OF THE ROUND TABLE AND KING ARTHUR’S BATTLES
“Ah, Minstrels! when the Table Round
Arose, with all its warriors crown’d,
There was a theme for bards to sound
In triumph to their string!”--_Scott._
“A Knight of Arthur, working out his will
To cleanse the world.”--_Tennyson._
“Full fifteen years, and more, were sped;
Each brought new wreaths to Arthur’s head.
Twelve bloody fields, with glory fought,
The Saxons to subjection brought;
Rython, the mighty giant slain
By his good brand, relieved Bretagne:
The Pictish Gillamore in fight,
And Roman Lucius, own’d his might;
And wide were through the world renown’d
The glories of his Table Round.”--_Scott._
Lovers of the Arthurian legend might feel a sense of disappointment if
they were told that King Arthur never founded a Round Table, and that
all tradition on that subject was belied. But the closest students
of the ancient story are compelled to come to the conclusion that,
even granting King Arthur “made a realm and reign’d,” his Round Table
existed only in the imagination of later chroniclers and the weavers
of the romances. The evidence in favour of the Round Table is of no
substantial character, despite the veritable relic which exists at
Winchester and is proudly pointed to as the original and genuine
article. When Geoffrey of Monmouth pieced together the fragments of
history, the fables, and the traditions of the last of the British
heroes, and produced that wonderful narrative which has served as
a basis upon which to rear the elaborate and complicated structure
called by Malory the “noble hystorye of King Arthur,” he found nothing
whatever in those sources of information either of the Round Table
or of the Holy Grail. It was in 1155, when the “flower of Kings” had
five centuries of dust upon his tomb, that Wace in the _Brut_ gave
the first intimation of the existence of the idea.--“Fist Artus la
ronde table, dont Breton dient mainte fable;” from which we are led
to infer that the tradition was of Breton origin. Others have assumed
that the story of the Round Table established by King Arthur for the
accommodation of twelve favourite knights who met in perfect equality
was but a variation of that told of Charlemagne and his peers, though
the foremost scholars now assure us that the two ideas were separate
and distinct. The outstanding fact remains, however, that the earliest
histories of Arthur are silent on the subject which is so impressive
and memorable a feature of the later histories. Whence the idea was
derived, and how it came to be imported into this narration, none can
tell; but of its fitness of character there is no question. It is in
thorough keeping with the Arthurian story, supplies an appropriate
illustration of his character and methods, and enforces the leading
doctrine of knightly fellowship and the unity of the chivalrous band
whose primary object was “deeds of worship.”
It is absolutely impossible to reconcile the many conflicting accounts
of how King Arthur’s Round Table was obtained. One report is that
it was made by Merlin for Uther Pendragon; that Uther gave it to
King Leodegraunce of Cameliard; and that Leodegraunce gave it as
a wedding gift to Arthur when he married his daughter, Guinevere.
Malory confirmed this in his _Book of the Round Table and the Three
Quests_, when he put these words into the mouth of the king--“I love
Guinevere, the King’s daughter, Leodegraunce, of the land of Cameliard,
which holdeth in his house the Table Round, that ye told he had of
my father, Uther.” And Leodegraunce, when he heard of the projected
marriage, said: “He hath lands enough, he needeth none; but I shall
send him a gift that shall please him much more, for I shall give
him the Table Round, the which Uther Pendragon gave me; and, when it
is full complete, there is a hundred knights and fifty; and as for a
hundred good knights, I have myself, but I lack fifty, for so many have
been slain in my days.” King Arthur received the Table Round and the
hundred knights, “which,” he said, “please me more than right great
wishes.”
In the _Book of Sir Galahad_ we find that King Arthur “would wit how
many had taken the quest of the Sancgreal, and to account them he
prayed them all. Then found they by tale an hundred and fifty, and all
were knights of the Round Table.” But obviously this Round Table which
seated a hundred and fifty knights and left a space for the Holy Grail,
was not the special Round Table for King Arthur and the favoured twelve
knights of his selection; though it may have been the Round Table which
in the _Book of Sir Percivale_ we are told Merlin made “in token of the
roundness of the world: for by the Round Table is the world signified
by right. For all the world, Christian and heathen, resort unto the
Round Table, and when they are chosen to be of the fellowship of the
Round Table, they think them more blessed, and more in worship, than if
they had gotten half the world.” So said the Queen of the Waste Lands
to Sir Percivale. Yet in regard to this great institution there exists
the bolder idea of its astronomical derivation, and considering to what
extent astrology has entered into the Arthurian story the theory that
the Round Table was suggested by the movement round the Pole of the
Great Bear--“the seven clear stars of Arthur’s Table Round”--must not
be overlooked. Each age of chivalry has had some such institution, and
the Round Table continued to exist in this country until the time of
the Third Edward. Yet the actual era remains unverified
“When first the question rose
About the founding of a Table Round,
That was to be, for love of God and men
And noble deeds, the flower of all the world.”
Nor were the repeated efforts of English monarchs to keep alive the
institution conspicuously successful. The original standard could not
be maintained, and the tendency of these later times when the romances
were being enriched and elaborated, when Arthur and his knights were
regarded as models, and when tournaments were held in imitation of the
ancient jousts, was in reality a downward tendency. The ideal which men
strove to realise did not correspond with the spirit of the former age.
“People had become more worldly,” writes Ten Brink, “and were generally
anxious to protect the real interest of life from the unwarrantable
interference of romantic aspirations. The spirit of chivalry no
longer formed a fundamental element, but only an ornament of life--an
ornament, indeed, which was made much of, and was looked upon with a
sentiment partaking of enthusiasm. But now chivalry was no longer the
simple outflow of a dominant idea, but rather the product of a pleasant
self-conscious reflection. Minds ideally constituted strove to fill the
traditional moulds and formulas with a really ethical substance, and by
trying in their own way to transpose these ancient poems into action,
developed a really tender and humane disposition. The majority of
people rejoiced merely in the splendour, and in the festive, dignified
existence that raised them above the commonplace and distinguished them
from the vulgar crowd. But in every case there was the intermixture
of an incongruous element.” The lapse to Quixotism was inevitable,
and with the lashings of the follies of the undiscriminating imitator
of the knights of chivalry, the old custom passed away in derision.
Cervantes did well and did evil by his destructive satire: in cutting
away the parasite, the false and foolish chivalry which had fastened
itself upon the wise and the true, he cut also to the roots of the
goodly tree which deserved to fall more nobly, if fall it must. Renan
reminds us that it was not Arthur the King who has been adopted by all
peoples, but Arthur who charmed the world as the head of an order of
equality in which all sat at the same table, and in which a man’s worth
depended upon his valour and his natural gifts. The fate of an unknown
peninsula mattered nothing to the world--“what enchanted it was the
ideal court presided over by Guinevere, where around the monarchical
unity the flower of heroes was gathered together, where ladies, as
chaste as they were beautiful, loved according to the laws of chivalry,
and where the time was passed in listening to stories, and learning
civility and beautiful manners.”
The fashion set by Cervantes was followed in later times by John
Hookham Frere, whose projected _National Work_ comprising the “most
interesting particulars relating to King Arthur and his Round Table”
is a brilliant _jeu d’esprit_; and by Mr. Clemens (“Mark Twain”)
whose _Yankee at the Court of King Arthur_ scarcely ranks either
among his witty or his memorable productions. The greater number of
modern writers, having neither the provocation nor the excuse of
Cervantes, have selected for treatment the worthier and purer side of
chivalry,[20] but their idealisation had led to confusion also. Such
sober history as exists proves conclusively that the knights of the
most chivalrous age lacked those attributes upon which so much stress
has been laid, to the glory of poetry but to the obscuring of fact. It
is not within my scope, however, to dwell longer upon this subject, but
to call attention to the Round Table either as its reputed existence or
as the use of its name may be regarded as an indication of the extent
of King Arthur’s realm. But here, perhaps, we reach the most doubtful
ground of all. Wherever we step we touch a crumbling footway or find
ourselves utterly lost in a region of superstitions. The advance
along this illusive track would therefore be unprofitable, but that
it enables us to perceive how Arthurian traditions permeate the land,
how tenaciously the supposititious links with him and his age are
cherished, and how the crudest facts are turned to account in order
that some claim may be popularly justified to association with his fame.
Of the multitude of places in Britain claiming to possess King Arthur’s
Round Table, the ancient capital of Winchester ranks first. Caxton
in his famous Prologue provides a list of proofs of Arthur’s actual
existence--“In the castel of Dover ye may see Gauwayne’s skulle, and
Cradok’s mantel; at Wynchester, the rounde table; in other places,
Launcelottes sworde, and many other thynges.” Tradition ascribes the
foundation of Winchester Castle to King Arthur in the year 523, and the
large oaken table there hanging in the Chapel of St. Stephen, carved
with the figure of the king and the names of the knights, is affirmed
to be the identical board at which he and his knights assembled. King
Henry VIII exhibited it as such to the Emperor Charles, but alas for
romance! the researches of modern antiquaries have caused it to be
ascribed to the time of Stephen, thus disposing once and for all of
Drayton’s proud contention--
“And so great Arthur’s seat ould Winchester prefers,
Whose ould round table yet she vaunteth to be hers,”
and equally falsifying Warton’s declaration--
“High hung remains, the pride of former years,
Old Arthur’s board: on the capacious round
Some British pen has sketched the names renown’d,
In marks obscure of his immortal peers.”
The great antiquity of Winchester would make its possession of such a
relic, if genuine, quite possible. The ancient capital of England was
possessed by the Romans, who erected the massive walls and temples
of which it justly boasts. Some authorities declare that the first
Christian church was erected in Winchester about the year 169, three
centuries or more before King Arthur’s time, and that it was converted
into a temple of Dagon, or Woden, by the Saxons late in the fifth
century. Portion of Winchester was called by the Romans “Gwent,” or the
Hollow, and this name being confused with the Gwent in Monmouthshire
probably led to the transference of the scenes of the Arthurian legend
to the famous capital. This class of error, as has been already pointed
out, has not been infrequently met with in old chronicles. It was owing
to some such confusion of ideas in the mind of King Henry VII that he
named his son, born in Winchester Castle, after the Arthur of romance.
Winchester, in fact, plays no mean part in the Arthurian drama. It
was at times confused with Camelot, and given as the alternative name
of that place. But there is no substance in the claim that the Round
Table now to be seen in Winchester is really Arthurian. Even Defoe in
his eighteenth-century chronicle of a journey from London to Land’s
End talks contemptuously of the pretence to pass off the relic as “a
piece of antiquity to the tune of twelve hundred years,” and he threw
absolute discredit upon the whole story.
Caerleon-on-Usk, the historic capital of King Arthur’s realm, claims
(as we have related) also to possess the Round Table, but in this
instance the visitor is taken to a field, still bearing the name of
the Round Table Field, in which a circular cavity probably marks the
site of a Roman encampment. The local legend is that beneath this field
King Arthur and his knights sleep entranced, and await the summons to
come forth and save England from peril. On the top of Cadbury Hill,
Somerset, at a spot known as Cadbury Camp, a vast artificial circle,
which is doubtless also of Roman origin, is designated the Round Table;
and about half a mile from Penrith in Scotland a circular intrenchment,
eighty-seven feet in diameter, is popularly known by the same name.
Scott mentions “Penrith’s Table Round” in his _Bridal of Triermain_,
and one of Lockhart’s notes explains that the circle within the ditch
is about one hundred and sixty paces in circumference, with openings,
or approaches, directly opposite each other. “As the ditch is on the
inner side it could not be intended for the purpose of defence, and it
has been reasonably conjectured that the enclosure was designed for the
solemn exercise of feats of chivalry, and the embankment around for the
convenience of spectators.” This Scotch reference has a significance of
its own, but, standing alone, and combated by other claims, it cannot
be deemed of very high importance.
Sir Walter Scott quotes the lines of the poet David Lindsay--
“Adew, fair Snawdon, with thy towris hie,
Thy chapell-royall, park, and Tabyll Round,”
which removes the relic, natural or artificial, to North Wales; but
Anglesey also claims that what others call a Roman camp overlooking
Redwharf Bay is the “Burdd Arthur,” or Arthur’s Round Table. Leland’s
Itinerary contains the announcement that near Denbigh “there is, in
the Paroch of Llansannen in the Side of a Stony Hille, a Place wher
there be twenty-four Holes or Places in a Roundel for Men to sitte
in, but sum lesse, and some bigger, cutte out of the mayne Rock
by Mannes Hand; and there Children and Young Men cumming to seke
their Catelle use to sitte and play. Sum caulle it the Rounde Table.
Kiddes use their communely to play and skip from Sete to Sete.” No
conclusion can be drawn, and no satisfaction can be gained, from this
medley of conflicting claims: we learn only that the tradition was
widely diffused and that either in a spirit of contention to claim
possession of the relic, or with the desire to ensure the survival
of the recollection by symbols, the name came to be indiscriminately
bestowed upon artificial imitations or natural resemblances of the
original. George Borrow, however, favoured the Welsh localities as
truly Arthurian.
If we turn to the question of the number of the knights supposed to
range themselves at the Table Round we find similar diversity both
of record and opinion, and equal preposterousness in rival claims.
The Table at Winchester had “sieges” for twenty-five, including the
king. The Table mentioned by Malory had “sieges” for one hundred and
fifty: one hundred were sent by Leodegraunce, Merlin found twenty-eight
more, King Arthur chose Sir Gawaine and Sir Tor, and the remaining
twenty were left for those who proved themselves worthy. Yet the old
frontispiece to Malory’s History showed only thirty knights seated at
the Table; Scott, in his _Triermain_, mentions only sixteen; and the
old ballad on Arthur specifies the number of “good and able knights” as
fifty. To leave such details, let it suffice to learn from Malory that
“by the noble fellowship of the Table Round was King Arthur borne up”;
or let us agree with Drayton, for the sake of poetical justice, that
Arthur’s and Charlemagne’s knights were of exactly the same number--
“Who bear the bow were knights in Arthur’s reign,
Twelve they, and twelve the knights of Charlemagne.”
Among the many remarkable traditions concerning the Round Table is
that which survives in Wales that Arthur assembled his followers on
the heights of the Brecknockshire Beacons, and there made known his
design to establish a knighthood and to found a Table Round. On the
summit of Pen-y-Van may yet be seen huge stones and rock fragments
which the superstitious regard as the broken relics of the Table, to
the real existence of which far more attention has been given than
to its allegorical significance. The Round Table is, in fact, purely
symbolical throughout the romance, an idea conveyed by the customary
means of a simple figure, a parable. It is illustrative of the equality
and the unity of the order of chivalry, and of the singleness of
purpose and ambition of the Arthurian warriors and adventure-seekers.
The breaking up of the Table Round is the sign of the falling away in
allegiance of the knights and of the approaching disintegration of
Arthur’s kingdom. When the fellowship of the knights is strongest and
the complement is complete, the king is at the height of his power;
when there are vacant seats at the Table, there are indications of a
decline; when only a remnant of the knights meets once more at the
monarch’s call, the kingdom is half-lost; when the fellowship is broken
and the Round Table has disappeared, the end of Arthur’s reign is
come, and his power is shattered for ever. “We all understand,” said
Sir Lancelot, “in this realm will be now no quiet, but ever strife and
debate, now the fellowship of the Round Table is broken; for by the
noble fellowship of the Round Table was King Arthur upborne, and by
their nobleness the King and all his realm was in quiet and in rest.”
By the deftness of the chroniclers the symbolism of the Round Table
becomes slightly intermixed with the symbolism of the Grail quest,
Sir Galahad, the perfect knight who could sit in the Siege Perilous,
being the only knight who could be blessed with the vision of the
Holy Grail. It was those alone of the fellowship of the Round Table
who entered upon the quest, and it was the one pure hero, the man of
most worship, who achieved that quest. Two seats in the Round Table
were left vacant by Merlin. One was filled by King Pellinore when he
had proved his worthiness; “but in the Siege Perilous,” said Merlin,
“there shall no man sit therein but one, and if there be any so hardy
to do it he shall be destroyed, and he that shall sit there shall have
no fellow.” The double prophecy was fulfilled. The unworthy knight who
attempted to occupy the siege was carried away in a flame that burst
forth instantaneously, and Merlin’s own fate is by some ascribed to his
inadvertence in sitting in that mysterious chair, strangely carven and
lettered. But for Galahad there was no such fear. Long did the Siege
Perilous remain vacant, for while Arthur and his knights were building
up the kingdom Lancelot’s son was unborn. But at the assembling of the
fellowship one Whitsuntide a hermit predicted to the king that that
same year one should be born who would sit in the Siege Perilous and
win the Sangreal. Henceforth the two ideas are found constantly united.
At Camelot all the seats at the Table were found newly written with
gold letters, and upon the Siege Perilous were the mystic words: “Four
hundred winters and fifty-four accomplished after the passion of our
Lord Jesu Christ ought this Siege to be fulfilled.” The knights were
filled with wonderment, and they awaited the coming of the worshipful
man who could sit there and not be harmed. Only miracles were wrought
that day; the air and sky were full of omens, and Lancelot said: “I
will that ye wit that this same day will the adventures of the Sangreal
begin.” “A good old man, and an ancient,” clothed in white, entered
the palace, bringing with him a young knight without arms. No one knew
whence they came, but they listened in awe to the reverend stranger,
who declared that the youth by his side was the long-expected knight,
of the king’s lineage, of the kindred of Saint Joseph, destined to sit
in the Siege Perilous and to achieve the Grail quest. It was Galahad,
Sir Lancelot’s own son, having for his mother Elaine, the daughter of
King Pelles, who was “cousin nigh unto Joseph of Arimathie,” and the
possessor of the Holy Vessel. In the mysterious seat the young knight
sat unfearing, and the knights beholding this whispered to each other,
“This is he by whom the Sangreal shall be achieved.” It was the virgin
knight who could alone draw out the sword from the stone, and who again
proved himself the greatest, after which he began with religious ardour
his appointed task.
Galahad’s story was a late addendum to the Arthurian legend, and it
is very difficult to suppose that he was an historic figure. Yet his
prototype is said to have existed in the person of Catwg the wise
(Cadog), the second principal of Llancarfan College, where he was the
successor of the renowned Bishop Dubois. In his youth Catwg had been
a soldier, later he joined the Christian Church, and the neophyte had
the advantage of receiving personal instruction from the aged master,
the foremost divine of Arthur’s time. But the suggestion that Cadog was
Galahad is scarcely open to serious consideration, and Walter Map, the
first to relate the history of the virgin knight, was not likely to
have had any such prototype in his mind. His conception seems to have
been mainly poetic. The story is crowded with mysteries, superstitions,
and idealisms. Galahad is scarcely human in any of his attributes, and
he is so invested with marvels that we may safely set him down as an
imaginary type or the most shadowy of traditional figures.
In discussing the real Arthur, as distinct from the Arthur of romance,
we have to bear in mind that he was primarily the warrior, the
representative of a cause which necessitated the constant display of
his power in battle. As such he was first celebrated by the bards, and
it was around the warrior and chief that the romance grew. From being
simply a military leader, he became a type of hero about whom gathered
many legends, and in course of time he was made the central figure in
all the stories of marvellous adventure current in the early days. That
there was an Arthur leading a forlorn hope, chief of a people slow
to yield and hard to subdue, need scarcely be questioned. He is the
original hero, the last and greatest of a conquered race; he is the
giant-figure standing behind the mythical Arthur of fable and romance.
Born when his land was attacked by the invader and his people were
fearing extinction, he valorously met the foe, and for a while stemmed
the victorious current of the Saxon and the Roman arms. Defeated at
last, he became, as was inevitable, a type of hero--a later Odin, a
demi-god--and in the romances and songs we read rather of aims than
accomplishments, of desires than of deeds. More and more as time cast
its glamour about him, King Arthur became the embodiment of a national
aspiration, and the vanquished race revenged its defeat in songs of
defiance, songs which vaunted of victory and were matched to triumphant
strains, songs which relieved the thought of present disaster and
recalled only the olden triumphs or prompted dreams of future glory.
These songs took their rise in prophecies and sprang forth into golden
promise of power and success. Speedily the ideal replaced the real.
Poet after poet, chronicler after chronicler, added attributes to the
hero; and ultimately from one strong man waging desperate war against
outnumbering foes, the Arthur of romance was evolved, the Arthur whose
conquests were an unbroken series and whose territory was limitless,
the Arthur with his invincible knighthood, the Arthur who could never
die, but who, in Merlin’s words, “like the dawn will arise from his
mysterious retreat.” The legends supply one more proof that a nation
with a voice, with the power of utterance, is invincible in spirit;
captive and conquered though it may be, it remains unsubdued and free
in impulse and thought. We can conceive how bold and defiant the spirit
of the Cymri remained when in the eyes of the race the defeated king
was still visible as the master of all kings, and the vanquished people
could boast that he who fell under the Roman yoke--
“Swept the dust of ruin’d Rome
From off the threshold of the realm, and crushed
The Idolaters, and made the people free.”
[Illustration: _Photo: R. Webber, Boscastle_]
THE ROCKY VALLEY, TINTAGEL
[_To face p. 150_]
To this race Caerleon and Camelot became cities of magic splendour
and magnificence, and the courts and camps of Arthur surpassed in
strength and riches the luxurious home of Cæsar. The land was strewn
with relics of Arthur’s power; the downs and plains were the scenes
of his momentous victories; the hills were his chairs and footstools;
the old encampments were the scenes of famous tourneys; the dark woods
suggested the scenes of strange adventures for the knights; the holy
wells, the rivers, and the places where Nature was brightest and most
beautiful, were all associated with leading events and enterprises in
the history of the king and his noble retinue. Particularly did the
Cymri insist upon the successive and overwhelming defeats by Arthur
of the Saxons, their traditional and most hated foe. And in their
vauntings they gave Arthur the mastery of half Europe, claimed that
the Roman Emperor became his vassal, and that upon his head the Pope
himself placed a crown.
Arthur fought twelve great battles against the Saxons, the dates
varying from 457 to 604.[21] Either names have been mixed, or the
chroniclers have monstrously departed from fact, or else we must
conclude that the British warrior was actually king of the greater part
of England, Wales, and Scotland, for his victories extend from Cornwall
to Lincoln, and from Caerleon in Wales to the Scotch Lowlands. The
twelfth and greatest of his victories was at Mount Badon, where “in one
bout,” we are told, “Arthur vanquished eight hundred and forty-one,”
and “no man overthrew them but himself alone.” The identity of Mount
Badon, where “our good Arthur broke once more the Pagan” has long been
a matter of dispute. It has been contended that Bath was none other
than Mons Badonicus, and that the actual battlefield was a spot known
as Banner Down; but the claim has almost entirely been abandoned now
that so much evidence is forthcoming in favour of another site. Bath
seems to have been fixed upon as a likely place not only on account
of its veritable antiquity and its early occupation by the Romans,
but because it appeared to be a sort of translation or corruption
of the word Badon. But this is an etymological blunder, for, as has
been pointed out, a sixth century word cannot be elucidated in this
free manner with the help of a word which had no existence until
the tenth century. The authorities are now fairly well agreed that
Badon must be identified with Badbury Rings, but again a difficulty
arises, for there are two places called Badbury, not very far from
each other, one in Wiltshire and the other in Dorset. There is also a
Caer Badon in Berkshire which at least two historians have favoured as
the scene of Arthur’s crucial contest with Cerdic. Our knowledge of
the battle comes from the Welsh bards who celebrated it in vaunting
songs, and from Gildas and Bede, but none of them assists us to
establish where Badon was, or, for the matter of that, at what date
the battle was fought. Lady Charlotte Guest reminds us that Gildas,
who bore the name of Badonicus from being born in the year in which
the battle was fought,[22] described Badon as being at the mouth of
the Severn, but this passage has been declared an interpolation. Mr.
Freeman, Mr. Stokes, and other modern historians give their vote for
Badbury in Dorset, but without mentioning their reasons. The Badbury
in Wiltshire seems to me to be the more likely place if for no other
reason than that King Arthur is often mentioned as travelling through
that county, and as being in the vicinity of Salisbury and Stonehenge,
whereas Dorset seems to have been outside the sphere of his visits and
operations. The Wiltshire Badbury is only a few miles from the gigantic
and mysterious megalithic structure which had actually been attributed
by Geoffrey of Monmouth and others to Aurelius Ambrosius, or Arthur.
One tradition ran that it was a monument erected by the Britons on
the spot where the massacre of the British nobles took place by order
of Hengist. But in the light of science we learn that Stonehenge was
an antiquity in the time of the Celts, and that its origin must have
been as much a mystery to the contemporaries of King Arthur as it is
to us of to-day. Stonehenge is not mentioned by the old chroniclers,
but, remarkable to say, neither is Badon; but Salisbury is the subject
of Merlin’s fateful prophecy of Arthur’s doom in the battle with
Mordred. Mr. Joseph Ritson went exhaustively into the subject of Mons
Badonicus, and after citing all that was recorded of it by Archbishop
Usher, Matthew of Westminster, Gildas, Geoffrey, Sir John Prise, and
many others, he still left the issue uncertain. What alone seems to be
established is that the battle was a decisive triumph for the British
against the Saxons under Cerdic, and that Arthur personally performed
prodigies of valour. Tennyson has represented him charging at the head
of his knights, and standing high on a heap of the slain watching the
flying foe; and Drayton has sung--
“How he himself at Badon bore that day,
When at the glorious gole his British scepter lay;
Two daies together how the battel tronglie tood:
Pendragon’s worthie son, who waded there in blood,
Three hundred Saxons slew with his own valiant hand.”
It is a truly marvellous account which is given of Arthur’s valorous
conduct at the battle of Badon. Wearing his breastplate, his gold
helmet with the dragon device upon it, and taking his sword Excalibur,
his spear Ron, and his shield Pridwen, he first received a blessing
from the Bishop Dubritius and then headed his force against the Saxons,
who received the attack in a wedge-formation, as was their custom.
The issue of the battle long remained in doubt. The fighting was of
the most desperate character on both sides, and at the close of day
the Saxons had the advantage. Next morning the contest was resumed,
Arthur storming the mount and being at a disadvantage by having the
lower position. His personal example, however, fired his troops with
courage. Drawing his sword and uttering the name of St. Mary he rushed
among the enemy and dealt such strokes that a man fell each time. In
all 470 Saxons lay dead as the result of that terrific onslaught, and
the Britons rushing in at the right moment completed the Saxon rout.
This was the end of a long campaign which had taken Arthur through
Lincolnshire, Staffordshire, and Somerset. The date of the battle,
as is usual with Arthurian dates, cannot be fixed. It is given by
different chroniclers as 493, 511, as 516 in the _Annales Cambriæ_, and
as 520.
It is surprising that Badon[23] should remain vague and undefined,
when the sites of some of the other and less important battles are
in most cases not dubious and are easily ascertained. We know, for
example, that Barham Down, or Barendowne, the scene of one of the
last encounters with Mordred, was near Canterbury; and the fact that
thereabouts was an Anglo-Saxon cemetery may either be testimony to the
fact, or may have suggested to the chroniclers the likelihood of its
being an ancient battlefield. Mr. Ritson traced the localities of the
other Arthurian struggles to the banks of the Glen in Lincolnshire
and of the Duglas in Lancashire; he thought Bassas might be Bashford
in Staffordshire, though others favour Boston in Lincolnshire;
Cathbregion was in Somersetshire, and so forth. Of these battles we
have no details in Malory. On the other hand, we have a long account
of the expedition to Italy undertaken by Arthur against the Emperor
of Rome after the latter had presumed to demand tribute from him. His
complete humiliation of the Emperor’s subjects is, of course, insisted
upon. Prisoners were taken in large numbers and compelled to become
Christians; a duchess besought him to spare the women and children, and
Arthur thereupon issued magnanimous orders; the keys of cities were
brought to him by young men, and his march through northern Italy was
one continuous triumph. “Then he rideth into Tuscany,” says Malory in
his most laconic style, “and winneth towns and castles, and wasted all
in his way that to him will not obey.” Finally the senators offered
him allegiance, and the noblest cardinals in Rome came voluntarily to
him and “prayed him peace.” Arthur accepted their gifts, and decided
to hold his Table Round, “with my knights as we liketh,” in Rome at
Christmas. Then, having been crowned by the Pope “with all the royalty
that could be made,” he apportioned the realms among his knights and
servants, and returned to England, landing at Sandwich,[24] where the
queen and a large company were waiting to receive him. King Arthur, his
knighthood, his undefeated warriors, and his almost miraculous battles,
are perhaps more a theme for the poet than for the historian. Such
lines as Lytton’s accord with the romance, and realise the aspirations
of the unsubjugated tribe and of those who sang its fame and prophesied
its future triumph.
“Rings Owaine’s shout,--rings Geraint’s thunder-cry,
The Saxon’s death knell in a hundred wars;
And Cador’s laugh of triumph:--through the sky
Rush tossing banderolls swift as shooting stars,
Trystan’s white lion--Lancelot’s cross of red,
And Tudor’s standard with the Saxon’s head.
And high o’er all, its sealèd splendour rears
The vengeful emblem of the Dragon Kings.
Full on the Saxon bursts the storm of spears;
Far down the vale the charging whirlwind rings,
While through the ranks its barbèd knighthood clave,
All Carduel follows with its roaring wave.”