Why couldn Charles VII help Joan of Arc when she was sold to the English?
It was not that Charles couldn’t help Joan but that he chose not to do anything to help her after she was captured. The most viable time for Charles to have rescued Joan was during the first six months after she was captured when she was a prisoner of the Burgundians. Under the traditions of warfare that then existed, Joan could have been exchanged for one of the high-ranking prisoners that the French held or Charles could have paid a ransom for her release that feudal custom would have obliged the Burgundians to accept. Of course Charles could also have recalled the same army that Joan had led who would have again fought hard to save their beloved maid. There is no reliable historical evidence that Charles ever tried to do anything to save Joan. The question historians have tried to answer is why Charles chose to do nothing. Most have come to the conclusion that it was a matter of his self-centered personality that he became threatened whenever anyone around him became too popular or
