Sketches of Imposture, Deception, and Credulity

by R. A. Davenport

An assembly of grave doctors and theologians cautiously examined Joan’s mission, and pronounced it undoubtedly supernatural. She was sent to the parliament and interrogated before that assembly; and the presidents and counsellors, who had come persuaded of her imposture, went away convinced of her inspiration. All the English affected to speak with derision of the maid, and of her heavenly commission; and said that the French king was now reduced to a sorry pass, when he had recourse to such ridiculous expedients; but they felt their imagination secretly struck with the vehement persuasion which prevailed in all around them; and waited with anxious expectation for the issue of these extraordinary preparations.

The inhabitants of Orleans now believed themselves invincible under her influence; and the Count of Dunois himself, perceiving such an alteration both in friends and foes, consented that the next convoy, which was to march in a few days, should enter by the side of Beausse, where the English were most numerous. The convoy approached; no sign of resistance appeared in the besiegers; it passed without interruption between the redoubts of the English, and a dead silence and astonishment reigned among those troops which were formerly so elated with victory. The siege of Orleans was speedily raised, the English army being unable to continue its operations.

The raising of the siege was one part of the maid’s promise to Charles; the crowning him at Rheims was the other; and she now vehemently insisted that he should set out on that enterprise. Rheims lay in a distant quarter of the kingdom, and was then in the hands of a victorious enemy; the whole road which led to it was also occupied by their garrisons; and no man could be so sanguine as to imagine that such an attempt could so soon come within the bounds of possibility. Charles, however, resolved to follow the exhortations of his warlike prophetess, and to lead his army upon this promising adventure. He set out for Rheims at the head of twelve thousand men. Troyes opened its gates to him, Chalons imitated the example, Rheims sent him a deputation with its keys, and he scarcely perceived, as he passed along, that he was marching through an enemy’s country. The ceremony was performed with the holy oil, which a pigeon had brought to King Clovis from heaven on the first establishment of the French monarchy. The maid of Orleans stood by his side, in complete armour, displaying the sacred banner. The people shouted with the most unfeigned joy, on viewing such a complication of wonders. The inclinations of men swaying their belief, no one doubted of the inspirations and prophetic spirit of the maid; the real and undoubted facts brought credit to every exaggeration; for no fiction could be more wonderful than the events which were known to be true.

The maid was soon after taken prisoner by the Burgundians, while she was heading a sally upon the quarters of John of Luxembourg. The service of Te Deum was publicly celebrated, on this fortunate event, at Paris. The Duke of Bedford fancied that, by her captivity, he should again recover his former ascendency over France; and, to make the most of the present advantage, he purchased the captive from John of Luxembourg, and instituted a prosecution against her. The Bishop of Beauvais, a man wholly devoted to the English interests, presented a petition against Joan, and desired to have her tried by an ecclesiastical court, for sorcery, impiety, idolatry, and magic. The university of Paris was so mean as to join in the same request. In the issue, she was condemned for all the crimes of which she had been accused, aggravated by heresy; her revelations were declared to be inventions of the devil to delude the people; and she was sentenced to be delivered over to the secular arm. Her spirit gave way to the terrors of that punishment to which she was sentenced, and she publicly declared herself ready to recant; she acknowledged the illusion of those revelations which the church had rejected, and promised never more to maintain them. Her sentence was then mitigated; she was condemned to perpetual imprisonment, and to be fed during life on bread and water.

But the barbarous vengeance of Joan’s enemies was not satisfied with this victory. Suspecting that the female dress which she now consented to wear was disagreeable to her, they purposely placed in her apartment a suit of men’s apparel, and watched for the effects of that temptation upon her. On the sight of a dress in which she had acquired so much renown, and which she once believed she wore by the particular appointment of Heaven, all her former ideas and passions revived, and she ventured in her solitude to clothe herself again in the forbidden garments. Her insidious enemies caught her in that situation; her fault was interpreted to be no less than a relapse into heresy. No recantation would now suffice; no pardon could be granted her; she was condemned to be burnt in the market-place of Rouen; and the infamous sentence was accordingly executed.

During the time of the commonwealth, commissioners, appointed by Oliver Cromwell, were sent to Woodstock for the purpose of surveying the royal demesne; but they speedily found themselves obliged to quit it, in consequence of the great alarm occasioned them by circumstances which could only happen, as they supposed through the agency of means which were considered in those days to be quite supernatural; though the knowledge of later times creates a surprise at the credulity of the commissioners being so easily worked upon by tricks, which would now be regarded as almost beneath the capacity of a schoolboy. The Woodstock devil is the name by which the supposed spirit is known.

The strange events which are the subject of this article, happened in the months of October and November, 1649. The commissioners arrived on October the 13th, taking up their residence in the king’s own apartments, turning his dining-room into their wood-yard, and supplying themselves with fuel from a famous oak, called the Royal Oak,[9] that nothing might be left with the name of king about it.

The first supernatural appearance that disturbed the equanimity of these worthy commissioners was that of a large black dog, which, entering one of the rooms, overturned two or three chairs, and then disappeared under a bed. The next day noises were heard overhead, as of persons walking, though they knew that all the doors were locked. The wood of the king’s oak was brought by parcels from the dining-room, and thrown with great violence into the presence-chamber. Giles Sharpe, their secretary, was active in attempting to discover the causes of these disturbances, but his inquiries were unsuccessful. On unlocking the door of the room, in the presence of the commissioners, the wood was found all thrown about in different directions. The chairs were tossed about, the papers torn, and the ink spilt; which mischief, it was argued, could only have been perpetrated by one who must have entered through the key-hole.

At night the beds of Giles Sharpe and two other servants were lifted up, and let down violently, so as to throw them out; again, on the nineteenth, when in bed, the candles were blown out, with a sulphureous smell, and the trenchers of wood hurled about the room.

On the twentieth the commissioners themselves, when in bed, were attacked with cruel blows, and the curtains drawn to and fro with great violence. This sort of attack upon the peace and safety of the commissioners was repeated almost every night. They were also assaulted from without, for a vast number of stones and horses’ bones were thrown through the windows, to the great risk of those within.