The Lost Land of King Arthur

by John Cuming Walters

And heraults with hewkes hooting on high,

Cryed ‘Largesse! Largesse! Chevaliers très-hardies!’”—Percy Reliques.

“God’s holy name was on his tongue,

Thine in his heart—Queen Guinevere.”—Paton.

Those who press the question, where is many-tower’d Camelot, where is the royal mount rising between the forest and the field, where is the flashing city of the marvellous gate, may be referred by the veracious historian to a village in France, or by the unromantic antiquary to a hamlet in Scotland. Time has razed the real city, wherever it was, and the poet can invest it with charms and environ it with wonders which it never possessed. The simple lover of the legend will be content to find King Arthur’s favourite haunt in the fair domain of England, amid the sleepy vales and the undisturbed hills of restful Somerset. On the Mendips, within sight of a long range of wooded verdant hills, many a tower and steeple dotting the vale which sweeps away until lost in the bluish haze of distance, here and there a bright homestead twinkling on the heights or nestling in the bowery hollows, there is a deserted place called Cadbury Camp. A stone wall winds round an ancient encampment and marks its bounds, and just across the open land looking towards Portishead lie the widening waters of the Bristol Channel. The hills around show every variety of green as they stretch further and further from the shore, and one would think that the region had been unvisited for a thousand years. And if tradition be true, this was Camelot, Camelot where King Arthur sought repose; Camelot where Sir Lancelot brought the daughter of King Leodegraunce of the land of Cameliard, “the gentilest and fairest lady”; Camelot where the king was wedded “unto dame Guenever in the church of St. Stevens with great solemnitie.” It was at Camelot, on the occasion of this ceremony, that Merlin bade the knights of the Round Table (the gift of Leodegraunce to King Arthur) to sit still while he showed them “a strange and marvellous adventure.” As they sat waiting and expectant, a white hart ran into the hall, followed by a white brachet (or scenting hound) and by thirty couple of black running hounds “with a great crie”; and the hart, wounded by the brachet, overthrew one of the knights, and led Sir Gawaine, accompanied by Sir Gaheris, upon a wonderful quest, in which he fought against great odds, slew a lady in a castle by misadventure, learnt that “a knight without mercy is without worshippe,” and returning to Camelot, saddened and disgraced, was bidden by the king and queen henceforth to “be with al ladyes and to fight for their quarrels.”

It is worthy of note that Gawaine not only plays a most important part in the romance, but that, like Sir Kay, his character is variously described and at times unnecessarily assailed by the chroniclers. By laborious efforts his intentions are perverted and contempt thrown upon his actions, and the episode of the “foule and shameful” slaying of the lady enabled the chroniclers to dwell upon his “vilanous” deed and his mercilessness, while at the same time they were able to explain his subsequent acts of courtesy as the result of the duty put upon him by the king. Gawaine was Arthur’s nephew, the son of Morgan le Fay, and Malory presents him to us alternately as the soul of chivalry and the type of faithlessness. This accounts for Tennyson’s query, “Art thou not he whom men call light-of-love?” and for the poet’s assertion that his courtesy had “a touch of traitor in it.” Gawaine is frequently made the subject of reproof in the romance, though he came out nobly in the end when he vowed to be revenged on sinful Lancelot, fought him valorously, and died like a great hero. According to the original Welsh story, it must be remembered, Gawaine was called the Golden-Tongued, owing to his powers of persuasion, none being able to resist him what he asked. In the Triads he is addressed by Arthur as “Gwalchmai, of faultless answers,” and revolting Tristram, who dared the king to nine hundred combats, listened to Gawaine and yielded to his solicitation. The tomb of Gawaine, according to William of Malmesbury, was discovered in the time of William the Conqueror in Wales, county Pembroke, where Lady Charlotte Guest tells us there is a district called Castell Gwalchmai. Gawaine’s courtesy was proverbial in Chaucer’s time, and the Welsh historians impute to him great scientific learning—“there was nothing of which he did not know the elements and the material essence.” Hence Scott’s reference to “the gentle Gawain’s courteous lore.”[25] All this is inconsistent with the levity and harshness attributed to him by Malory, though his wanton betrayal of Sir Pelleas and his guilty relations with Ettarde exposed him to the charge of infamy and caused him to lose grace in the sight of those chroniclers who had begun to give a spiritual significance to the tales of Arthur’s Court, and to find in the recital opportunities for preaching purity.

Pelleas’s hopeless love for the scornful maiden is one of the saddest stories which form part of the Arthurian records. In his despair at being rejected by the “sovereign lady” for whom he had fought and prevailed, he sought the help of Sir Gawaine—“And, Sir Knight, sith ye are so nigh a cousin unto King Arthur, and a king’s son, therefore I pray thee, betray me not, but help me, for I may never come by her but by the help of some good knight; for she is in a strong castle here fast by, within this four miles, and over all this country she is lady of.” Gawaine vowed to serve him, and declared that he would ride to the castle, taking with him Pelleas’s horse and armour, and tell her that he had slain her lover: “and so shall I come within to her, and then shall I do my true part, and ye shall not fail to have her love.” But instead of winning Ettarde for Pelleas, he won her for himself, declaring that he had slain Pelleas and had come for her love. They went out of the castle and dwelt with each other for two days in a pavilion. The rest of the pitiful story is best told in Malory’s own words. “And on the third day, in the morning early, Sir Pelleas armed him, for he had not slept sith that Sir Gawaine departed from him; for Sir Gawaine had promised him by the faith of his body to come unto him to his pavilion by the priory within the space of a day and a night. Then Sir Pelleas mounted on horsebacke, and came to the pavilion that stood without the castle.... Then hee went to the third pavilion and found Sir Gawaine with his lady Ettarde; and when he saw that, his heart almost brast with sorrow, and he said: ‘Alas, that ever a knight should bee found so false.’ And then he tooke his horse and might no longer abide for sorrow. And when hee had ridden nigh halfe a mile, he turned againe and thought to sley them both, and when he saw them lye so fast sleeping, unneth (scarcely) hee might hold him on horseback for sorrow, and said thus to himselfe, ‘Though this knight be never so false, I will not sley him sleeping, for I will never destroy the high order of knighthood.’ ... And when he came to the pavilions (a third time) he tied his horse to a tree, and pulled out his sword naked in his hand, and went straight to them where as they lay together, and yet he thought that it were great shame for him to sley them sleeping, and laid the naked sword overthwart both their throats, and then hee tooke his horse, and rod foorth his way, making great and wofull lamentation.” Such is the story of Sir Gawaine and Sir Pelleas, knights of Camelot.

At Camelot, at the vigil of Pentecost, the knights gathered, Sir Gawaine among them, and his falseness began to bring upon him retribution. All the seats at the Round Table were filled, save the Siege Perilous, though the time had now come, “four hundred winters, and four and fifty being accomplished, after the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ,” that the place should be no longer vacant. The king wished, according to custom, to see an adventure before sitting down to meat, and tidings were brought him of a marvellous stone floating in the river, and a sword sticking in it. Lancelot warned the knights not to touch the sword: “Who assayeth for to take that sword, and faileth of it, he shall receive a wound by that sword.” Nevertheless, Gawaine, obeying the command of the king, took the sword by the handle, but failed to move it; and Gawaine next day vowed to set forth upon the quest of the Grail, the vision of which had appeared unto the assembly when they returned from “Camelot’s minster.” His quest was unavailing. Through the streets of Camelot the knights sallied forth, “and there was weeping of the rich and poor, and the king returned away, and might not speak for weeping.” Of all who failed, Gawaine failed most signally. The monk of the abbey where he sought refuge condemned his wickedness, and the good men at the hermitage of whom he asked harbour for charity, reproached him with his mischievous life of many winters, and sternly bade him do penance. If Sir Gawaine redeemed his reputation as the champion of the injured king, it scarcely sufficed to atone for the evil he wrought when the days were fair at Camelot.

In the Prologue by Caxton we are told that record of King Arthur was to be found in “the toune of Camelot, the grete stones and mervayllous werkys of yron lying under the grounde, and ryal vautes, which dyvers now lyving hath seen.” These relics have vanished, and Camelot is nothing but a waste. But there is just a chance that Caxton had some other Camelot than South Cadbury in his mind, for he speaks of it as in Wales, while in the story of the burial of Balin and Balan by Merlin we read that “Balin’s sword was put in marble stone, standing upright as great as a milstone, and the stone hoved alwayes above the water, and did many yeares, and so by adventure it swam downe the streame to the citie of Camelot, that is in English, Winchester.”[26] This confusion is easily explained. Putting aside the fact that there is little coherence or consistency in the geography of the romance, we have already suggested a reason for the chronicler’s statement that Camelot was Winchester. In Monmouthshire is Caer-went, a resort of King Arthur, and Winchester was known as Caer-wynt, a sufficiently close resemblance to lead the old chroniclers astray. Obviously there must have been more than one Camelot, if we are to pay any heed to the situation, distance, and characteristics mentioned in Malory’s chapters. Caer-went has a history dating back to the fifth century, when a school or college was founded there by Ynyr Gwent, king of the district called Gwent, and the husband of Vortimer’s daughter, Madrun. At Caer-went was fought one of the last British battles with the Saxons just as they were reaching the gates of Caerleon itself. The town is situated on the Via Julia, or military road, made by Julius Frontius in the year 80, and traces of it remained at the beginning of last century. Leland speaks of its four great gates which “yet appear,” and an enthusiastic pilgrim in 1802 wrote that the place, despite its present uninviting and desolate aspect, deserved “every attention that can be bestowed by the antiquarian or lover of those scites memorable for having been the scenes of magnificence, genius, and heroism. Roman greatness has at this place shone with a splendour little inferior to any other part of the kingdom.” By some Caer-went is supposed to have been the capital of the Silures, before Caerleon, and to have had a population of ten thousand. Leland describes it as “a sumtyme fair and large cyte.” As a British camp it may figure under various names in the romances.

We associate Camelot with the more peaceful part of Arthur’s life, and with the brighter and more hopeful history of his followers, though sad and tragic episodes in that history are by no means lacking. Up the soft velvety sward came the knights in armour ready to tourney for the prize of ladies’ smiles, and where the bee buzzes and the pheasant runs was heard the clash of arms or the caracolling of many steeds. Here, too, and we tell now a more certain truth, came the Roman with his legions; here met contending forces, and the repose of the land was broken with the tumult of war. Time has swept away every vestige of the power and glory of old, and left the open field, the trench, and the broken gray wall, as the sole mementoes of Camelot, but about all has retained the glamour of one heroic name. The rabbit and the mole burrow to the foundations of Arthur’s royal town, and the centuries have laid moss and leaf upon the unfrequented paths and the vanishing signs of former occupation. Yet no one can spend an hour at Cadbury Camp without feeling that “the dust we tread once breathed.” The Severn sparkles in the distance, and was probably the “river of Camelot,” where Merlin set the “peron” or tombstone, and where Sir Tristram appointed his meeting with Palamides.