Saint Joan

This conversation between Joan’s English enemies lays out three ideological reasons why she is persecuted. Warwick represents the interests of the aristocracy, and his denunciation of Joan raises important questions about The Invention of Nationalism. At the time of these events, France is a patchwork of often warring feudal domains, not all of which swear allegiance to the French King. Joan’s eventual capture by the English-allied French Burgundians makes this clear. For Warwick, Joan’s chief threat is not that she might defeat the English, but that she inspires the French to see themselves as a single nation under a single monarch, whose power would grow as a result, while the various dukes and earls would see their power diminish. Warwick fears that Joan’s vision of the unified nation will spread beyond France’s borders, imperiling his own position in England. He views Joan’s actions through the lens of realism and political manipulation, calling her leadership “a cunning device to supersede the aristocracy, and make the king sole and absolute autocrat. Instead of the king being merely the first among his peers, he becomes their master.” (123). By calling Joan a “cunning device,” he ignores any motivation outside of pragmatic, materialist reality.

Cauchon, on the other hand, represents the perspective of the Catholic Church. He fears that Joan’s claim of direct inspiration from God allows her to subvert the clerical authority of Church officials and therefore makes her a Protestant heretic. Cauchon vehemently denies any form of political motivation, snapping at Warwick:

I will not suffer your lordship to smile at me as if I were repeating a meaningless form of words, and it were well understood between us that I should betray the girl to you. I am no mere political bishop: my faith is to me what your honor is to you; and if there be a loophole through which this baptized child of God can creep to her salvation, I shall guide her to it (118).

This desire to show Joan mercy suggests that Cauchon is a sympathetic figure, even though he is an antagonist. His fear of Protestant reformers is not motivated by personal gain; he is concerned that heresy will disrupt what he views as a wise and well-guided system of control. He asks:

[W]hat will the world be like when The Church’s accumulated wisdom and knowledge and experience, its councils of learned, venerable pious men, are thrust into the kennel by every ignorant laborer or dairy-maid whom the devil can puff up with monstrous self-conceit of being directly inspired from heaven? (121).

Like Warwick, Cauchon seeks to protect the interests of those who currently hold power, but he genuinely believes he does so for the good of humanity and according to the will of God. If Cauchon’s authoritarian theology is in fact motivated by his own political interests, he seems too earnest to realize it.

Stogumber, in contrast, articulates the nationalist perspective, virulently condemning Joan as a witch due to his own protective loyalty to England. His words are the most vicious, and he advocates for her burning, while Warwick and Cauchon hope to avoid that horrific form of execution. Unlike Warwick and Cauchon, who want Joan neutralized because of the threat she poses to their particular social class, Stogumber hates Joan because of his personal identification with the English nation. Stogumber’s complicated sense of identity further advances the theme of The Invention of Nationalism. In his initial conversation with Warwick, he laments, “I cannot bear to see my countrymen defeated by a parcel of foreigners” (112). When Warwick skeptically asks if he considers himself an Englishman, he backtracks, saying, “Certainly not, my lord: I am a gentle-man. Still like your lordship, I was born in England; and it makes a difference” (112). While Stogumber denies being an Englishman, it is clear that his identification with his social class rather than his country of origin is eroding.

At the end of the scene, while Warwick and Cauchon claim that they hope to spare Joan a harsh execution, Stogumber alone cries out, “I would burn her with my own hands” (126). Nationalism appears to create a more violent, extreme, and less rational justification for hatred, but it is clearly becoming a dominant new ideology. Just as Joan fights for France with more conviction than the soldiers who fight only for money, Stogumber will burn Joan alive to protect England. When Cauchon goes so far as to call this a second heresy, saying “it is essentially anti-Catholic and anti-Christian; for the Catholic Church knows only one realm, and that is the realm of Christ’s kingdom” (125), he is recognizing the essential tension between the new nationalism and the Church’s universalist worldview. Ironically, while Stogumber is Joan’s most furious and virulent opponent, he is the one who is ideologically closest to her. Through this scene, Shaw sets up the idea that Joan will be condemned not because she has personally done anything wrong, but because she is rebelling against entrenched systems of social power. Warwick, Cauchon, and Stogumber are not corrupt or inspired by demonic forces—they are attempting to preserve the status quo by following established legal procedures.