To nobody's surprise, the tribunal found Joan guilty of heresy and wearing men's clothing. Despite being given repeated warnings to recant (which the English insisted upon to discredit Charles), Joan refused. After threats of torture (and a possible rape attempt by English guards), Joan signed a formal recantation after being promised that she would be removed from English custody and delivered up to Church justice. When Joan was later sentenced to life imprisonment in an English prison, "on the bread of sorrow and the water of affliction there to mourn for your sins", she retracted the recantation and claimed that the saints had spoken to her. She also went back to wearing men's clothing. The retraction allowed the tribunal to declare her a lapsed heretic and ordered her to be burned at the stake.
Charles VII did nothing to intervene in the trial or her execution, despite the fact that her execution was largely meant to discredit him (he maintained that she was certainly guilty of wearing men's clothing). On May 31, 1431, Joan of Arc was taken to the place of execution at the Old Market Place in Rouen. Dressed in a plain white shift, she was placed on top of an enormous pyre and the executioner lit the fire. As a final indignity, her dead body was taken from the flame long enough for witnesses to verify her sex and that she was actually guilty of being a woman wearing men's clothing. Afterward, her body was returned to the pyre and burned to ashes. The English made very sure that her body was completely burned to prevent any relics being taken and her remains were thrown into the Seine river. The executioner, Geoffrey Therage, would later state that he was "greatly feared to be damned" for his role in killing Joan.
As a martyr, Joan of Arc was likely more useful to Charles than she was as a living reminder of her role in his coronation and he refused to comment publicly on her execution. Though the Hundred Years' War would continue for decades, Charles' rule over France became increasingly secure. The only other possible candidate, Henry VI, was only a boy and his rule over England was too unstable for any ambitious campaigns to hold on to the French territory left in his control. The French generals who had fought with Joan of Arc were inspired enough by her tactics to continue harassing English troops with bold assaults that weakened them further. There was also lingering resentment over Joan being executed as a heretic since an informal cult had sprung up in France following her death. While Charles ordered a formal review of Joan's case when he was finally strong enough to control those parts of the country where her trial had been held, there was still active resistance on the part of those churchmen who had conducted the original trial.
It was only in 1455 that a new trial was ordered by Pope Callixtus III at the urging of Joan's mother and brothers. After a lengthy investigation, the new tribunal declared Joan innocent on July 7, 1456. The verdict, which was just as political as the one that condemned her, declared Joan of Arc to be innocent of all charges. The investigation was carefully stanged and protected as many of the witnesses to the first trial as possible (including leaving out any mention of whether torture had been used in her case). Since the court was determined to prevent any blame being placed on the Church for its role in executing Joan, the verdict was carefully worded to ensure that the original trial had been as fair as possible and that they had simply been mistaken in convicting an innocent women. Since Bishop Cauchon was safely dead by this time, the tribunal conducting the hearing laid as much of the blame for the wrongful verdict as they could without actually stating that he was guilty of acting improperly. While stopping short of declaring Joan a saint, the verdict also made Charles' position safer by removing any tinge of heresy from his rule. The tribunal, while declaring Joan a martyr, also cracked down on the cult of veneration that had sprung up after her death and made it illegal to display her image publicly.
For all that Joan of Arc has become enshrined in history, it's hard to decide what to make of her complex legacy. The Catholic Church was always uneasy with the example that she provided to other women (both in terms of her unwillingness to submit to Church authority and her insistence on dressing like a man). Despite being considered one of France's patron saints with an enormous cult venerating her memory, Joan of Arc wasn't formally canonized as a saint until 1920. There was also the matter of the "voices" that she heard and the religious visions that accompanied them. Would she have been diagnosed as being mentally ill today? Even in Joan's time, physicians would have recognized a simple case of madness. Certainly Charles VI had ample experience on the subject (his own father, Charles V had been floridly psychotic) so he would little reason to support Joan if he didn't think there was more than insanity at work. Joan's failure to crack under the brutal treatment that she received during her trial would argue against schizophrenia in her case. Although other diagnoses, including complex partial seizure epilepsy have also been suggested, there is not enough evidence to be certain of any diagnosis.
Whatever can be made of Joan of Arc, she has certainly become a cultural and historic icon with writers from William Shakespeare to George Bernard Shaw portraying her in radically different ways. Whether saint, heretic, or madwoman, the Maid of Orleans has left her mark on the world.
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