The Mammoth Book of King Arthur (44 page)

Remarkably, Geoffrey provides a date for Arthur’s passing:
“This in the year 542 after our Lord’s incarnation.” Geoffrey can only have calculated
that date from the
Welsh Annals
, in which the battle of Camlann is given as year
xciii
(93), and which we have refined to 539. However, we now believe that date to be at least
nineteen years out, and that it should be closer to 520. Earlier, we established that Arthur’s coronation took place around 515, according to Geoffrey’s timeline, and the Gallic/Roman
campaign took at least two years, which brings as surprisingly close to 520. For all its vagueness and unlikelihood, there is a bizarre internal logic to Geoffrey’s timeline that has taken us
from the departure of the Romans in 410 to the fall of Arthur in 520. This suggests that Geoffrey must have been following a set of annals, perhaps a more complete version of the
Annales
Cambriae
, which was subsequently lost.

Geoffrey tells us that Constantine continued in conflict with the sons of Mordred, who still headed a Saxon army. After a “long series of battles” the sons fled, one to London and
one to Winchester, taking over those cities. Constantine regained the cities and killed Mordred’s sons, both within churches. This was the sacrilege that Gildas recorded. Geoffrey cites this
as happening around the time of the death of the saintly Daniel, bishop of Bangor, but his death is recorded in the
Annals
as
cxl
, or 586. Either Geoffrey misread the
Annals
,
or he is referring to a possible later translation of Daniel’s bones, though no other source refers to this.

Geoffrey states that Constantine died four years later, “struck down by the vengeance of God”. The
Brut Tysilio
is far more specific and says that “in the third year of
his reign Constantine himself was killed by Cynan Wledig.” Geoffrey identifies this Cynan as Aurelius Conanus, another of the “whelps” whom Gildas decries. Geoffrey calls him
Constantine’s nephew, and states that Cynan killed another uncle who should have succeeded Constantine. The
Tysilio
, on the other hand, does not state that Constantine and Cynan are
related, but agrees that Cynan/Conanus did kill an uncle and his two sons, who had a prior claim to the throne. Gildas called Conanus a parricide, so it is possible that he wiped out his father,
his uncle(s) and his cousins. The
Tysilio
calls him “a young man, whose abilities were equal to the station, for he was
prompt and spirited in war.”
However, his reign was brief and according to Geoffrey he died in the third year of his reign, or the second year, according to the
Tysilio.

The next ruler was Vortiporius. He faced another onslaught of Saxons, whom he was able to defeat, and took control “of the entire kingdom.” Geoffrey gives no length for his reign,
but the
Tysilio
states four years.

Then came Malgo, or Maelgwyn Gwynedd. Geoffrey is generally full of praise for Maelgwyn, calling him “most handsome of all the leaders of Britain”, who “strove hard to do away
with those who ruled the people harshly.” He was brave, generous and courageous, and became ruler of not only all of Britain, but also Ireland, Iceland, Gotland, Orkney, Norway and Denmark.
However, he was “given to the vice of homosexuality.” Geoffrey does not record Maelgwyn’s fate, although the
Tysilio
does refer to him having died in a convent after seeing
“the yellow spectre”, or the plague. Unfortunately, neither source records the length of Maelgwyn’s reign. After Maelgwyn, Geoffrey follows a catalogue of kings who sink into
submission to the Saxons up to the death of Cadwaladr in the year 689, well beyond our period of interest.

We saw earlier that the end of Maelgwyn’s reign is usually equated to the plague recorded in the
Welsh Annals
as occurring in the year 549. The length of his reign is uncertain, but
it is commonly given as about fifteen years, starting in 534. Combining the data from Geoffrey and the
Tysilio
, the total span for the reigns of Constantine, Cynan and Vortiporius is about
ten years, possibly more as Geoffrey does not state how long the battles with the sons of Mordred lasted. But ten to twelve years would seem about right overall. Previously we had reached the year
519/520 in Geoffrey’s timeline, and the addition often to twelve years brings us to 529/532, certainly close enough to an uncertain 534 to link in with Maelgwyn’s accession.

It is possible to recreate Geoffrey’s internal chronology, adjusting his year of 542 by the nineteen-year discrepancy in the
Annals.
The result, like the ones extracted from
Nennius, Gildas and the
ASC
, is not necessarily any more accurate, but it is one worth reviewing.

This timeline relates only to Geoffrey’s narrative chronology and, of course, takes no account of individuals mentioned who existed at other times. The main difference
between this chronology and the previous summary in Table 6.2 is the appearance of Uther. Geoffrey has Ambrosius killed after a short reign, whereas the assumption from the writings of Gildas and
Nennius is that Ambrosius was the main British opponent to the Saxons during the 460s and 470s. Geoffrey also gives an earlier death for Hengist – indeed, his date for the death of Octa
coincides with the
ASC
’s suggested date of 488 for Hengist’s passing.

Whichever way we look at it, albeit from very shaky sources, Arthur’s reign fits into the period 490–520. That does not mean that all of the events attributed to Arthur also have to
fit into that period. Geoffrey’s whole story from Vortigern to Arthur is clearly culled from a host of fragments and incidental sources which Geoffrey, in his desire to create a powerful
narrative and a propaganda tool, together with his general misunderstanding of events, chose to piece
together in a sequence that suited his purpose. In so doing he created
the story of Arthur, and whilst we should not immediately dismiss everything that he says, because it does have a frustrating internal logic, neither should we accept anything. We must, however,
admire Geoffrey’s skill and imagination in creating a legend that has lasted a thousand years.

6. Conclusion

Geoffrey has clearly used six or seven different narrative sources, which he has interspersed with elements from Gildas, Nennius and the
Welsh Annals.

Any of the above may not necessarily be a single or even a lengthy document. More likely they are fragments, perhaps of poems, annals and folktales. It is evident from the flow
of Geoffrey’s narrative that he was joining together accounts which he interpreted as relating to Arthur, but not necessarily the same Arthur. He also developed parallels with the reign of
Henry I.

What seems evident from Geoffrey’s account is that, despite his almost seamless narrative, the Arthur who fights the battles in the north is not the same Arthur who
fights in Gaul, and neither is necessarily the Arthur who is the son of Uther and who meets his fate at Camlann. This suggests three, possibly four, prototypes for Arthur.

Since the crucial element is who Geoffrey believed fought at Badon, I suspect he found this in his Northern Chronicle, which he tried to blend with the elements in Nennius and
Gildas. If it were ever possible to prove that either Arthwys ap Mar or Elifer fought at Lichfield and Caer Faddon, then we would have found Geoffrey’s Arthur.

10

THE REAL KING ARTHUR – THE TWENTY CLAIMANTS

1. The Ground Rules

We have now covered all of the surviving historical and quasi-historical texts that relate to Arthur. Anything else we discuss in the later chapters is almost wholly drawn from
legend, and whilst historical truths may remain deep down, they add nothing new to our understanding of the Arthur of history.

This means that in the last nine chapters we have touched upon the real Arthur – or Arthurs, because I believe it has become very evident that we are not dealing with one individual. The
old tales retold by Nennius, those in the
Mabinogion,
and those by Geoffrey of Monmouth are a potpourri of historical characters, most of whom are known only by name. It was from these
stories that the Arthur we have come to know grew in the telling, becoming the Arthur of Thomas Malory, but so far removed from the original as to be scarcely recognisable.

Which, of course, raises the question: will we recognise Arthur when we find him? What are the ground rules by which we can identify him? What key fact allows us to point at a figure in the
line-up and say, “That’s him”?

I said at the very start of this book that we have to find the right person in the right place at the right time. All of this exploration through the dim and often very vague pages of lost
history has been about teasing out people’s identities, and establishing when and where they lived. We have covered close on a thousand names and whilst this is only a very small fraction of
all those living in
the fifth and sixth centuries, it is a high proportion of the movers and shakers.

There is really only one criterion. The original Arthur, the one from whom all else flowed, has to be the victor of the first battle of Badon. Although we have not conclusively identified the
site of Badon we have, thanks to Gildas, managed to fine-tune the date of Badon to between 493 and 497.

However, there is one strong caveat. Gildas, the one person who could have told us who was the victor at Badon, chose not to. As a consequence, we do not know who the victor was. However, what
makes legends grow are not the facts, but what we
believe
to be the facts. So whilst the victor of Badon is the real origin of the Arthur legend, he does not have to be the original Arthur.
Someone else may very rapidly have become associated with Badon so that the legend grew around him.