One of the more elaborate 'theories' put forward by certain authors is the notion that Joan was given combat training at Kilmartin, Scotland through the auspices of René d'Anjou (claimant to the Kingdom of Sicily, Duke of Anjou and heir to the Duchies of Bar and Lorraine), with the training apparently being conducted by descendants of a few lucky Knights-Templar who had escaped to Scotland over a century earlier. In this scenario, Joan is alleged to have made a lengthy trip to Scotland, undergone a period of training, and returned to France all during the brief interval between her stay at Vaucouleurs and her arrival at Chinon - a rather remarkable feat.
The theory combines several fictional scenarios favored by
a certain class of revisionist:
1) Joan is sometimes portrayed as
an "Amazon" (for lack of a better term) who must have been trained
for combat by some group (the
specific group varies from theory to theory), although she herself
said that she had never killed anyone, and preferred to carry her
banner in battle. Whether she had ever fought briefly in self-defense
is a legitimate topic of dispute, but there is certainly no evidence of formal
"training".
2) There are several "Anjou
Conspiracy Theories" which variously claim that René or his mother,
Yolande of Aragon, were responsible for Joan's acceptance by Armagnac
leaders, or were otherwise involved in various
plots connected with her. The only factual "Anjou connection"
was the brief presence of René d'Anjou in the Royal army after the coronation,
when a great many lords joined the Royal army. Lord Anjou merely
happened to have been one of these.
3) There are also several "Scottish Connection Theories" in
circulation, often dealing with alleged training by Scots. The closest factual
basis for a "Scottish connection" was the presence of
several Scottish commanders
who were serving the Royal army due to the alliance between Charles VII
and James I - i.e., Sir Hugh Kennedy, Michael Norville, etc,
happened to be present in some of Joan's armies, just as there
were Spaniards, Italians, Basques, and members of other foreign
groups serving as
mercenaries or otherwise. These other ethnic groups fail to spark
the imaginations of pop authors, evidently.
4) There is an old idea that Joan's life was indirectly connected
with the original Templars, in the sense that Jacques Molay's famous
curse upon the French Royal family was allegedly responsible for the
untimely deaths of Charles VII's four elder brothers and
- so this notion holds - the curse did not exhaust itself until
Joan's death atoned for that of Molay's. The "training-by-Templars"
theory takes this general theme and makes the connection more direct
by adding a surviving remnant of the group to the story.
As with so many revisionist tales, this one can be refuted simply by pointing out the lack of any credible evidence to justify any of it: the best the theorists can do is to selectively pick out a few quotes and coincidences from the documents and 'spin' them to fit the theory, while filling in the rest with fiction. No document establishes any trip to Scotland on Joan's part - and in fact such a journey would be physically impossible given the brief time frame involved. No evidence indicates anything but the most tenuous link to René d'Anjou, and there is no indication that they had ever met prior to mid-July of 1429, halfway through Joan's campaigns. There is nothing to remotely indicate any training by Scots, at Kilmartin or elsewhere, nor that any remnant of the Templars had had any contact with her. Certain authors may be confusing the Templars with the small group from an entirely different religious order, the Knights of St. John (aka Order of Rhodes), who served the Royal cause during the siege of Orleans under the command of Friar Nicholas de Giresme. This contingent is documented in the city's financial registers, and one of its soldiers may well have produced the fragmentary letter included as such in Quicherat's series; but this letter merely makes the usual supportive references to Joan similar to those found in many other writings from the men who served in her armies, and does not contain any indication that the Knights of St. John gave her any training, much less evidence that a surviving remnant of the Templars did so.