The ‘Saxon Chronicle,’ which gives a detailed account of the battles in Kent, Sussex, and Hampshire, makes no mention of any in the west or north, or of Arthur. The ‘Saxon Chronicle’ is an apparently truthful, if somewhat bald, history. It mentions Vortigern as King of Britain and the opponent of Hengist, it names Natanleod, Commail, Condida and Farinmail as British kings who were defeated and slain; but neither Arthur nor Ambrosius find place in this record. It has been supposed that Natanleod, who was killed, together with five thousand men, by Cerdric at Netley in the year 508, was no other than Ambrosius, but I have not been able to find the evidence on which this theory rests; and there is another tradition with regard to the death of Ambrosius, namely, that he was poisoned in the same year by a Saxon monk. The silence of the Chronicle, if so it be regarded, as to Ambrosius throws no doubt upon his existence; and as to Arthur, though it may indicate that he had no position of national supremacy in the east and south, it goes for nothing as touching the west and north, of which this record takes no cognizance.
The fame of Arthur may have been, or rather must have been, founded upon his deeds, but the vast superstructure raised on that foundation is to be attributed to the close association between the branches of the Celtic race in Cornwall, Wales and Britanny. The fame of Arthur, once established among the Welsh Bards and the Romancers of Britanny, easily lent itself to exaggeration and attracted to itself much that was due to others or was purely imaginary.
I have called Geoffrey of Monmouth an imaginative writer: it may admit of question whether he should be termed imaginative or credulous. He was an indiscriminate collector of Arthurian legends, some of which may contain a modicum of truth, while others are wholly false. Of the latter variety Arthur, according to Geoffrey, conquers Ireland, Iceland and the Orkneys, subdues Norway, Dacia, Aquitaine and Gaul, bestows Normandy upon Bedver the butler, and establishes his court in Paris. He was crossing the Alps to attack Rome when he was recalled by the treachery of Mordred, to conclude his career on the Camel. Such inventions savour more of the twelfth century than the sixth, and mark Geoffrey as one whose statements are not to be accepted without concurrent testimony.
So overloaded is the story of Arthur with fiction or romance that it is difficult or impossible to discern the truth that must necessarily be at the bottom of it. The more remote are the Arthurian writings from the Arthurian epoch, the more voluminous, the more circumstantial, and the more obviously superadditional, they become. But there must necessarily be a root under all this efflorescence, the presence of which is clearly indicated, though it cannot be fully exposed to view.
III
ARTHUR’S LAST BATTLE—THE DOUBTS WHICH SURROUND HIS PLACE OF BURIAL
The last battle attributed to Arthur has obtained more prominence than the most famous battles of antiquity, has been connected with its supposed place by geographical particulars, has been enriched with romantic detail, made the subject of poetry, and so much glorified in English literature from Geoffrey to Tennyson, that it seems like sacrilege to hint that the only fight on the Camel of which we have sure information, took place long after Arthur’s death; and that if he and Mordred encountered, as there is reason to believe they did, the place of that event was not Cornwall but Scotland.