n July1428, the English, led by Thomas Montague, Earl of Salisbury, had occupied Paris. With the capital secured from the slippery grasp of Burgundy, it was now possible to consider a major advance South across the Beauce towards the city of Orléans, which was the key to the Loire valley and roughly halfway between Paris and the French Dauphin's capital at Bourges. During this advance to the Loire, the English army, now some 4,000 strong first took the city of Chartres. Salisbury began his investment of Orléans by sending Sir William de la Pole to capture three Lorie towns: Jargeau which lies to the East of Orléans, and Beaugency and Meung which lie to the West. This effectively prevented any supplies or men entering Orléans via the river and this alone, Salisbury's army appeared before the walls of the city on 12th October 1428 and begun to dig in for a siege.
Salisbury's slow advance had given the garrison plenty of time to get in supplies and improve the defences. The garrison of some 3,000 men had hastily rebuilt the five gate towers and add a large number of 'bombards' of cannon to the city's already formidable fire power. The walls of Orléans now mounted over seventy cannons of various size, some capable of firing cannon balls weighing up to 190Ib. A number of these cannons were built into two towers, 'les Tourelles', which commanded the river bridge leading into the city.
The English pitched camp in the suburb of Olivet, where they were soon joined by a force of 1,500 Burgundian men-at-arms, and the siege commenced with heavy bombardment of the Tourelles and the towns curtain walls. After three days this bombardment forced the French to abandon the Tourelles and the garrison withdrew into the city on 23rd October, after making a breach to prevent pursuit. The jubilant English promptly occupied the Tourelles, the moved their cannon forward to recommence the bombardment. On the following day they received a setback, when the Earl of Salisbury, studying the fortifications from a window high in one of the Tourelles, was hit by a shot from a cannon accidentally discharged by a young French boy playing in the defending battery. The cannonball hit the window lintel and one of the iron bars struck the Earl in the face. Grievously injured, Salisbury died of shock and gangrene at Meung, eight days later. The command of the siege fell for a while on to a more cautious general, the Earl of Suffolk, who was supported by several experienced captains: Lord Scales, Lord Ros and the Earl's brother, Sir William de la pole.
It was now November and the weather was atrocious, so Suffolk moved his men into winter quarter in the suburbs, leaving only a token force before the city. This lapse enabled Dunois to enter the city with fresh troops and take command of the garrison, which with the addition of his men now actually exceeded the number of the besieging army. In December, however, the English returned to their flooded trenches, spurred on by their new commander, Lord Talbot, 'great marshal to our Lord King Henry VI, for all his wars within the realm of the French', who soon put pressure on the defence. This general, John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, was to become the leading English commander in France during the final phase of the Hundred Years War. He had been born about 1387, and was an experienced captain long before he came to France, having served with Henry IV and the price of Wales in their Welsh campaigns. He had fought at Shrewsbury in 1403, and at the sieges of Aberystwyth and Harlech in 1407-1409. He was to soldier on for over fifty years, building a formidable reputation as a warrior, and is the only English knight the Joan of Arc knew of by name.
Talbot did not have the men to invest the whole 2-kilometre circuit of the walls in adequate strength. He therefore base his army West of the city, interposing it between the defenders and any relief force that might come up from Chinon, and then built two forts, the Bastille Saint-Laurent on the North bank of the Loire, and the Bastille Saint-Loup on the west, to guard the Burgundian gate, plus a number of smaller forts around the outer walls. Even so, and in spite of constant patrols, the garrison could and did move out with ease into the Forét d' Orléans North of the city, and received a small but steady amount of relief supplies throughout the winter, while the English army was kept provisioned by convoys of wagon's trundling across the frozen Beauce from Paris.
The first major effort to lift the siege came at the start of lent in 1429, when on 12th February a force containing many Scottish soldier, led by the Count of Clermont, attempted to enter the city from Blois. Near Janville this force ran into a large convoy of over 300 English wagon's form Paris, commanded by Sir John Fastolf, which has a considerable escort of 1,000 archers and some light cavalry, or hobelars. The wagon's contained salted fish, 'herrings and Lenten stuff', the besieger's supplies for the coming lent, which gave to their encounter the name of 'The Battle of the Herrings'.
Fastolf was an experienced captain and had risen in the world since he had leapt into the surf before Harfleur. He was now a Knight of the Garter, and a well regarded soldier. Seeing the enemy about to charge, Fastolf circled his wagons into a laager, and his archers screen them with their stakes. Although the French and Scots first bombarded the wagon circle the light field artillery and then sent in foot and cavalry attacks, they were beaten off by the English archers with great loss, until the ground around the wagon's was captured with men and horses.
Then, seeing his enemy hesitate, Fastolf and his men mounted and charged out from the wagon circle and turned the Battle into a rout. The Count of Clermont was wounded and Sir John Stewart, the Constable of Scotland, was killed. This victory at the Battle of the Herrings greatly encouraged the besieging army, and plunged the Dauphin and the garrisons of Chinon and Orléans into the deepest gloom. This depression lifted somewhat on 6th March, when Jeanne the Maid (Joan of Arc) arrived at Chinon. Dramatists like George Bernard Shaw have shown the Dauphin as hiding among his courtiers while they mocked the peasant girl, but it is more likely that he simply kept his distance until he had time to examine her more closely and make up his own mind, for he was well aware what his enemies would make of it if he was taken in by some charlatan.
Jeanne was not alarming. She was a small, rather plain girl, with a sturdy peasant frame, her short, cropped hair a dark frame to an open face. Only her enthusiasm for the war and her fervent faith marked her out from a hundred other who followed in the train of the armies. Charles admitted her to his presence on 8th March, and though he found her fascinating, he sensibly sent her to Poitiers, where she was carefully examined by the Parlement and by a number of clerices, who finally attested to her chastity, sincerity and orthodoxy. Jeanne returned to Chinon in early April, where the King supplied her with armour and horses and sent her on to the army outside Orléans, where matters were not going well.
The English investment had continued throughout March and by early April the English were ready to advance on the battered walls of the city and take it by storm. It was only then, when the English were massing to assault the city, that they heard some incredible news. A French army was marching upon them from Blois and at its head rode a girl. This maid (doubtless a witch a Satan) announced her intentions in letters to lord Talbot and the Regent of France, John, Duke of Bedford. It is fair to say that the English captains and their Burgundian allies were quite unimpressed by this missive. English heralds promptly put it about the Dauphin's new army was led by a witch, but to the French soldiers besieged inside the city, the coming of the Maid was a miracle.
The army sent to Orléans was actually commanded by the Duke of Alencon, recently released after his capture by Bedford at Vernuil. Most of the force, including Jeanne, entered the city on 30th April. The rest followed, and Alencon's whole army was inside the city by 4th May. The English had now been battering the walls of Orléans for six solid months and were greatly discouraged by the arrival of fresh supplies and more troops for the garrison. Exactly why Talbot was unable to prevent the French entering Orléans is still unclear, but apparently the Eastern gate, the Burgundian gate, was unguarded, and some slipped in there while other crossed the river by night in barges.
On the very day the Alencon entered the city, Jeanne rode out again with diversionary forces which overran the Bastille Saint-Loup before Talbot could send men from his base at Bastille Saint-Laurent. The English and Burgundians in Saint-loup were massacred and a large convoy of food entered the city. Tow days later, on 6th May, Jeanne was in action again when, at the head of 4,000 troops, she crossed the river to storm the English forts along the South bank. This battle on the south bank took two days and on the first day Jeanne was struck in the shoulder by an arrow and carried weeping from the field, the English archers dancing about and shouting out delightedly 'The witch is dead'.
In fact, she only received a flesh wound, for the arrow had barely penetrated her armour, and the next day, to the dismay of the English, Jeanne was back in the fray. The last English troops on the South bank were soon penned up in the shattered ruins of the Tourelles, which fell on 7th May to a combined assault from Jeanne's forces on the Southern side, and the city militia advancing from the city. On the following day, Talbot lifted the siege and Jeanne rode back in across the repaired Tourelles bridge to receive a rapturous welcome from Alencon, the soldiers of the garrison and the citizens of Orléans, an event which has been repeated at Orléans on 8th May every year from the day to this.