own of Bale; the University
was sending its delegates, who would there meet the ecclesiastics of
King Charles, also Gallicans and firmly attached to the privileges of
the Church of France.[2067] Why not have this Armagnac prophetess
tried by the assembled Fathers? But for the sake of Henry of Lancaster
and the glory of Old England matters had to take another turn. The
Regent's Councillors were already accusing Jeanne of witchcraft when
she summoned them in the name of the King of Heaven to depart out of
France. During the siege of Orleans, they wanted to burn her heralds
and said that if they had her they would burn her also at the stake.
Such in good sooth was their firm intent and their unvarying
intimation. This does not look as if they would be likely to hand her
over to the Church as soon as she was taken. In their own kingdom they
burned as many witches and wizards as possible; but they had never
suffered the Holy Inquisition to be established in their land, and
they were ill acquainted with that form of justice. Informed that
Jeanne was in the hands of the Sire de Luxembourg, the Great Council
of England were unanimously in favour of her being purchased at any
price. Divers lords recommended that as soon as they obtained
possession of the Maid she should be sewn in a sack and cast into the
river. But one of them (it is said to have been the Earl of Warwick)
represented to them that she ought first to be tried, convicted of
heresy and witchcraft by an ecclesiastical tribunal, and then solemnly
degraded in order that her King might be degraded with her.[2068] What
a disgrace for Charles of Valois, calling himself King of France, if
the University of Paris, if the French ecclesiastical dignitaries,
bishops, abbots, canons, if in short the Church Universal were to
declare that a witch had sat in his Council and that a witch led his
host, that one possessed had conducted him to his impious,
sacrilegious and void anointing! Thus would the trial of the Maid be
the trial of Charles VII, the condemnation of the Maid the
condemnation of Charles VII. The idea seemed good to them and was
adopted.

[Footnote 2067: Du Boulay, _Historia Universitatis Parisiensis_, vol.
v, pp. 393-408. _Monumenta conciliorum generalium seculi decimi
quinti_, vol. i, pp. 70 _et seq._ Le P. Denifle and Chatelain, _Le
proces de Jeanne d'Arc et l'Universite de Paris_.]

[Footnote 2068: Valeran Varanius, ed. Prarond, Paris, 1889, book iv, p.
100.]