AT the end of August 1428 Charles, duke of Orléans, was faced with perhaps tthe most traumatic event of his twenty-five-year captivity, the invasion of his estates by a large English army. Lands that here lied upon to raise his ransom were systematically ransacked. At his town of Janville receivers' accounts were burnt and estate officials led into captivity. By 12 October the charismatic and skilled English commander Thomas Montagu, earl of Salisbury, had invested the duke's principal city of Orléans; the surrounding territories, bludgeoned into submission, were paying forced tribute. Orléans itself endured a desperate seven-month siege that only ended with the dramatic relief of the city on 8 May 1429 by Joan of Arc. This extraordinary story has usually been told without consideration of Duke Charles's own political role. As a result, he comes across as rather lost in the interior world of his poetry while his city suffers the bombardment of English artillery. Yet a study of Charles's part in these events is essential to an understanding of the siege, and allows a broader re-evaluation of the duke and his role as a prisoner during the war in France.

Chivalric convention dictated that a captive's lands should remain safe from Attack from his enemy. Maurice Keen summarized thei ssue as follows: ‘a prisoner's lands, from the revenues of which he must pay his ransom, became technically immune from war.