It is not difficult to see causes of an estrangement between the Queen and her stepson. Her eldest son, the Duke of Britanny, had been expected to become a warm ally of the English in the war against France. He had disappointed this hope. It would even seem that it was only by an accident that he had not fought against Henry at Agincourt. Her second son, Arthur, though an English subject, as having done homage for the earldom of Richmond, had been actually taken prisoner in that battle. Some accounts even represent him as having made an attack on the English camp during the night of the 24th of October. The Duke d’Alençon was her son-in-law. Charles of Navarre, Constable of France, was her brother. A lady so closely connected with the enemy might well become an object of suspicion. And she was, or had been, unpopular in England. Parliament had complained of the foreigners whom she kept about her person, and with such effect that the King (Henry the Fourth) had dismissed all but a few. But one cannot help thinking that her dowry had more to do with the matter than anything else. Henry, compelled even to pawn the royal jewels for the expenses of his expedition, may have looked with coveting eyes on his stepmother’s wealth, wealth which she seems to have been careful to save, and even to increase by trade. A jointure of ten thousand marks had been settled on her by the House of Commons in 1406. She enjoyed, in addition, a large income as Dowager-Duchess of Britanny. We hear of various trading ventures, especially of the export of ore from certain lead mines which her second husband had granted her. Special privileges as regards export and import duties seem also to have been accorded to her. On the other hand, it has been pointed out that her charities were unusually small for a person of her exalted station. On the whole the impression is left that she had both the opportunity and the will to accumulate wealth. Such accumulations, if they existed, could hardly have failed to attract the attention of a sovereign who was doing all that he could to procure the sinews of war. Indeed we hear of Henry directing one of his officials to send all the money that he could possibly borrow from the dower of Joanna the Queen, leaving her only money enough for her reasonable expenses and to pay any annuities that she might have granted. This injunction was followed in the same year by the arrest of the Queen. It is not unlikely that she resisted the attempt to extort the money, and that her resistance was punished by the accusation which Walsingham records. The crime charged against her was probably sorcery: “she had compassed,” it was said, “the death of our lord the King in the most high and horrible manner that could be imagined.” On the Parliamentary roll that contains this statement there follows with suspicious promptitude the confiscation of all the accused person’s property.