But the tradition remains. Mordred had set his heart on the kingdom, and Arthur foresaw the end. “Never,” says the chronicler, “was there seen a more dolefuller battle in no Christian land: for there was but rushing and riding, foining and striking, and many a grim word was there spoken either to other, and many a deadly stroke. But alway King Arthur rode throughout the battle of Sir Mordred many times, and did there right nobly as a noble King should do; and at all times he never fainted. And Sir Mordred that day ... put him in great peril, and thus they fought all the long day, and never stinted till the noble knights were laid to the cold ground. And ever they fought still till it was nigh night, and by that time was there a hundred thousand laid dead upon the down.... ‘Jesu mercy,’ said King Arthur, ‘where are all my noble knights become? Alas, that ever I should see this doleful day; for now,’ said King Arthur, ‘I am come unto mine end.’ Then was King Arthur aware where Sir Mordred leaned upon his sword among a great heap of dead men. ‘Now give me my spear,’ said King Arthur, ‘for yonder I have spied the traitor which hath wrought all this woe.... Betide me death, betide me life,’ said the King, ‘now I see him yonder alone, he shall never escape my hands.’ Then King Arthur gat his spear in both his hands, and ran towards Sir Mordred, crying, ‘Traitor, now is thy death-day come!’ And when Sir Mordred heard King Arthur he ran unto him with his sword drawn in his hand, and there King Arthur smote Sir Mordred under the shield, with a foin of his spear, throughout the body more than a fathom. And when Sir Mordred felt that he had his death-wound, he thrust himself with all the might that he had, up to the end of King Arthur’s spear with his sword, that he held in both his hands, on the side of the head, that the sword pierced the helmet and the brain. And therewith Sir Mordred fell down stark dead to the earth, and the noble King Arthur fell down in a swoon to the earth. And Sir Lucan and Sir Bedivere often-times heaved him up, and so weakly they laid him between them both, unto a little chapel, not far from the seaside.” Historians differ widely as to the date of this event, but most are agreed that the time was winter—some say Christmas Day.
Mordred, Arthur’s great opponent and eventual vanquisher, is the dark and sinister character, the man of mysterious origin and of blighting influence, moving gloomily through the drama. By some said to be Arthur’s own son, a child of sin and crime, and by others said to be the son of King Lot and Arthur’s sister, his life was miraculously preserved when the king ordered the slaying of all children born on May-day, in the hope of removing the infant who, as Merlin had prophesied to him, “shall destroy you and all the knights of your realm”; and thereafter he played a malignant part in the drama. If ill-news were to be borne to the king, Mordred bore it; were trust to be violated, Mordred violated it; were knights to be betrayed, Mordred was the spy and informer. Left to rule the land in Arthur’s absence, he usurped the throne; left to guard Guinevere, he carried her away and attempted to force her in marriage; an outcast, he became Arthur’s deadliest rival and fulfilled Merlin’s prediction. It was he, and not the racial antagonist, who was destined to give the final blow to the Order that the king had established. Tennyson, following the suggestion of the chroniclers, has sharply contrasted Mordred with Lancelot, whose enemy he was, not so much because Lancelot was sinful, as because his sin gave him the opportunity of striking a blow against Arthur’s favourite knight. He was Lancelot’s rival, too, his secret and cunning rival, for the love of Guinevere. All the pictures we have of Mordred are adverse; he is the “passing envious” man who hates all more successful than himself, the man who “laid his ear beside the doors,” who was “always sullen”; the tale-bearer, whose narrow face and thin lips pictured the petty, spiteful spirit within; the man whose shield was blank and unblazoned, but who
“Like a subtle beast
Lay couchant with his eyes upon the throne,
Ready to spring, waiting a chance: for this
He chill’d the popular praises of the King
With silent smiles of slow disparagement;
And tampered with the Lords of the White Horse,
Heathen, the brood by Hengist left; and sought
To make disruption in the Table Round