“That which is to be must be,” answered the wizard. “I have no counsel to give you.”
Full of wrath, Vortigern drew his sword; but when he would have smitten Merlin with it, the latter had disappeared, and all the king’s efforts to find him were unavailing. He had indeed, by the exercise of his magic art, transported himself to the distant hermitage of his first friend, the holy Blaize, to whom he committed the task of writing his famous Book of Prophecies, foretelling the future history of Britain; a work of which, unhappily, only a few sentences remain, and these expressed in such obscure and figurative language that no man can decipher their meaning.
The ruin which Merlin had foretold speedily overtook the wicked Vortigern. He received news of the landing of Aurelius and Uther at the head of a large army. He mustered his forces, summoned Hengist to his assistance, and hastened to meet his enemies. But the Britons would not fight against the sons of their old king. Deserted by all but his Saxon allies, Vortigern sustained a ruinous defeat. He took refuge with Hengist in his stronghold on Salisbury Plain. The princes forthwith besieged it; but finding that they could make no impression on its mighty walls, they caused wildfire to be cast over the battlements, and in the conflagration that followed, the usurper and all his kin, with his heathen ally, were utterly consumed. The remnant of the Saxon invaders were permitted to leave the country, on giving pledges that they would never return; and Aurelius and Uther, who agreed to share the honours and cares of rule, were recognized by all the smaller potentates, the barons, and the commons, as the kings of Britain.
They were not, however, permitted to remain long in peaceable possession. Their reign had scarcely begun when Merlin, who, like a loyal Briton, had come forward to give the benefit of his wisdom and his counsel to the new kings, warned them that a numerous army of pagans from Denmark had landed at Bristol. He added the painful news that though the Britons would be successful in their encounter with the invaders, one of the royal brothers was destined to perish. All fell out as he had predicted: the heathen were so utterly overthrown that scarcely one of them escaped alive from the field; but Aurelius died nobly in the moment of victory, and Uther Pendragon remained the sole and unopposed monarch of Britain.
Under the guidance of Merlin, whose counsels he always prudently followed, Uther Pendragon reigned gloriously for many years. He completely re-established the supremacy which his father had gained over the other kings of Britain, and even carried his conquests into other lands, worsting Claudas, King of Gaul, and receiving the allegiance of the brothers Ban and Bors, two of the most famous knights in Europe, and lords respectively of Benwick and Gannes. He also became liege lord of Hoel, King of Harman, a country which is no longer to be found on the maps. The wife of Hoel was the beautiful Igraine; and being still in the prime of life at the death of her husband, she wedded the Duke of Tintagel, a powerful baron who held wide lands in Cornwall By her first lord she had been the mother of three daughters, of whom the eldest was wedded to King Nanters of Gerlot. The second became the wife of King Lot of Orkney, and bore to him four sons—Gawaine, Gaheris, Agravaine, and Gareth. The third was the famous Morgan le Fay. She received instruction in magic from Merlin, and became scarcely less skilled in the black art than the great wizard himself.
She also became the wife of a king—Urience, lord of the land of Gore.
At the instigation of Merlin, King Uther set up the Round Table, whereat he sought to assemble the best knights of the world. To this table none were admitted save such as were of royal or at least noble blood, were distinguished for great personal strength, skill in arms, and unfaltering valour. All who were so received were obliged to swear a solemn oath to give aid to one another, even to the peril of life; to be ever ready to undertake dangerous adventures; to be faithful to their liege lord; and to be willing on all occasions to defend the weaker sex from wrong. King Uther was able to bring together many noble knights as members of the company of his Round Table, for his own valour and the wisdom of Merlin had made him one of the most puissant monarchs of his time.
It chanced that while King Uther was once holding his court at Camelot, there came to do homage to him, among other barons, the Duke of Tintagel, who brought with him his lady, the fair Igraine; and her beauty made such an impression upon the king, who was still unmarried, that he was immediately seized with a great desire to have her for his queen. There was, however, a serious obstacle in the way, in the shape of the duke her husband, who, as soon as he had learned that the king was unduly attentive to his wife, retired with her from court, and refused to obey a command by the king that he should return. The haughty Uther treated this refusal as an act of rebellion, and forthwith proceeded to wage war against the duke, who placed his wife in his strong castle of Tintagel, retired himself to another fortress named Terabil, and prepared to offer a resolute resistance to the royal forces. King Uther laid siege to Terabil; but his love for Igraine had become a stronger passion than even his desire to assert his authority, and he implored the aid of Merlin, who undertook to win him the lady as his queen if it were agreed that their son should be placed at his disposal, to be brought up as he saw fit. The king accepted the conditions prescribed; and Merlin, by means of a device which the old chroniclers relate at length, fulfilled his part of the bargain. The unfortunate duke was killed while making a sally from his fortress, just at the time when Uther gained entrance into Tintagel and obtained possession of Igraine, with whom, after a brief interval, his nuptials were celebrated with great splendour. In due time, Igraine gave birth to a son, who, according to the compact made by the king, was given over to Merlin, who caused him to be baptized by the name of Arthur, and placed him in the keeping of a worthy knight named Sir Ector.
For many years after this, Uther Pendragon reigned prosperously as King of Britain, and ever kept the Saxons stoutly at bay. At last, however, he was attacked by a dangerous illness which kept him languishing on his couch, and then the heathen began to make head against him, and harassed his people sorely. Under Merlin’s direction, therefore, he was carried in a horse-litter at the head of his army, who were so encouraged by his presence that they inflicted an utter defeat on the enemy, and drove them out of the country. Then King Uther was brought back to London; but the rejoicings on account of his victory were scarcely over when his disease increased so much that his death was manifestly at hand. His subjects were filled with consternation: for the birth of Arthur had—for what reason it is impossible to say—been kept strictly secret, and it was supposed that King Uther would leave no heir behind him. When he had been speechless for three days and nights, however, Merlin summoned the great barons of the realm and the Archbishop of Canterbury into the chamber of the dying king, and in their presence asked him if it were his will that his son Arthur should be his successor. Thereupon Uther answered: “I give him God’s blessing and mine, and bid him pray for my soul, and also that righteously and worshipfully he claim the crown, on forfeiture of my blessing.” Immediately after speaking thus, Uther Pendragon died.
But none of the barons understood, or cared to understand, the meaning of his dying declaration. They knew nothing of any son of Uther’s named Arthur; and Queen Igraine, having been kept in ignorance of the fate of her son, knew not whether he were alive or dead. So great contention arose in the realm, and everywhere there were misery and bloodshed; for all the vassal kings asserted their independence, and every baron who could muster a few thousand followers was ready to put forward his claim to the crown. Many of the knights of the Round Table quitted the country to seek “worship” in other and happier lands. The Round Table itself, with the remnant of its noble company, was placed in charge of Leodegrance, King of Cameliard, to whose keeping it had been bequeathed by Uther Pendragon; and in the realm of Britain it was, for many years, no more heard of or remembered.