According to Professor Freeman, Glastonbury became, in the year 601, the great sanctuary of the British in the place of Ambresbury, which had but lately fallen. How it grew, how it was ruled by great leaders in the church, how it became the largest, the most beautiful, the most wealthy of all abbeys, how its fall was compassed, and how the last of its abbots, an aged man, was dragged to the hill-top and hanged, are historic facts which belong to a date far later than that with which we are concerned. We cannot even dwell upon St. Patrick’s sojourn at Glastonbury, or upon Dunstan’s retirement to its cloisters in order to devote himself to study and music. Here it was that he wrestled with the Evil One in person while labouring at his forge; here it was that heavenly visions were vouchsafed to him; here it was that he began his work of reformation in the Church and made the Abbey the centre of religious influence in the kingdom. After the lapse of centuries we gaze only upon the ruins of the fabric, and from them learn how majestic the temple in its prime must have been, comprehending a little of the truth half revealed and half concealed in the silent storied places with their shattered walls, their crumbling archways, their unroofed chambers, their windows darkened with trailing weeds, and their floors overgrown with lank grasses and moss.
King Arthur’s connection with Glastonbury cannot be deemed wholly mythical, though the mysteriously beautiful narrative which tells of his last days in Avalon seems too poetical for reality. There are, however, other links, not so generally recognised, connecting him with this consecrated place. Glastonbury was not only his “isle of rest;” nor was the Abbey known only to him as a shrine. He claimed, or it was claimed for him, that he was descended on his mother’s side from Joseph of Arimathæa, the genealogy being thus given:—“Helianis, the nephew of Joseph, begat Joshua; Joshua begat Aminadab; Aminadab begat Castellos; Castellos begat Mavael; Mavael begat Lambord, who begat Igerna of whom Uther Pendragon begat the famous and noble Arthur.” Glastonbury, in addition to its celebrity as a Christian sanctuary, would therefore have a claim upon King Arthur’s attention for the sake of his venerated ancestor, though there seems little reason to doubt that in his day it was the cynosure of the eyes of all who claimed to be within the religious fold. Lady Charlotte Guest, in one of the valuable notes to her translation of the Mabinogion, calls attention to a record of William of Malmesbury, which proves how much Glastonbury was in King Arthur’s mind on all occasions. “It is written in the Acts of the illustrious King Arthur,” we read, “that at a certain festival of the Nativity, at Caerleon, that monarch having conferred military distinction upon a valiant youth of the name of Ider, the son of King Nuth, in order to prove him, conducted him to the hill of Brentenol, for the purpose of fighting three most atrocious giants. And Ider, going before the rest of the company, attacked the giants valorously, and slew them. And when Arthur came up he found him apparently dead, having fainted with the immense toil he had undergone, whereupon he reproached himself with having been the cause of his death, through his tardiness in coming to his aid; and arriving at Glastonbury, he appointed there four-and-twenty monks to say mass for his soul, and endowed them most amply with lands, and with gold and silver, chalices, and other ecclesiastical ornaments.” From this we might well infer that King Arthur was in the habit of paying periodical visits to the island-valley. “The great Lady Lyle of Avelyon,” girt with a sword which only Balin could draw from its scabbard, with results afterwards disastrous to himself, is a link in the associations of Arthur and his court with the island-valley.
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 certaine
Here 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.