![]() ![]() The French king, Charles VI, suffered from a mental illness that made him unable to rule. A series of tragedies took place, on both sides of the war, in the few years following Agincourt. Joan herself does not actually appear until about a third of the way through the book. This came about through a complicated series of events, which Castor details in the first section of her book, before Joan arrives on the scene. Not only had the French suffered a string of defeats, of which Agincourt was the most famous, but they were divided among themselves, between Burgundians and Armagnacs. This battle, which to the French was a catastrophic defeat, set the stage for the part of the war in which Joan was involved. ![]() Castor begins her book in 1415 with the victory of the English under Henry V over the French at the Battle of Agincourt, an event which will be familiar to everyone who has seen Shakespeare's Henry V or one of its film adaptations. The subtitle, A History, is very appropriate. Helen Castor's Joan of Arc is more of a history of Joan's times, and the portion of the Hundred Years' War in which she played a leading role, than a biography. ![]()
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