If she managed to escape capture until retiring for good in the 1540s, would anything change?
WI: If Joan of Arc lived for longer
- Thread starter Concerned Brazilian
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Well, she was IIRC planning to go after the Hussites as well, so that would be something really interesting to keep track of.
It would certainly be considered miraculous if she not only survives to 128 but manages to keep a prominent position in the French army.
We can draw some inferences based on the careers of the 'False Joans' that sprung up such as Claude des Armoise. And it indicates the reception a real Joan would get in peacetime to be pretty good. Offers of military service in Germany and Italy, tons of admirers willing to host her and give gifts. Would rapidly become a wealthy noblewomen in her own right as long as she doesn't die. Medieval supercelebrity.
Joan was becoming a major headache for Charles near the end, unwilling to recognize truces he negotiated and going on her own campaigns without his approval. A rogue Maid of Orléans is a highly dangerous thing for him, given the cult of personality that had grown up around her. Charles needed to get rid of Joan, and the sooner the better, so if she avoided capture at Compiègne or escaped Burgundians/English after her capture, then I strongly believe he'd have pushed her toward crusade in the east as a way to get her out of his hair. If not that, then he'd probably murder her at some point -- and, if he was as sloppy and obvious about it as he was his assassination of the duke of Burgundy, then holy hell, parts of France would probably explode in rebellion against him.
Is Joan the sort of person who would take gifts and allow herself to grow rich?
It's quite likely at least based on the information we know he could manage to convince her to go after the Hussites and hope she dies now how big of a head ache would she be if she at least got some minor victories and returned from the hussite war as hero ?
Bohemia is a good place for her. Though if she scored any sort of victory there, which would add to her legend, and tried to come back, then I wouldn't be surprised if she gets murdered along the way by some "bandits" mysteriously laden with French gold.
Or, plot twist, she meets the hussites and is convinced they're absolutely right
i wonder do her popularity does this sparks the earlier refomation or do we absolutely need gutenberg printing press before that
He might not have gone off the deep end as he did IOTL; one reason apparently that happened was his grief over Joan’s death(& she also wasn’t around to keep him on the straight & narrow).
I’d like to say that Charles VII, actually recognizing all that he owed her(like his throne)would have rescued her but no, being who Charles was in 1430-31(like very ungrateful)that would have been ASB.
So let me throw out this as a possibility. The Pope hears of Joan’s threats against the Hussites. Now he too has been getting more & more worried about them, & is starting to think he’ll need someone to lead a
crusade against them. Who, he thinks, would be better than Joan? So he gets her released by one means
or another(maybe bribing, or persuading, some of the Churchmen on Joan’s “jury” to release her & then send her to Rome?)on the condition that she forget about the English, turn to the East, & fight the Hussities.
Hostile propaganda. The English at some point claimed that Charles had tried to ask to ransom Joan, but the English had refused.
OTOH, considering his actions IOTL and Joan's desire to fight the Hussites, he might still gain notoriety as some sort of boogeyman for future generations of Bohemian parents to scare their children with.
it remains to be seen whether the princes accept her as a commander or their equal in the military field (but her reputation will precede her, also in this period we see a large group of women who assert themselves in mainly male fields with authority and fortitude ( a striking example is Catherine of Siena who went so far as to reproach the pope in religious matters in numerous letters which they exchanged with each other without him saying anything, so I see it possible for Joan to gain respect given also the precedent of Matilda of Canossa) then we need to see if she can to change the fortunes of the crusades called by HRE Sigismund against the Hussites (especially due to their formation of war chariots) if he succeeds in the military enterprise, it may be that the emperor offers him in gratitude a noble fiefdom in the HRE and the possibility of serving Christianity by fighting the Turks
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I don't think it matter much since a lot of the later engagements were sieges and her specialty was really open warfare. Other than the siege of Orleans, most of her wins at sieges were overrunning hopelessly outnumbered garrisons. So the Valois have an extra tactician who isn't good at most of the next engagements, but that's OK, they won without her in OTL. By the way, at this time period some widows have ended up nominally in charge of forces in battles to command household troops because their husbands were dead, although I don't think they rode into the battles so much as showed up and decided which of her advisor's plan made sense or if the liege's battle plan made any sense.
About your question material- well, she did accept gifts of horses & bright clothes. OTH, the only thing she asked Charles for was to exempt her home village of Domremy from taxation(a request that was not only granted but was kept in force until the French Revolution!)(I’ve sometimes wondered what kind of re-
ception from Macron would Domremy get if they asked to once again not have to pay taxes & if you say that of course he’d say no way, then @ least somebody would accuse him of dishonoring the national hero of France & he might not want that! Just a crazy thought of course- I know it won’t ever happen....)
Her family was ennobled. Which means things like this:When I first heard of Joan of Arc I thought she was a french propaganda myth