Oil on canvas, approximately 22 x 30.5 inches. Vassar College Art Gallery, Poughkeepsie, New York.

Hamilton painted this scene for Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery. John Christian comments that the figure of Joan is "hackneyed," "stagey in gesture and attired like Bellona, the Roman goddess of war." But the Furies are reminiscent of Michaelangelo's Last Judgment, elements of the painting that are worthy, he thinks, of Fuseli or Blake (173).

Joan of Arc is a heroine in France, but for Shakespeare and his Elizabethan audience she was little better than a witch whose victories on the battlefield were assured by fiends and demons, "familiar spirits that are culled / Out of the powerful legions under earth." Shakespeare depicts Joan as a wanton, corrupt liar, a portrayal that some nineteenth-century critics found tasteless and unworthy of England's greatest playwright. However, the Elizabethans might be forgiven for looking differently--and prejudiciously--at the woman who helped drive the English out of France once and for all.

In Act V, Scene iii, of Henry VI, Part 1, France has lost the battle at Angiers and Joan calls upon her fiends to help her. But her demons hang their heads, indicate they cannot help, and finally depart, leaving her alone to face her enemy.

The regent conquers, and the Frenchmen fly.

Now help, ye charming spells and periapts;

And ye choice spirits that admonish me

And give me signs of future accidents.

[Thunder.]

You speedy helpers, that are substitutes

Under the lordly monarch of the north,

Appear and aid me in this enterprise.

[Enter Fiends.]

This speedy and quick appearance argues proof

Of your accustom'd diligence to me.

Now, ye familiar spirits, that are cull'd

Out of the powerful regions under earth,

Help me this once, that France may get the field.

[They walk, and speak not.]

O, hold me not with silence over-long!

Where I was wont to feed you with my blood,

I'll lop a member off and give it you

In earnest of further benefit,

So you do condescend to help me now.

[They hang their heads.]

No hope to have redress? My body shall

Pay recompense, if you will grant my suit.

[They shake their heads.]

Cannot my body nor blood-sacrifice

Entreat you to your wonted furtherance?

Then take my soul, my body, soul and all,

Before that England give the French the foil.

[They depart.]

See, they forsake me! Now the time is come

That France must vail her lofty-plumed crest

And let her head fall into England's lap.

My ancient incantations are too weak,

And hell too strong for me to buckle with:

Now, France, thy glory droopeth to the dust.

Joan is taken by the English at the end of the scene, eventually to be tried and burned.