The World of Camelot Read online

  Copyright

  First published in Great Britain in 1995 by

  Michael O’Mara Books Limited

  9 Lion Yard

  Tremadoc Road

  London SW4 7NQ

  This electronic edition published in 2014

  ISBN: 978-1-78243-252-4 in ebook format

  ISBN: 978-1-85479-716-2 in hardback print format

  Copyright © 1995 Michael Foss

  Every reasonable effort has been made to acknowledge all copyright holders. Any errors or omissions that may have occurred are inadvertent, and anyone with any copyright queries is invited to write to the publishers, so that a full acknowledgement may be included in subsequent editions of this work.

  All rights reserved. You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Typeset by Florencetype Ltd, Stoodleigh, Devon

  www.mombooks.com

  Contents

  Title page

  Copyright

  Prologue The Prisoner

  1 The Coming of Arthur

  2 Balin le Savage

  3 The Fellowship of the Round Table

  4 The Knight of the Kitchen

  5 Sir Lancelot du Lake

  6 Sir Tristram and La Beale Isoud

  7 Sir Tristram and the Unchristened Knight

  8 The Quest of the Holy Grail

  9 The Way to the Spiritual City

  10 Lancelot and Guenevere

  11 The Greatest Mortal War Betwixt Arthur and Lancelot

  12 The Death of Arthur

  13 Knighthood’s End

  Index

  Plate Section

  Prologue: The Prisoner

  If he could find a dry place for the table, between the drips from the ceiling, he would get the work under way.

  The room was large, but low, dank and foul. The air was fetid with odours of rot. Outside, a curtain of November drizzle drifted by the small, barred window. What did he expect? This was Newgate prison, at the start of a London winter, and a cell was no lady’s chamber. But he had seen worse places, and a long career as a soldier had taught him to endure. From his youth he had taken the chances that life threw at him and had gone on resolutely.

  Now that he was brought to rest he had time to reconsider. He remembered his early days, raised as a man of property in the county of Warwickshire. Eager for all adventure in the entourage of his liege lord, the famous Earl of Warwick, he had fought at the siege of Calais in 1436. Who better to teach chivalry than the earl, descendant of the legendary hero Guy of Warwick, of whom even the Saracens had heard? In the long-drawn-out French wars the earl had fought many resplendent and glorious jousts, on foot and on horseback, with broadsword and lance. In Jerusalem he had charmed even the infidel Turks. At the Council of Constance, the Holy Roman Emperor himself had declared that this English knight, Richard of Warwick, was the flower of courtesy and honour. Under the patronage and example of Warwick, the prisoner had fared well. By 1445 he sat in Parliament: Sir Thomas Malory, knight of chivalry and representative at the seat of government for the county of Warwickshire.

  But his life began to go wrong. In the Wars of the Roses, which shattered his land for so many bitter years, he had taken the unlucky side. On behalf of the Lancastrians he had plundered and looted, been cruel and brave, wily and treacherous. He had done all those things a soldier must do in the agony of a civil war. Few chances for chivalry lay there. Slowly, the party he supported sank. Malory grew desperate with the times. He was deep in debt, ruining his inheritance with the expenses of war. He was accused of brigandage and cattle-stealing. Twice he was charged with rape. On successive days he tried to plunder the Abbey of Combe. Most shamefully, he attempted to murder the Duke of Buckingham.

  In retrospect, Malory thought with wonder, ‘How did I step so far from the path of honour? Truly, passion and party feeling, when they ride together, soon force chivalry from the field.’

  Indicted for these and other offences, Malory saw the inside of several prisons after 1450. Indicted but not convicted, he benefited from the privileges of his class. The law was easy on knights. His imprisonment was quite gentlemanly, without the brutality and dire execution that so often awaited common criminals. Loosely guarded, he twice escaped: once he swam the moat in the night and fled; another time, he organized a break-out of armed desperadoes. But this boldness and enterprise made him a danger to the Yorkists. When Edward IV gave a general pardon to the Lancastrians, Malory was excluded. He was sent to Newgate, in London, where the authorities could keep an eye on him. Time lay on his hands. As long as a king of the House of York reigned, he could expect no release.

  Sir Thomas Malory was that odd thing in the fifteenth century – a bookish knight. The poems of the troubadours, singing of courtly love, had beguiled his early years; later, he read the tales and romances of chivalry. He himself had stories to tell. In his riotous and unreflective way he too had been a knight errant, doing mighty deeds in France and England until poverty and weariness and the cruel polity of civil war had overwhelmed his ideals. He did not regret his life. No, he had tried in the main to live in the great tradition that noble men and gentle ladies ought to follow. But what did they know about it now? The world of heroism and knightly courtesy was dying. Warfare had become filth and butchery. The world forgot. But he had the inclination, and chance had given him the time, to set out once more the old tales of love and gallantry before they were finally blotted out by the raw torrent of blood.

  Locked up in Newgate, he set to his task. Whittington, lord mayor of London, had founded a famous library in the house of the Grey Friars, no more than a hundred paces from Newgate. As a knight and a political prisoner, Malory was permitted the indulgence of books. A soldier caged and preoccupied with old volumes was no further danger to the state. Lucas the jailer would fetch them. That simpleton could just be relied on to make the short walk between Newgate and Grey Friars.

  Impatiently, Malory waited for his messenger’s return. With many grumbles Lucas dumped heavy volumes on the cell table. Malory blew off the dust. He turned many stained and scuffed pages, smelling the old leather of the bindings. Words, so many words. Dust got in his nose and made him sneeze; faint ink and the vagaries of the handwritten script tested his eyes in the poor prison light. Often his heart sank. What, he wondered, had these artifices of chivalry got to do with present reality – with the locked door and the creeping damp, with the insolence of the Yorkist victory and the pain of Lancastrian defeat? Then he began to read once more, and his resolve returned. ‘All that is written here,’ he told himself, ‘is for our doctrine, so that we fall not into vice or sin, but exercise and follow virtue.’

  With renewed energy he plunged into the books. On the cell table lay the old Latin stories of Arthur of Britain, more fiction than history. And there, at another time, were piled long French romances in verse and prose. With slow deliberation, Malory read and noted. He read the English Sir Percyvell, the French Perlesvaus, the German Parzival. He knew tales from many lands of Merlin, Gawain, Tristan and Galahad. He studied the Mort Artu and the alliterative Morte Arthur. Malory read them all in joy and wonder. His head rang with the blows of chivalry. Knights with blazoned shields jousted in fields of wild flowers. He saw in his imagination noble ladies, a
s pale as their white mules, ride to the lists dressed in marten and ermine and watered silk. Gloves and ribbons fell at the feet of the combatants. Stern cries rang out: ‘Be worthy of your ancestors’ and ‘Remember whose son you are’.

  All at once the stench of Newgate had vanished. Drizzling London beyond the cell window was no more. Released from the cell, his spirit entered another world of light and love, of grace and valour.

  After some years of steady application, he had read enough. Now he must make this world known before it was too late. He must start writing. He would begin at the beginning.

  The Coming of Arthur

  In the days when Uther Pendragon was king of all England, the Duke of Cornwall, a bold and mighty man, made war against him for a long time. Worn down by the expense and misery of battle, King Uther at last sent for this duke, charging him also to bring his wife. She was known to be a beautiful lady, with wisdom that matched her looks, and her name was Igraine.

  Now, when the king saw Igraine he liked her very well and desired to lie with her. But she was a good woman and would not consent. Uther pressed her. What is a king but a lord of all his people? Look at my person, he said, my riches, my castles, my power. But Igraine cast her eyes down to the floor and went into another room.

  ‘Why were we sent for?’ she asked the duke. ‘Was it so that I should be dishonoured? Husband, fly away. Come, let us ride through the night to our own lands.’

  When the king learnt that they had fled, he was angry and summoned them again, with the threat of fire and destruction if the duke did not submit. But neither the duke nor his wife would come back. Then King Uther sent the duke plain words, telling him to make ready for a siege, for the king intended to prise him out of even his strongest castle within forty days. The duke took this warning to heart, for he knew the spirit and the temper of the king. So he prepared two strong castles, one called Tintagel and the other Terrabil. Igraine, his wife, took charge of Tintagel and he commanded Terrabil. He secured all the gates and entrances and passageways, where a man might be surprised and die in a small space. With a heavy heart he paced the battlements, awaiting the enemy.

  King Uther was as good as his word. In a short time his army marched out of the woods and meadows and surrounded the castle with countless pavilions of many colours. Looking down from the heights of the castle, the duke felt that he was cast adrift in a bright but angry sea. Then battle began, and many were slain.

  When the fighting was going on, with no advantage to either side, King Uther fell sick. This was a great worry for his knights.

  ‘How shall we overcome this castle without our king?’ said Sir Ulfius. ‘Sir, what is the cause of your pain?’

  ‘Truly,’ replied the king, ‘I can tell you this: I am sick for anger and for love of Igraine. Without her, I shall never be a whole man.’

  ‘Well, my lord,’ said Ulfius, ‘you may be at ease. There is a man hereabouts called Merlin, who is a great wizard. I will seek him out, for he has the means to cure you and make you whole.’

  Then Sir Ulfius rode away, asking in villages and lanes and byways where Merlin might be found. But none knew, for Merlin was a most mysterious man. As he roamed the countryside, Ulfius came across a beggar most miserably dressed, whom the knight would have struck from the path. But the beggar held up his hand and the knight stopped as if he could not help himself.

  ‘Look no further,’ said the beggar. ‘I am Merlin. I know already what you seek. If King Uther will reward me with what I ask, I will give him everything he desires. Go on your way to the king, and I will not be long behind.’

  When Sir Ulfius returned to the camp alone, the king searched anxiously for the wizard. Suddenly, a voice sounded from behind him. ‘I know everything in your heart,’ it said. ‘I am Merlin. Swear to me as a true king that you will do as I ask, and you shall have your desire.’

  At once, a cross was fetched and the king swore his vow on the four Evangelists, and Merlin was satisfied. ‘You shall do this,’ he told the king. ‘You shall lie with Igraine and get her with child in the first night. When that child is born it shall be mine to keep and to raise as I think best. But do not be afraid. This child will be worthy of your name.’

  ‘Anything,’ cried Uther. ‘You shall have whatever you ask. But be quick. My heart is wracked for love.’

  ‘This night,’ Merlin promised, ‘disguised as her husband, you shall lie with Igraine in the castle of Tintagel. This I shall accomplish by my art. Say nothing when you enter her chamber but go quickly to bed and wrap her in your arms, answering no questions, and please her with full manly vigour. Rise early in the morning, when I shall come to fetch you, and step lightly and without noise from her bed.’

  In the evening King Uther covered himself in a cloak and left the camp. But the Duke of Cornwall had spies out who noticed that the king had slipped away from the siege. In the dark, the duke opened the gates and made a sudden attack on the king’s army. But the struggle went badly for the duke, and he was killed in the black night even before King Uther had reached Tintagel.

  Three hours after the death of the duke, Uther lay with Igraine in much happiness, and that same night she conceived the child Arthur. Before the break of day Merlin came to the bedside and whispered to the king to make haste, for the sun was already peeping at the rim of the Eastern world. King Uther arose and gave the lady Igraine a single kiss, as soft as dew. She stirred and murmured, ‘Ah, husband’. Then she went back to sleep.

  In the first light of the day came the messenger from Terrabil with the news of the death of the duke, so far from her bed, and Igraine could only marvel: who had slept with her in the likeness of her lord? She did not know what to do, except to mourn and hold her peace.

  Then all the barons of Uther Pendragon, celebrating the death of the duke and knowing the inclination of the king’s heart, prayed him to look kindly on Igraine. ‘Our king,’ said bold Sir Ulfius, ‘is a lusty knight and wifeless, and my lady Igraine is a person of great beauty. If it might please the king to make her his queen, it would give us all great joy.’

  With goodwill Uther agreed, and so in haste they were married on a summer morning. Then Queen Igraine swelled with child so that within half a year the king questioned her. ‘By the faith you owe me,’ he said as he lay fondly by her side, ‘whose child is that within your body?’

  At this question she was sadly cast down and did not know what to say.

  ‘Do not be dismayed,’ said the king, his hand resting tenderly on her swelling womb, ‘but tell me the truth, and by the faith of my body I shall love you the better.’

  Taking courage, the queen told him the strange thing that had happened. ‘That is the truth,’ said the king, ‘for I myself came to you in the likeness of the duke. You need not worry. I am the father of your child.’

  When the queen heard that all this was done by the art of Merlin, she was satisfied. But the shadow of Merlin crossed the threshold once more, and he said to the king, ‘Make ready, Sir. When the child is born, remember that it is mine.’

  ‘So be it,’ the king replied, with some heaviness. ‘Tell me what must be done.’

  ‘There is a lord in your land who is a true and faithful man. His name is Sir Ector. Send for him and order him, as he loves you, that he and his wife must take care of the child and raise it as their own. When the child is born, deliver it to me unchristened at the private gate.’

  Sir Ector was sent for and promised faithfully to do as the king wished, and for this he was given great rewards. Then the queen’s time came and she gave birth to a baby boy. She washed the baby and held it close for a moment, and wrapped it gently in cloth of gold. She handed it to two knights and two ladies who took the child and delivered it to the man in beggar’s rags at the inner gate, who then galloped away, with the bundle tied to his pommel, to the home of Sir Ector. When Ector had received the baby from Merlin, a holy man christened the boy and named him Arthur. Afterwards, the wife of Sir Ector nourished the child
at her own breast.

  Now, within two years King Uther fell sick and his enemies pressed hard upon him. The king, too ill to fight, was none the less carried in a horse-litter into the midst of battle. In this way, he encouraged his men to a great victory. But the effort left Uther so spent that for three days and three nights he lay speechless.

  Merlin was called to the king’s chamber, but after he had seen Uther he withdrew. ‘There is no remedy,’ he said sadly. ‘God will have his way. But, barons, attend King Uther in the morning, and God and I shall make him speak one more time.’

  On the morn, when all were solemnly gathered, Merlin cried aloud to the king: ‘Sir, say truly, shall your son Arthur be king after your days?’

  The king groaned and spoke, so weakly that hardly a mouse might hear. ‘I give Arthur,’ he barely whispered, ‘God’s blessing and mine. I bid him pray for my soul, that he may rightly and with honour claim the crown.’ Then he yielded up the ghost and was buried as befitted a king, to the infinite sorrow of the queen, fair Igraine, and all the barons.

  The king was dead. Who knew the new king, this prince, this Arthur? The barons had sworn no oaths; they had no allegiance to a prince they had never seen. The realm stood in great danger for a long while: every mighty lord strove to be king, thinking that he might hack his way through bodies and blood to the throne. Good people wept, and plague and dearth took over the land. Then the archbishop, on the advice of Merlin, sent for all the lords and gentlemen-at-arms to come to London at Christmas. The archbishop promised them a miracle to bring them order and reveal the true king of the realm.

  The summons from the man of religion made the barons pause. What will men do if there is no authority? The horse runs wild without the reins. In truth, many knights were glad to stop the killing and these lords made their lives clean, to be more acceptable to God, before coming to the greatest church in London. After matins and the first Mass were finished, a great four-square marble stone rose up against the high altar. In its midst was an anvil of steel a foot tall, and stuck by the point into this was a naked sword. Gold letters were written about the sword, and this is what they said: