'The witch' Joan the Arc's gaoler was born near Droitwich

Richard Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick (1382-1439), was born in Salwarpe Court near Droitwich and should be celebrated as one of Worcestershire's most famous sons.

Certainly, there can be few men who have left a more indelible mark on English and European history and his boots (or should that be sabatons?) would be hard to fill. 

IDYLLIC: Richard Beauchamp, the Earl of Warwick, was born here in Salwarpe Court in Salwarpe near Droitwich though this beautiful house was built much later in around 1580 (Image: James Connell/Newsquest)

However, his brutal and fascinating story, which involves the burning of the 'witch' and 'sorceress' who later became a beloved patron saint of France, is perhaps less well known than it should be, at least in the county of his birth.  

Many people know of 'bad' King John (he of Magna Carta fame) buried at Worcester Cathedral and have gazed at his effigy. Others will know of the Battle of Evesham on August 4, 1265, and the Battle of Worcester on September 3, 1651, which both helped sow the seeds of modern democracy and the many liberties we enjoy today. 

Fewer, I expect, have heard of Richard Beauchamp. However, at the end of the Middle Ages, this close confidante of the great warrior King Henry V of England (he who decimated the flower of French chivalry at Agincourt) was one of the most powerful and feared men in England and France with a formidable reputation. 

GRANDEUR: The Beauchamp Chapel in Warwick where a famous son of Worcestershire has been immortalised in a striking effigy (Image: James Connell/Newsquest)

In his long and illustrious career, he fought for King Henry IV at the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403, defeating the rebellious Percys of Northumberland led by Sir Henry Percy (the 'Hotspur'), and also helped suppress rebellion in Wales.

Beauchamp became the Captain of Calais in 1414, was responsible for the education of King Henry V's infant son (later King Henry VI) and was an accomplished diplomat in talks with the French and Burgundian courts.

SLIPPERY: Warwick the Kingmaker, son-in-law of Richard Beauchamp flanked by two angels which, given his later actions, seems optimistic (Image: James Connell/Newsquest)

He was even the father-in-law of that slipperiest of medieval customers - Warwick the Kingmaker - whose Machiavellian machinations played such a pivotal role in the later bloody dynastic struggles now called the Wars of the Roses.

The Kingmaker, Richard Neville, made and unmade kings and married into the earldom to become the Earl of Warwick in his turn.  Neville even appears as one of the weepers on Beauchamp's tomb, a shady looking figure in a hood.

IMPOSING: The gilt-bronze effigy of Richard Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick, at the Beauchamp Chapel at St Mary's Church in Warwick. Some blame him for the burning of Joan of Arc as a 'witch' and 'sorceress' but the reality is more complicated (Image: James Connell/Newsquest)

His resplendent gilt-bronze effigy in the celebrated Beauchamp Chapel at St Mary's Church in Warwick is considered a masterpiece of medieval art. His haircut - short back and sides with a mushroom mop on top - would not look out of place in Peaky Blinders.

This is medieval bling at its best. The powerful magnates of medieval England were probably a lot more like gangsters than many of us would believe. Once you scratch away the polished veneer of courtesy it is not hard to find the rampant barbarity which lies beneath and, the longer the Middle Ages went on, the harder it became to reconcile the ideal of chivalry with the carnage and cruelty it concealed.

SERENE: The church of St Michael's at Salwarpe, near the birthplace of Richard Beauchamp, the 13th Earl of Warwick (Image: James Connell/Newsquest)

Beauchamp's hands, which even show the network of veins, are held aloft in prayer but parted so that he might peer between them at the Queen of Heaven carved on the roof boss of his chantry chapel in pious anticipation of the day of Resurrection. His brow is slightly furrowed as if contemplating his sins.

Certainly, the French would say so. This is the man they sometimes blame for the burning of Joan of Arc. The stain of that savage act has, some might say, never been expunged from Beauchamp's reputation. 

The truth is more complex and most of the clergy who participated in her trial were French, though paid for by English coin. 

JOURNEY: Richard Beauchamp, 13 Earl of Warwick, appears to float towards heaven - but there are darker aspects to his story (Image: James Connell/Newsquest)

However, Beauchamp was certainly the 19-year-old's gaoler and the superintendent at her trial after she was captured by the Burgundians and handed over to the English in Rouen as Europe was devastated by a catastrophic power struggle known as the Hundred Years' War.

It is said Beauchamp sent his own doctor to bleed his captive, not out of compassion but because it was politically expedient to keep her alive for a public trial and execution. Such was the steely, cold-blooded ruthlessness considered a prerequisite of power in those times. 

She was burned at the stake on May 30, 1431, after she was found guilty of heresy.

It was said she had blasphemed by wearing men's clothes, acted upon demonic visions and refused to submit her words and deeds to the judgment of the church. It was a verdict overturned in 1456. After the French Revolution, Joan of Arc became a national hero of France and, later, a saint.