Siege of Orléans, 1428 to 1429: the city Joan of Arc relieved

In the autumn of 1428 the war for the crown of France came down to one city on the Loire. Orléans guarded the river crossing into the lands that still obeyed the uncrowned Charles VII, and the Burgundian chronicler Monstrelet wrote that Charles believed its fall would be the finishing stroke to himself and his kingdom. For seven months an English army ringed it with forts. Within nine days of the arrival of Joan of Arc at the end of April 1429, the French broke the ring.²

This is the siege from both sides, from the English plan to the three assaults that ended it. It belongs to our guide to the Hundred Years' War. See also Verneuil, the great English victory of 1424.

Why did the English besiege Orléans?

Since the Treaty of Troyes in 1420 the English claimed the French crown, first for Henry V and then for his infant son Henry VI, whose uncle John, Duke of Bedford, governed as regent. North of the Loire most of the country was held by the English or their Burgundian allies. Orléans belonged to Duke Charles of Orléans, a prisoner in England, and held for Charles VII.³

In July 1428 Thomas Montagu, Earl of Salisbury, came over from England with fresh troops. His pay account, studied by the French historian Louis Jarry, shows 2,250 archers and 400 men-at-arms. The American historian Francis Lowell reckons that he marched with four or five thousand men, about half of them brought from England. Whose idea the siege was is disputed. The Victorian historian James Ramsay thought Bedford had wanted Angers and that Salisbury turned on Orléans against Bedford's inclination. The French historian Henri Wallon wrote that Orléans was where Bedford meant to strike.⁴

Salisbury first cleared the river on both sides of the city. Janville, north of Orléans, held out for about a week, and by 5 September, by his own letter, he had taken some forty towns, churches and castles. Meung and Beaugency downstream and Jargeau upstream, each with a fortified bridge, passed into English hands.⁵

Who commanded the two sides at Orléans?

Inside the city the chief command belonged to Jean, the Bastard of Orléans, the captive duke's half brother, later made Count of Dunois. In his deposition at the rehabilitation inquiry he described himself as the king's lieutenant-general for war at Orléans. Around him Monstrelet lists Marshal Boussac, Raoul de Gaucourt, Poton de Xaintrailles and Étienne de Vignolles, called La Hire, with 1,200 to 1,400 fighting men under daily command. Wallon counts a garrison of about 1,300 and some 5,000 townsmen able to bear arms.⁶

The townspeople had prepared. To keep the English out of the suburbs they pulled down the houses and churches outside the walls, among them, the city's own journal of the siege records, the church and convent of the Augustinians on the south bank. Lowell counts fifteen churches razed.⁷

The English captains were Salisbury, then William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, with Lord Talbot, Lord Scales, Sir Lancelot de Lisle and William Glasdale, a squire the French called Glacidas. Their numbers are disputed. Adding up the English pay accounts, Jarry found at most 5,050 men on paper for the whole siege and argued that deaths, sickness and desertion left about 3,200 in its last week. Anatole France put the English at four thousand at the end of April, and perhaps fewer, since deserters left every day.⁸

How did the siege of Orléans begin?

On 12 October 1428 Salisbury camped on the south bank, in the suburb of Portereau, opposite the long bridge into the city, and the journal dates the siege from that Tuesday. At the far end of the bridge stood Les Tourelles, a gatehouse fort with towers, covered by an earthwork outwork, or boulevard. The English assault on the boulevard on 21 October failed. Two days later the French gave it up, and on Sunday the 24th the English flag flew over Les Tourelles.⁹

That evening Salisbury climbed into Les Tourelles to look over the city from a window. A cannon shot struck it. The journal says no one ever knew for certain where it was fired from, and that it carried away half his cheek and one eye. Dan Spencer's study of the expedition's artillery dates the wound to 24 October and says he died eight days later. He was carried to Meung-sur-Loire, and Anne Curry gives the date of his death as 3 November.¹⁰

In a phrase Anatole France takes from the chroniclers, Salisbury had been the most subtle, expert and fortunate in arms of all the English captains. Bedford gave the command to Suffolk, Ramsay writes, with orders to carry on the siege.¹¹

How did the English blockade Orléans?

The English did not have the men to surround the city with continuous lines. From the end of December they built a chain of detached forts, called bastilles. Wallon describes the first on the ruins of the church of Saint-Laurent, west of the city, linked by earthworks on the island of Charlemagne to the Augustins and Les Tourelles, then works to the north that the English named London, Rouen and Paris. Lang dates the fort of Saint-Loup, east of the city, to 10 March 1429.¹²

The ring was never closed. Anatole France writes that the English could neither take the city by storm nor invest it, and that convoys and companies passed between their forts. Lang cites Monstrelet's remark that it was never a close siege.¹³

Both sides used guns heavily. The journal records 124 stones from bombards thrown into the city in a single day, some weighing 116 pounds, and an English gun called Passe-volant that threw 80-pound stones, and its editors note that Sir Lancelot de Lisle was killed by a cannon shot on 30 January. Spencer's study of the Exchequer accounts shows that the English expedition of 1428 committed substantial resources to gunpowder weapons.¹⁴

There were pauses. On Christmas Day, the journal and Anatole France record, the two sides agreed a truce of a few hours, and at Glasdale's request the Bastard sent minstrels with trumpets and clarions to play for the English in Les Tourelles.¹⁵

What was the Battle of the Herrings?

In February 1429 Sir John Fastolf, grand master of Bedford's household, left Paris with a supply convoy for the besiegers. Monstrelet and Jean de Waurin, a knight who served in the English ranks, give Fastolf some 1,600 fighting men and about a thousand others. Monstrelet speaks of about 500 carts. Lent had begun, so many of the carts carried herring and other Lenten food.¹⁶

A French army gathered at Blois under the young Count of Clermont, with a Scottish contingent under Sir John Stewart of Darnley, and a force rode out from Orléans with La Hire and Poton de Xaintrailles to join it. Waurin puts the French at three to four thousand, and later at six thousand. Wallon gives Clermont 3,000 to 4,000 men and the Orléans column 1,500. On 12 February they caught the convoy at Rouvray-Saint-Denis, north of Orléans.¹⁷

Fastolf drew his carts into a fortified square with archers at the openings. The French captains could not agree how to fight: the Scots wanted to fight on foot and the others on horseback. The Scots dismounted and attacked, and the archers behind the carts cut them down. Stewart of Darnley and William d'Albret were killed and the Bastard was wounded. Waurin counts some 120 nobles and 500 or more others dead, most of them Scots, against one English man of note.¹⁸

Waurin says the fight was known ever after as the Battle of the Herrings, for the cargo. Wallon adds that barrels of herring smashed by the guns littered the field. In Orléans, Lowell writes, many captains slipped out of the city after the defeat, and the relief army broke up.¹⁹

Why did the Burgundians leave the siege?

In the spring Orléans tried diplomacy. Envoys led by Poton de Xaintrailles asked that the city be placed in the hands of Philip, Duke of Burgundy, as a neutral town for its captive duke. Monstrelet records the debate in Bedford's council and its refusal, and Anatole France quotes Bedford as unwilling to beat the bushes while others caught the birds. Anatole France tells how a Burgundian herald then sounded his trumpet in the English camp and ordered the duke's subjects to leave, and some hundreds did.²⁰

At the court of Charles VII, Lang writes, the council considered retiring to the Dauphiné, and Ramsay adds that flight to Spain or even to Scotland was discussed.²¹

When did Joan of Arc arrive at Orléans?

Joan, a peasant girl from Domrémy who said voices from God had sent her to raise the siege, reached Charles at Chinon in early 1429. After churchmen examined her at Poitiers she was sent to Blois, where a convoy of supplies was gathering under the marshals Boussac and Gilles de Rais. Her letter ordering the English to leave France was written at Poitiers on 22 March, Lowell says, and Larousse records that she had it delivered on 22 April.²²

The captains brought the convoy up the south bank, through the Sologne, rather than straight at the English. Dunois remembered Joan's anger when they met: "Are you the Bastard of Orleans?" she asked, and told him that the counsel of her Lord was safer and wiser than his. The wind then changed and the boats could sail up to the city. She entered Orléans on 29 April and lodged with Jacques Boucher, treasurer of the Duke of Orléans.²³

Dunois later testified that before she came, two hundred English could put eight hundred or a thousand French to flight, and that afterward a few hundred French could drive the English into their forts. Lang repeats the claim.²⁴

How was the siege of Orléans broken?

On 4 May a second convoy came in from Blois, and that afternoon French troops attacked the fort of Saint-Loup. Larousse notes that the captains began the attack without telling Joan. Lowell describes her galloping to the Burgundy Gate when she heard the noise, and the French returning to the attack when she arrived. Anatole France counts 1,500 French against 400 English there. The fort fell.²⁵

The next day was Ascension Thursday, and there was no fighting. Larousse records a council of war to which Joan was not admitted. On 6 May the French crossed to the south bank, by the journal's count about four thousand men, and took the fort of Saint-Jean-le-Blanc. When the English sallied from Les Tourelles, Joan and La Hire charged them and drove them back, and by evening the French had stormed the fort built on the ruins of the Augustinian convent.²⁶

On 7 May they attacked the boulevard and Les Tourelles. Dunois says the fighting went on from early morning until about eight in the evening, and that Joan was hit by an arrow that went in half a foot between her neck and shoulder but kept fighting. Wallon dates the wound to about one in the afternoon. When Dunois wanted to call the attack off, she asked him to wait, prayed alone in a vineyard, then went to the edge of the ditch with her banner, and the French went up the walls.²⁷

Meanwhile the townspeople bridged the broken arches from the city side, Ramsay writes. Glasdale tried to fall back into Les Tourelles, but the drawbridge gave way and he drowned in the Loire. Ramsay names Sir William Moleyns and Sir Hugh Poynings among the dead and counts some 200 prisoners. Monstrelet claims six to eight thousand English killed or taken in the three attacks, far more than the pay accounts studied by Jarry allow.²⁸

Why did the English withdraw on 8 May?

On the morning of Sunday 8 May the English left their forts on the north bank and drew up in order of battle. Dunois says Joan forbade an attack on them, and the journal adds that the French were to fight only if the English attacked first, out of respect for the Sunday. The two armies faced each other for about an hour. Then the English marched away to Meung.²⁹

Seen from the English side, it was a retreat in good order, not a rout. Monstrelet writes that Suffolk, Talbot and Scales offered battle and, when it was refused, left lest their strength be further reduced. Ramsay notes that the garrisons went to Meung, Beaugency and Jargeau, from which he infers that the English leaders did not think themselves beaten. Lang points out that their forces, far too few for the task, were divided by the river.³⁰

Who won the siege of Orléans, and why did it matter?

France won, and the victory began a campaign. Larousse lists the sequel: Jargeau taken on 12 June with Suffolk captured, the bridge of Meung on the 15th, Beaugency on the 17th, and on 18 June the rout of the English at Patay, where Talbot was taken, as Lowell also records. On 17 July Charles VII was crowned at Reims.³¹

The English felt the shock for years. In a memorandum Ramsay quotes, Bedford wrote that all things prospered until the siege of Orléans was taken in hand, "God knoweth by what advis", and blamed the loss of nerve on a disciple of the Fiend called the Pucelle. Jarry notes that the historians agree with Bedford: English courage turned to fear and many soldiers deserted. The musters he counted show the army shrinking after January.³²

How much the victory owed to Joan is still argued. Larousse notes that she seems never to have held official command, which at Orléans belonged to Dunois, and Monstrelet notes that the most expert captains of the siege fought beside her. Dunois himself, testifying more than a quarter of a century later, called the relief much more the work of God than of man.³³

› Read on: the charge at Patay and the greatest sieges in history.

How is the siege of Orléans remembered?

Orléans has celebrated its deliverance since 1430. The Fêtes de Jeanne d'Arc, held from 29 April to 8 May, keep the shape of the first procession. According to the Ministry of Culture's inventory sheet they lapsed in only 48 years, among them the Wars of Religion, the Revolution and World War I, and after the Revolution they were restored in 1803. They entered France's inventory of intangible cultural heritage in 2018. The city counted the 2023 festival as the 594th.³⁴

The half-timbered house of Jacques Boucher, where Joan stayed from 29 April to 9 May 1429, burned in 1940 and was rebuilt in the 1960s. It is now the Maison de Jeanne d'Arc, with a research and documentation center, the Centre Jeanne d'Arc.³⁵

Where was the siege of Orléans?

Orléans stands on the north bank of the Loire, south of Paris. The fighting of May 1429 centered on the south end of the old bridge, by the suburb of Portereau, where Edme Gois's bronze statue of Joan, made in 1804, now stands by the monument des Tourelles. The Ministry of Culture's inventory sheet describes the spot as the place where she was wounded.³⁶