts on Joan of Arc's mission: at the same day as the Battle of the Herrings, the local lord Robert de Baudricourt had sent Joan on to the Dauphin. What would happen if before she arrives to begin her mission to lift the siege of Orleans, the city surrenders?
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