At a depth of nine feet, or two feet below the cross, was found a coffin, consisting of a hollowed oak, in which were the bones of a man and a woman. The man was represented as of great stature. I am indebted to the scholarship of Mr. T. Holmes for as exact a translation of the words of Giraldus as the Latin of that author allows. Speaking of the male occupant of the coffin, Giraldus says: ‘His tibia placed beside that of the tallest man in the place (whom the Abbot pointed out to me), and fixed into the earth by the side of his foot, extended fully three fingers’ breadth above the man’s knee. His skull bone also was capacious and large enough for a prodigy or a show—so much so that the interval between the eyelids and the space between the eyes might contain the size of a man’s palm fully. And in this were seen ten or more wounds, all of which, except one larger than the others and which had made a great gash, and which alone seemed to have caused death, had joined into a firm cicatrix.’
The body of the woman found in the same receptacle presented yellow hair nicely braided, a lock of which on being handled by a monk crumbled into dust. Here we have all we could expect—almost more. Strength and valour, together with as much of female charm as could survive six centuries. Hair will last and retain its colour for an indefinite time. With regard to the male skeleton, the large recent wound on the head corresponds with the manner of Arthur’s death and the wounds of earlier infliction with the manner of his life. In the length of the tibiæ there is nothing impossible. But with regard to the skull the dimensions possible to humanity are so much exceeded that it is difficult to suppose that we are reading the honest report of an eye-witness. The palm between the eyes savours more of imagination than observation. The space between the orbits in an ordinary skull on a level with the eyelids, where the distance is greatest, is at most 1½ inch. One of the largest human skeletons known is that of the Irish Giant at the College of Surgeons, which measures 7 feet 7 inches in height. The distance between the orbits in a level with the place of the eyelids is 2 inches. The palm between the eyes is impossible even to procerity. Thus doubts gather round the grave: if the king desired that this should be found attempts not wholly ingenuous might have been made to gratify him. Apart from the inscription and the skull, the completeness of the alleged discovery, the appropriately wounded skeleton and the fascinating queen, are suggestive of invention.
A postscript or corollary was added to this story in the time of Edward I. The skeletons, when first found, were removed, as we are told, from the cemetery to the church; not as yet to find final repose, for in the year 1278 ‘Eduardus Longus’ (Edward I. or Longshanks), together with Queen Eleanor, caused the tomb to be reopened and the bones to be again buried in front of the high altar, with the exception of the skulls, which were kept outside for the devotion of the people.[18] The chests in which the bones were found were painted with representations, and the arms, of the occupants. Within the new sepulchre was placed a writing referring to the finding of the bones by Edward and Eleanor, and attested by many witnesses whose names are still to be read in the pages of Leland.[19]
I think it may be credited that bones were unearthed, probably in the time of Henry II. and the Abbot Henry de Blois, which were adopted as those of King Arthur and provided with suitable conditions and surroundings. That bones were re-buried as those of Arthur and found by ‘long Edward’ I think admits of no doubt. But much may we doubt whether the bones were those of Arthur, not only from the inconsistency and improbabilities of the story of the disinterment, but from the lack of evidence that Arthur died within practicable reach of Glastonbury.
But perhaps the most convincing negative evidence is supplied by Gildas, to whom I have already referred. This historian, a fellow-countryman and contemporary of Arthur, was either ignorant of his existence or thought him not worth mentioning. Now Gildas, as we are told by William of Malmesbury, ‘took up his abode’ at Glastonbury ‘for a series of years.’ If Arthur died, as was supposed, in the year 542, and Gildas was born in 520, the historian must have been twenty-two years old when the king was buried under the description of ‘the famous King Arthur,’ inclytus Rex Arthurius. Gildas might have been present had this taken place as represented, or at any rate must have heard from his friends the monks of what could not fail to be of interest to the British historian. But neither Arthur’s death nor his life appealed to Gildas. Thus we must discredit both the Camel and Glastonbury as connected with Arthur’s death and burial.
IV
TOPOGRAPHICAL ASSOCIATIONS
I do not propose to follow in detail the romancers of the twelfth and succeeding centuries, excepting where they may be taken in concurrence with surviving structures and geographical peculiarities. I have said something in this sense both of the Cornish and the Scottish localisation of Camlan. Turning from the conclusion of Arthur’s career to the beginning of it, I must again have recourse to Geoffrey of Monmouth, a writer who sometimes finds the corroboration which he always needs.