The Lost Land of King Arthur

His war with King Melvas, of Somersetshire (strongly reminiscent of the last war with Mordred, as related by Malory), reads like veritable history. While engaged in subduing the savage hordes in Wales and Cornwall, and in beating back the advancing Saxons, he found that the “Rex Rebellus” Melvas had stolen away his wife Guinevere, and carried her to Ynyswytryn. King Arthur gathered a large force, and set out with his knights to take summary vengeance on the ravisher, whom he forthwith besieged. A well-known antiquary has found reason to believe that Arthur’s force was “a numberless multitude;” but at all events there is little doubt that Melvas, who was only an “underlord,” would have been heavily defeated had a battle ensued. But conflict was avoided by the intervention of Gildas, the Abbot, who commanded Melvas to restore Guinevere to her rightful lord, and then succeeded in reconciling the two foes. They both ended by swearing friendship and fidelity to the Abbot, and the facts go far to show the potentiality of that dignitary at this period. Thus, by establishing King Arthur’s connection with Glastonbury, we increase the likelihood of his choosing the holy place at Avalon for his last resting-place. He knew the shrine well and had visited the fruitful, balmy island-valley in which his ancestor’s name was deeply revered; and when his time drew nigh he could think of no sweeter, better spot in which to seek for peace. “Comfort thy selfe,” said the king to weeping Sir Bedivere after the last battle, “and do as well as thou maiest, for in mee is no trust for to trust in; for I wil into the vale of Avilion for to heale me of my grievous wound; and if thou never heere more of me, pray for my soule.” And with the three mourning queens he passed from the bloody field of Camlan up the waters of the Bristol Channel to the isle

“Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,Nor ever wind blows loudly.”

“King Arthur, being wounded in battle, was brought to Glastonbury to be healed of his wounds by the healing waters of that place,” an old record runs. But his wound was too grievous; and though Merlin prophesied that he “cannot die,” the current tradition is that when he reached the sacred isle he “came unto his end.” In the time of the first Plantagenet, when the fame of King Arthur was revived, search was made at Glastonbury for the bones of the great British chief. Henry II. was then on his way to Ireland, and Henry of Bloys, then Abbot of Glastonbury, undertook the task, fully intending, no doubt, that it should be successful. Between two pillars at a depth of nine feet a stone was found with a leaden cross inscribed on its under side in Latin, “Here lies buried the renowned King Arthur, in the isle of Avalon”; and seven feet lower down his body was found in an oaken coffin. The historian Selden gives us an instructive report of how King Henry was induced to set about the strange enterprise of discovering the remains of King Arthur. He tells us that the king in his expedition towards Ireland was “entertained by the way in Wales with bardish songs, wherein he heard it affirmed that in Glastonbury (made almost an isle by the river’s embracements) Arthur was buried betwixt two pillars. He therefore gave commandment to Henri of Blois, then Abbot, to make search for the corps, which was found in a wooden coffin (Girald saith oaken, Leland thinks alder), some sixteen foot deep; but after they had digged nine foot they found a stone on whose lower side was fixt a leaden cross (crosses fixt upon the tombs of old Christians were in all places ordinary) with his name inscribed, and the letter side of it turned to the stone. He (King Arthur) was then honoured with a sumptuous monument, and afterwards the sculls of him and his wife Guinevere were taken out (to remain as separate relics and spectacles) by Edward Longshanks and Eleanor.” But notwithstanding the useful and apposite inscription on the leaden cross, “Hic jacet sepultus inclytus rex Arthurus in insula Avalonia”; or as it is otherwise more epigrammatically given, “Hic jacet Arthurus, Rex quondam, Rexque futurus”—

“His Epitaph recordeth so certaineHere lieth King Arthur that shall raigne againe;”—

it is hardly necessary to add that there is almost every reason to believe that this extraordinary “find” could have been nothing but a pious fraud, in majorem monasterii gloriam. If the truth be not established, however, it has been incorporated into many chronicles as genuine history. Bale, in his Actes of English Votaries, bears testimony in these words: “In Avallon, annus 1191, there found they the fleshe bothe of Arthur and of hys wyfe Guenever turned all into duste, wythin theyr coffins of strong oke, the bones only remaynge. A monke of the same Abbeye, standing and beholding the fine broydinges of the womman’s heare as yellow as golde there still to remayne: as a man ravyshed, or more than halfe from hys wyttes, he leaped into the graffe, XV fete depe, to have caughte them sodenlye. But he fayled of hys purpose. For so soon as they were touched they fell all to powder.” The reference to the depth of the grave reminds us that Stow, in his Chronicle, declares that King Arthur was buried sixteen feet underground to prevent the Saxons offering any indignity to his corpse, “which Almighty God, for the sins of the Britons, afterwards permitted,” he disappointingly concludes.

Camden’s account of the discovery is in these words: “When Henry II, King of England, had learned from the songs of the British bards, that Arthur, the most noble hero of the Britons, whose courage had so often shattered the Saxons, was buried at Glessenbury between two pyramids, he order’d search to be made for the body; and they had scarce digg’d seven feet deep, but they light upon a cross’d stone (cippus) or a stone in the back part whereof was fastened a rude leaden cross, something broad. This being pulled out, appeared to have an inscription upon it, and under it, almost nine foot deep, deposited the bones of the famous Arthur. The letters have a sort of barbarous and Gothic appearance, and are a plain evidence of the barbarity of the age, which was involved in a fatal sort of mist, that no one was found to celebrate the name of King Arthur.” The most detailed account of all is given in Joseph Ritson’s scholarly work on King Arthur, and the famous antiquary’s outspoken comments on the records “and other legendary rhodomontades” of the monks of Glastonbury can be read with amusement as well as with profit. It is a sufficiently remarkable fact that none of the chroniclers agree in their details, and Matthew Paris distinctly declares that the letters inscribed upon the tomb could “in no wise be read on account of too much barbarism and deformity.” Antiquary Leland was sceptical as to the coffin, and William of Malmesbury (1143) said “The sepulchre of Arthur was never seen”; but, despite all contradictions and doubts, the discovery seems to have been generally accepted as genuine, while for many reasons it was gratifying to the people of that and subsequent ages. Caxton would have regarded it as “most execrable infidelity” to have had a doubt upon the subject. At Glastonbury we indubitably seem to get nearer the real Arthur than we are able to do in any of the other localities mentioned by Geoffrey and the later chroniclers. Whether he was the monarch described in the romances or a semi-barbarous chieftain leading the Britons to a final, though only temporary, victory against the Saxons, there remains the same likelihood of his connection with the first Abbey raised in the land.

On the authority of Gildas, we learn that when the Abbot brought about peace between Arthur and Melvas, both kings made oath never to violate the holy place, and both kings gave the Abbot much territory in token of their gratitude. If, however, it is hard to reconcile the death of King Arthur with Merlin’s prophecy, it is harder still to account for the discovery of his bones and his grave in face of the ancient triad which declared his grave to be unknown, and remembering which Tennyson related—

“His grave should be a mysteryFrom all men, like his birth;”

while the older poet tells how he “raygnes in faerie.” There was, however, a substantial reason for the finding of King Arthur’s tomb by Henry of Blois, for at that time the revenues brought by pilgrims to the shrine were not sufficient to provide funds for the building. The contest between Wells and Glastonbury had also begun, and the discovery of the bones of a saint was one of the surest methods of obtaining an advantage. According to Stow’s Chronicle, the body was found “not enclosed within a tomb of stone, but within a great tree made hollow like a trough, the which being digged upon and opened, therein were found the bones of Arthur, which were of a marvellous bigness.” This circumstantial evidence seems almost irresistible, and no doubt there was a conscientious belief in the discovery at the time it was reported to have been made. Stow has further details to give on the authority of Giraldus Cambriensis, “a learned man that then lived, who reporteth to have heard of the Abbot of Glastonbury that the shin-bone of Arthur being set up by the leg of a very tall man, came above his knee by three fingers. The skull of his head was of a wonderful bigness; in which head there appeared the points of ten wounds, or more, all which were grown in one seam, except only that whereof he died, which being greater than the other, appeared very plain.” Such, then, are the records of this wondrous discovery.

Modern Glastonbury has its museum in which may be seen some pottery from “King Arthur’s Palace at Wedmore,” and a thirteenth or fourteenth century representation on the side of a mirror case of Queen Guinevere deserting with Sir Lancelot, the only two relics, I believe, which in any way recall the connection of King Arthur with the place. There are evidences of the antiquity of the Abbey in abundance; though pilgrims’ staffs, leather bottles, palls, grace cups, roods, “counters” made by the monks to serve as coin, and even the reliquary containing a small piece of bone supposed to be of St. Paulinus, sent or left by St. Augustine himself for the purpose of establishing the modified form of the Benedictine rule, do not quite take us back to the sixth century. Though the actual date of King Arthur’s death is not known, and though his age is variously given from just over fifty to passing ninety, and though there is no consensus of opinion as to the length of his reign, we never hear of him at a later date than 604; and unfortunately all the Glastonbury relics take us back at most to the tenth century. Yet enthusiastic Drayton might well be carried away with the theme with which Glastonbury supplied him; and remembering the marvels of its past and the splendour of its aspect in his own day, he asked what place was comparable with the “three times famous isle?”

“To whom didst thou commit that monument to keep,When not great Arthur’s tomb, nor holy Joseph’s graveFrom sacrilege had power their holy bones to save?”

This is one of the insoluble mysteries. The remains of Arthur and Guinevere are stated to have had noble burial by King Henry’s command in “a fair tomb of marble,” and the cross of lead bearing the original inscription was placed in the church treasury. At the suppression of the monasteries it is assumed that all the tombs and monuments shared one fate. Edward I and his queen visited Glastonbury in 1278, and after seeing the shrine, fixed their signets upon the separate “chests” in which the dust was deposited. Within the sepulchre they placed a solemn written record of what they had seen, together with the names of the principal witnesses. King Edward is also said to have had Arthur’s crowns and jewels rendered to him. He and his queen were satisfied that they had gazed upon “the bones of the most noble Arthur”; and theirs were the last eyes to see the remains, false or true. The historian Speed, in indignant strain, tells of the doom that befell the Abbey in Henry VIII.’s days, when “this noble monument, among the fatal overthrows of infinite more, was altogether razed by those whose over-hasty actions and too forward zeal in these behalfs hath left us the want of many truths, and cause to wish that some of their employments had been better spent.” Whatever sign of King Arthur’s tomb, real or pretended, had existed, thus vanished for ever, and the prophesied mystery of his grave became fulfilled.

All that now remains in association with his name, and his final acts, and his uncomprehended fate, is the Abbey, surpassingly beautiful in ruin, founded in times faded almost from the recollections of a race; it is itself half mystery and half monument. The stateliest of its chambers still bears the name of St. Joseph’s Chapel, and itself with its delicate tracery, its exquisitely designed windows, its carved pillars, is like a fairy tale in stone. The little church built with wattles from the marsh became the church triumphant and the church supremely beautiful in after-time. When the second Henry visited it the already venerable Abbey was a pile of architectural wonders and magnificence, thanks to the labours of Abbot Harlewinus. It was he who designed and erected that veritable gem of architecture, gorgeously ornamented and finished in classic grace, which serves as memorial to the first Christian saint in England. “Imagination cannot realise,” says one chronicler, “how grand and beautiful must have been the view from St. Joseph’s Chapel through its long-drawn fretted aisles up to the high altar with its four corners, symbolising the Gospel to be spread through the four quarters of the world.” The matchless temple was over a hundred feet longer than Westminster Abbey; and its spaciousness was only equalled by its riches. Lofty mullioned windows rose nearly to the vaulting, richly dight and casting a dim religious light; and the profuse decorations of the walls took the form of running patterns of foliage, while vivid paintings of the sun and stars gave colour and animation to the cold stone. Little wonder that the gorgeous Abbey in all its loveliness and noble proportions was deemed a fitting resting-place for kings and saints. Claiming St. Joseph as its founder, it was almost in natural sequence that it should make claim to be the shrine of the last and greatest of the Christian kings, the Arthur whom Geoffrey of Monmouth had made renowned—“the most king and knight of the world, and most loved of the fellowship of noble knights, and by turn they were all upholden.” It was to Glastonbury that the “Bishop of Canterbury” fled, and took his goods, and “lived in poverty and in holy prayers” when the war with Mordred broke out. To this hermit came Sir Bedivere, and found him by a tomb new-graven. “Sir,” said Sir Bedivere, “what man is there interred that ye pray so fast for?” “Fair son,” said the hermit, “I wot not verily, but by deeming. But this night, at midnight, here came a number of ladies, and brought hither a dead corpse, and prayed me to bury him; and here they offered an hundred tapers, and gave me an hundred besants.” “Alas,” said Sir Bedivere, “that was my lord King Arthur, that here lieth buried in this chapel!” Then Sir Bedivere swooned, and when he awoke prayed that he might abide there henceforth and live with fasting and prayers. “Far from hence will I never go,” said he, “by my will, but all the days of my life to pray for my lord Arthur.”

Glastonbury to-day, amid all its ruin, spoliation and change, hints everywhere of the glory of its past. The charm of it lingers though the excellence of it has vanished. In its stillness and seclusion it retains an old-world air of beauty and of simplicity; time which has overthrown so much has tainted nought. Tower, wall, and roof mingle their grey and brown and red in the peaceful valley which the sparkling rivulets water and entwine as with silver threads. The sheltered gardens upon which the sunlight falls luxurious are bounteous as ever they were, and one might almost expect to see in the shadowy consecrated places cowled and hooded monks pacing noiselessly, their eyes intent upon black-letter missals, or uplifted to behold the magic and splendour of hill and dale. The winding road has felt the pressure of many pilgrims’ feet; at the vesper hour the weary fervent throng gathered about the Abbey doors; and through the spacious aisles, cool and shadowy, or stained with the rich colours carried by slanting beams through the painted windows, the holy brothers moved in slow and solemn procession, their voices subdued in chant, the air they breathed sweet with incense. Easily imagined is the hallowed aspect of the lofty fane when the last rays of the sun shot redly within, suffused the altar in a crimson haze, and glowed upon the burnished ornaments and the carvings of veined marble and whitest stone; when the darkness gathered hauntingly, and one by one the tapers were lit, while the people were hushed and expectant, and the monks bowed themselves in adoration. Holy relics would show dimly in their places, rod and crucifix stand out dark against the walls, the royal tombs be covered as with a pall, and a mysterious awe descend upon the worshippers in the temple. Outside the world would be hushed, even as it is hushed to-day when the pilgrim stands amid the broken walls of St. Joseph’s Chapel, or treads the thick green turf between crumbling vestibule and arch. Truly Glastonbury was an isle of rest.

King Arthur had fought against the pagan horde and “upheld the Christ.” Glastonbury withstood the heathen, and boasted to the last of never having fallen into sacrilegious hands. It was Christian always—the Church of martyrs like Indractus, of saints like Cuthbert, Patrick, David, and Dunstan, and of kings like Ina, Edmund, and Arthur. The massive walls nobly withstood the assault of time, and the ruins of to-day are the work of the iconoclast, due to desecration and not decay. The remnants are pathetic in their significance; the scene of mutilated beauty is mournful beyond expression. Yet the beauty remains, though it is not the beauty of spirituality and life, but of the ethereality of death. As we gaze we are with a bygone age and generation, and that age seems to imbue our thought and tinge our reflections. Everywhere may be seen mementoes; all sounds are like echoes, faint and far; all sights are dim with haze. Glastonbury is for retrospection. The air is full of traditions; its history deals with phantoms and its opening page is of myths.

Take your stand on Wearyall Hill, and brood awhile upon the surroundings. You thrill to think that here St. Joseph might have paused; that here, where lies a stone engraved with J. A., his withered pilgrim’s staff might have burst into bloom. A few young trees are bending to the wind; down below the old city stretches away in grey lines, and there are some tumble-down houses of antique appearance produced by the old rafters and rough stone of which they are constructed. Bright and cheerful are many lattice windows which twinkle out between the heavy time-scarred mullions wrought long and long ago. Yonder is Tor Hill, and the great green valley spreads southward, strewn with trees thickly, and ending only where the dipping horizon meets it. The two Glastonbury towers are standing out boldly, almost as if defiant; the red roofs of the city cluster below; and, set deeply and immutably among aged and dark green trees, are the rent but erect walls of the first Christian Abbey.

Or retrace your steps, and after passing the Abbey bounds, mount the steep Tor and stand by the Tower which alone escaped the shattering force of earthquake. From this summit the view of the landscape is far and good. Scarcely can you realise that once the salt waves lapped this steep eminence, but the sand and shells mixed and embedded in the soil have graven that event more legibly than the pen of man could have inscribed it. It is sunset—sunset over the Avalonian isle. The day has been calm and grey, and the end is to be calm, autumnal, subdued. There is one long quivering stretch of cardinal in the west, but elsewhere the sky is wonderfully sombre, yet exquisitely soft and pearly clear. The furthermost limit of the vale fast becomes invisible, fading imperceptibly, apparently merging into the sky as it becomes a pure deep blue. Here and there a purple peak of the range of hills running seaward rises sharply and pierces the thin gauzy clouds which the wind brings up. The white road gleams below, wholly deserted, yet fancy may conjure up spectres gliding at nightfall along the once hallowed way to the shrine. On this steep hill, alone, cloud-high, you feel that the silence is mystical, and wonder if the sleeping city with its ghosts and traditions is like the fabled cities of enchanters which rise at night without foundation and dissolve like mist in the earliest light of morning.

1

Aneurin was born about the year 500, and as “a monarch of bards” was of much repute in Manan Gododin, a part of Cymric Scotland. The Welsh Britons included all the Lowlands in their territory, and, as is well known, the names familiar in Arthurian romance can be traced to Scotland, the West of England, and France alike, as will afterwards be shown in these pages. Aneurin’s nationality, however, is particularly well worth recalling in view of the theory that Arthur was Scotch.

2

A Badon in Linlithgowshire is the reputed site.

3

Take, for instance, the song in which he expresses the wish to die while drinking in a tavern,—“Meum est propositum in taberna mori.”

4

William Caxton, “simple person,” as he styled himself, urged that he undertook the work at the request of “divers gentlemen of this realm of England.”

5

It is interesting and somewhat amusing to note the lament of Charles Waterton, author of Wanderings in South America, who thought England as a field for knightly adventure had degenerated. “England has long ceased to be the land of adventures,” said he. “Indeed, when good King Arthur reappears to claim his crown he will find things strangely altered here.... It is certain that when he reigned here all was harmony and joy. The browsing herds passed from vale to vale, the swains sang from the bluebell-teeming groves, and nymphs, with eglantine and roses in their neatly braided hair, went hand in hand to the flowery meads to weave garlands for their lambkins. If by chance some rude uncivil fellow dared to molest them, or attempted to throw thorns in their path, there was sure to be a knight-errant not far off ready to rush forward in their defence. But alas, in these degenerate days it is not so. Shall a harmless cottage-maid wander out of the highway to pluck a primrose or two in the neighbouring field, the haughty owner sternly bids her retire; and if a pitying swain hasten to escort her back, he is perhaps seized by the gaunt house-dog ere he reach her.”

6

By some Lyonnesse is identified with Léonnois in Brittany, but as Mr. Aldis Wright has pointed out, the continuous references in the romance to “riding” from Lyonnesse to other parts of Cornwall shows that Lyonnesse and Cornwall were on the same land.

7

A. J. C. Hare’s North-Western France.

8

“Il est donc constant que la chevalerie prit naissance en Bretagne,” says Emile Souvestre, “et y brilla de tout son éclat; que les premiers poémes chevaleresques furent écrits en langue celtique. Les monuments, les traditions, les noms, les indications des plus anciens auteurs s’accordent pour faire de la Bretagne la patrie de tout ce monde chevaleresque et féerique dont, plus tard, le Tasse et l’Arioste tirèrent tant de parti.”

9

Bamborough Castle, says Professor Burrows, was the centre of the Kingdom of Bryneck, or Bernicia. “In founding it the Angles encountered a determined opposition at the hands of a British chief named Arthur. Whether he is the same as the Arthur of South-Western Britain, or whether the exploits of one have been transferred by legend to the other, is still under dispute.”

10

According to Villemarqué the name of Lancelot is a translation of that of the Welsh hero Maël, who exhibits the fullest analogy with the Lancelot of the French romances.

11

“Arthur’s seat” may be but an adaptation of the Gaelic Ard-na-said, or “the height of the arrows.”