Sometimes they bring scandal against her in the words of her own people, old earthy stories from Domrémy of vanity, of false pride. They say she jilted a man before marriage, they say she ran away from good parents, they say she worked in an alehouse, and was free with her favours like any village slut, they say she rode with the soldiers as their doxy, they say she is no Maid but a harlot, and that everyone knew it.

It takes Anne, the kind-hearted little Duchess of Bedford herself, to assert that Joan is a virgin, and to demand that the men who guard her are forbidden from touching or abusing her. They must be ordered that it is not the work of God to assault her. Then, as soon as this order is given, they say that, since she is now so safe, guarded by the word of the duchess, she has no excuse for wearing men’s clothes and she must dress in a gown, for now they tell her it is a sin, a mortal sin, to wear breeches.

They turn her head, they puzzle her beyond bearing. They are great men of the Church and Joan is a peasant girl, a devout girl who had always done as the priest ordered until she heard the voices of angels who told her to do more. She cries in the end, she breaks down and cries like a child, she puts on the gown as they order her, and confesses to all the sins that they name to her. I don’t know if she even understands the long list. She makes her mark on her confession – she writes her name and then signs a cross beside it as if to deny her signature. She admits that there were no angels and no voices, and that the Dauphin is nothing more than the Dauphin and not the King of France, that his coronation was a sham and her beautiful armour an offence to God and man, and that she is a girl, a silly girl, who tried to lead grown men as if she could know the way better than they. She says she is a vain fool to think that a girl might lead men, she is a woman worse than Eve for giving advice, an assistant to the Devil himself.

‘What?’ bellows the Duke of Bedford. We are visiting his wife the duchess, seated in her rooms before a good fire, a lute player twanging away in the corner, small glasses of the best wine on every table, everything elegant and beautiful; but we can hear his deplorable English bellow through two closed doors.

We hear the doors bang as the Earl of Warwick flings himself out of the duke’s apartments to find out what has gone wrong, and in this revealing burst of rage we see – as if we had ever been in any doubt – that these English never wanted the Church to wrestle with the soul of a mistaken girl and restore her to her senses, bring her to confession, penitence and forgiveness – it has all akeseen nothing but a witch-hunt determined to find a witch, a bonfire looking for a brand, Death waiting for a maiden. The duchess goes to the door and the servants throw it open before her so we can all hear, disastrously clearly, her husband bellow at Pierre Cauchon the bishop, Cauchon the judge, Cauchon the man, who is there apparently representing – all at the same time – God and justice and the Church, ‘For the sake of Christ! I don’t want her pleading guilty, I don’t want her recanting, I don’t want her confessed and shriven, I don’t bloody well want her imprisoned for life! What safety is there in that for me? I want her as a pile of ashes blowing away in the wind. How much clearer do I have to be? Goddamn! Do I have to burn her myself? You said the Church would do it for me! Do it!’