The Lost Land of King Arthur

by John Cuming Walters

THE ABBEY BARN, GLASTONBURY

[To face p. 248

This is one of the insoluble mysteries. The remains of Arthur and Guinevere are stated to have had noble burial by King Henry’s command in “a fair tomb of marble,” and the cross of lead bearing the original inscription was placed in the church treasury. At the suppression of the monasteries it is assumed that all the tombs and monuments shared one fate. Edward I and his queen visited Glastonbury in 1278, and after seeing the shrine, fixed their signets upon the separate “chests” in which the dust was deposited. Within the sepulchre they placed a solemn written record of what they had seen, together with the names of the principal witnesses. King Edward is also said to have had Arthur’s crowns and jewels rendered to him. He and his queen were satisfied that they had gazed upon “the bones of the most noble Arthur”; and theirs were the last eyes to see the remains, false or true. The historian Speed, in indignant strain, tells of the doom that befell the Abbey in Henry VIII.’s days, when “this noble monument, among the fatal overthrows of infinite more, was altogether razed by those whose over-hasty actions and too forward zeal in these behalfs hath left us the want of many truths, and cause to wish that some of their employments had been better spent.” Whatever sign of King Arthur’s tomb, real or pretended, had existed, thus vanished for ever, and the prophesied mystery of his grave became fulfilled.

All that now remains in association with his name, and his final acts, and his uncomprehended fate, is the Abbey, surpassingly beautiful in ruin, founded in times faded almost from the recollections of a race; it is itself half mystery and half monument. The stateliest of its chambers still bears the name of St. Joseph’s Chapel, and itself with its delicate tracery, its exquisitely designed windows, its carved pillars, is like a fairy tale in stone. The little church built with wattles from the marsh became the church triumphant and the church supremely beautiful in after-time. When the second Henry visited it the already venerable Abbey was a pile of architectural wonders and magnificence, thanks to the labours of Abbot Harlewinus. It was he who designed and erected that veritable gem of architecture, gorgeously ornamented and finished in classic grace, which serves as memorial to the first Christian saint in England. “Imagination cannot realise,” says one chronicler, “how grand and beautiful must have been the view from St. Joseph’s Chapel through its long-drawn fretted aisles up to the high altar with its four corners, symbolising the Gospel to be spread through the four quarters of the world.” The matchless temple was over a hundred feet longer than Westminster Abbey; and its spaciousness was only equalled by its riches. Lofty mullioned windows rose nearly to the vaulting, richly dight and casting a dim religious light; and the profuse decorations of the walls took the form of running patterns of foliage, while vivid paintings of the sun and stars gave colour and animation to the cold stone. Little wonder that the gorgeous Abbey in all its loveliness and noble proportions was deemed a fitting resting-place for kings and saints. Claiming St. Joseph as its founder, it was almost in natural sequence that it should make claim to be the shrine of the last and greatest of the Christian kings, the Arthur whom Geoffrey of Monmouth had made renowned—“the most king and knight of the world, and most loved of the fellowship of noble knights, and by turn they were all upholden.” It was to Glastonbury that the “Bishop of Canterbury” fled, and took his goods, and “lived in poverty and in holy prayers” when the war with Mordred broke out. To this hermit came Sir Bedivere, and found him by a tomb new-graven. “Sir,” said Sir Bedivere, “what man is there interred that ye pray so fast for?” “Fair son,” said the hermit, “I wot not verily, but by deeming. But this night, at midnight, here came a number of ladies, and brought hither a dead corpse, and prayed me to bury him; and here they offered an hundred tapers, and gave me an hundred besants.” “Alas,” said Sir Bedivere, “that was my lord King Arthur, that here lieth buried in this chapel!” Then Sir Bedivere swooned, and when he awoke prayed that he might abide there henceforth and live with fasting and prayers. “Far from hence will I never go,” said he, “by my will, but all the days of my life to pray for my lord Arthur.”

Glastonbury to-day, amid all its ruin, spoliation and change, hints everywhere of the glory of its past. The charm of it lingers though the excellence of it has vanished. In its stillness and seclusion it retains an old-world air of beauty and of simplicity; time which has overthrown so much has tainted nought. Tower, wall, and roof mingle their grey and brown and red in the peaceful valley which the sparkling rivulets water and entwine as with silver threads. The sheltered gardens upon which the sunlight falls luxurious are bounteous as ever they were, and one might almost expect to see in the shadowy consecrated places cowled and hooded monks pacing noiselessly, their eyes intent upon black-letter missals, or uplifted to behold the magic and splendour of hill and dale. The winding road has felt the pressure of many pilgrims’ feet; at the vesper hour the weary fervent throng gathered about the Abbey doors; and through the spacious aisles, cool and shadowy, or stained with the rich colours carried by slanting beams through the painted windows, the holy brothers moved in slow and solemn procession, their voices subdued in chant, the air they breathed sweet with incense. Easily imagined is the hallowed aspect of the lofty fane when the last rays of the sun shot redly within, suffused the altar in a crimson haze, and glowed upon the burnished ornaments and the carvings of veined marble and whitest stone; when the darkness gathered hauntingly, and one by one the tapers were lit, while the people were hushed and expectant, and the monks bowed themselves in adoration. Holy relics would show dimly in their places, rod and crucifix stand out dark against the walls, the royal tombs be covered as with a pall, and a mysterious awe descend upon the worshippers in the temple. Outside the world would be hushed, even as it is hushed to-day when the pilgrim stands amid the broken walls of St. Joseph’s Chapel, or treads the thick green turf between crumbling vestibule and arch. Truly Glastonbury was an isle of rest.

King Arthur had fought against the pagan horde and “upheld the Christ.” Glastonbury withstood the heathen, and boasted to the last of never having fallen into sacrilegious hands. It was Christian always—the Church of martyrs like Indractus, of saints like Cuthbert, Patrick, David, and Dunstan, and of kings like Ina, Edmund, and Arthur. The massive walls nobly withstood the assault of time, and the ruins of to-day are the work of the iconoclast, due to desecration and not decay. The remnants are pathetic in their significance; the scene of mutilated beauty is mournful beyond expression. Yet the beauty remains, though it is not the beauty of spirituality and life, but of the ethereality of death. As we gaze we are with a bygone age and generation, and that age seems to imbue our thought and tinge our reflections. Everywhere may be seen mementoes; all sounds are like echoes, faint and far; all sights are dim with haze. Glastonbury is for retrospection. The air is full of traditions; its history deals with phantoms and its opening page is of myths.

RUINS OF ST. JOSEPH’S CHAPEL, GLASTONBURY