Towards midsummer the host was ready, and took the road to the north. The quarrel had been noised abroad throughout Britain, and many kings, dukes and barons came to the help of Arthur, so that his army was a great multitude. Yet many others had gone to Lancelot, where he lay in his castle of Joyous Gard, not far from Carlisle.
Thither, in the month of July, when the husbandmen were looking to their ripening fields and thinking of harvest, King Arthur and Sir Gawaine drew with their army and laid a siege against the castle of Joyous Gard, and against the walled town which it protected. But for all their engines of war, catapults which threw great stones, and ramming irons which battered the walls, they could not make a way into the place, and so lay about it until harvest time.
One day, as Queen Gwenevere stood at a window of the castle, she looked down at the tents of the besieging host, and her gaze lingered on the purple tent of King Arthur, with the banner of the red dragon on the pole above it. As she looked, she saw her husband issue from the tent and begin to walk up and down alone in a place apart. Very moody did he seem, as he strode to and fro with bent head. Sometimes he looked towards Joyous Gard, and then his face had a sad expression upon it which went to the queen's heart.
She went to Sir Lancelot, and said:
'Sir Lancelot, I would that this dreadful war were done, and that thou wert again friends and in peace with my dear lord. Something tells me that he sorrows to be at enmity with thee. Thou wert his most famous knight and brought most worship to the fellowship of the Round Table. Wilt thou not try to speak to my lord? Tell him how evil were the false reports of the conspiracy against him, and that we are innocent of any treason against him and this dear land.'
'Lady,' said Sir Lancelot, 'on my knighthood I will try to accord with my lord. If our enemies have not quite poisoned his thoughts of us, he may listen and believe.'
Thereupon Sir Lancelot caused his trumpeter to sound from the walls, and ask that King Arthur would hold a parley with him. This was done, and Sir Pentred, a knight of King Arthur's, took the message to the king.
In a little while King Arthur, with Sir Gawaine and a company of his counsellors and knights, came beneath the walls, and the trumpeters blew a truce, and the bowmen ceased from letting fly their arrows and the men-at-arms from throwing spears.
Then Sir Lancelot came down to a narrow window in the gate-tower, and cried out to the king:
'Most noble king, I think that neither of us may get honour from this war. Cannot we make an end of it?'