Royal: John of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford, 1389-1435

John of Bedford is most famous as Joan of Arc's nemesis and ultimately one who sealed her doom, but there was more to his career.  His treatment of a national heroine aside, he was an able administrator and commander who figured primarily in the early reign of his nephew, Henry VI.  Possibly had he lived longer, Warwick the Kingmaker and the Yorkists might not have been as successful.

John was one of the sons of Henry IV.  He was one of a band of brothers that included Henry V, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and Thomas, Duke of Clarence, all capable military commanders who began accumulating wealth early when their father became Henry IV.  Bedford was knighted in 1399 at his father's coronation and throughout the years amassed a fortune in forfeited property from nobles who supported Richard II and, after his death, the rising Yorkists.  The honors continued when Bedford's brother became Henry V and made him Duke of Bedford.  After Henry V's death in 1422, Bedford and Gloucester began to quarrel over the regency for their baby nephew Henry VI.  Bedford was named Regent, but focused on the war in France.  He founded the University of Caen in Normandy and was a noted collector of illuminated manuscripts.  It was while in France that he came up against a determined, and some say inspired, 19-year-old peasant girl and began suffering embarrassing losses. 

Plantagenets were skilled at finding and neutralizing their enemies, through death if necessary, which it most often was.  Joan was captured by the Burgundians.  Bedford arranged to buy her ransom from them, thus bringing her under English control and making it almost impossible for Charles VII to save her, though he did make diplomatic efforts to do so.  It was at Bedford's urging that Joan was tried as a witch.  If he could prove that she was a witch and have her condemned by the church, he could render Charles VII's coronation void and perhaps place his own nephew Henry VI on the throne.  He probably didn't have any personal animus against Joan or even stopped to ponder the matter.  She was a political pawn. 

John of Bedford was married twice, first to Anne of Burgundy and later to Jacquetta of Luxembourg.  Both marriages were childless, though Jacquetta would have several children by her subsequent second marriage.  He did have one out-of-wedlock child, Mary, who married a Norman nobleman and had children.  John died at his castle in Rouen, in Normandy.  Not in battle, not as a result of a curse from Joan.