The Mammoth Book of King Arthur (47 page)

Gardner also tells us that Artúir of Dyfed’s sister Niniane had married Ambrosius as part of a treaty to stop Dyfed’s incursions into Powys. We know Niniane, also known as
Nimue or Vivien, from the later legends as the lover of Merlin, as she has also been equated with the Lady of the Lake. Gardner makes her the mother of Merlin. If these elements are true they would
again apply to an earlier ruler, such as Vortipor, as might Arthur’s involvement at Camlann, which I have already discussed under Vortipor.

Nevertheless, with Artúir of Dyfed we start to see how some of the exploits of a real Arthur come together with the Arthur of legend and also show how both could be linked to a possible
earlier “Arthur” in the form of Vortipor/Gartbuir.

17. Artúir mac Aedan (560–596)

This historically-attested character was recorded by Adomnán in his
Life of Columba
, written less than a century after the real events. Columba had, apparently,
correctly foretold that Artúir would not succeed Aedan as king of the Dál Riatan Scots. Artúir met his fate in battle against the Picts, probably in 596. Laurence Gardner,
though, who believes Artúir was the original Arthur, gives the date as 603. He believes that Artúir fought at both Camelon, near Falkirk, and Camboglanna on Hadrian’s Wall. The
battle at Camboglanna was savage, resulting in a rout that spilled over into a second battle at Degsaston [Dawston]. It was there that Artúir died, along with hundreds of his fellows. This
was the decisive battle for the English that saw Athelfrith’s domination of the north and the capitulation of the British and Scots. Aedan was a broken man after that.

Gardner makes Aedan the Pendragon of Britain and thus claims that Artiiir is the only “Arthur” to have been born to a Pendragon. This is true if we exclude
Arthen ap Brychan, previously cited. Although the exploits of Artúir are not fully recorded, many of his father’s are, as he was, according to the authors of the
Biographical
Dictionary of Dark Age Britain
, “one of the greatest warlords in the British Isles during the early Middle Ages”. Although of Irish stock on his father’s side, through his
mother and grandmother he was of British stock and could claim descent from Dyfnwal Hen, so he was arguably more British than Irish. Aedan’s wife was also British, which makes Artúir
at least three-quarters British.

Aedan undertook several exploits in which Artúir would have been involved. He fought against his overlord Baetan mac Cairill in Ulster in 574, when Gardner maintains Artúir would
have fought at Dun Baetan. Aedan then led a campaign against the Orkneys in 580, and conquered the Isle of Man in 582, a sequence of battles that closely follows Arthur’s own, according to
Geoffrey of Monmouth. It was not until the 590s, with his battles against first the Picts and then the Angles, that Aedan’s golden touch began to fail, and it was at this time that
Artúir died. Of course Geoffrey conveniently ignores this and moves on to another chronicle to explore Arthur’s later adventures. But it seems likely that Geoffrey was influenced by
Artúir mac Aedan’s exploits as part of Arthur’s early conquests. Some of these may translate into the battles in Nennius’s list, especially those in Glen Douglas in
Lennox.

Artúir ultimately failed in his battles against the Picts and there was no heroic accession to the throne. Artúir, therefore, also fits the criterion of a battle lord who fought
alongside kings. Yet his victories were not his own, but his father’s, and they did not herald a period of peace between the British and Saxons as achieved at Badon. Artúir is clearly
one of the figures behind Arthur, but he’s not the major one.

18. Arthlwys ap Arthfoddw (570–640)

Listed only for completeness. His father is included above, and the fact that Arthlwys inherited the Arth- prefix emphasises the growing significance of the name.

19. Artúir ap Bicor (590–660)

As discussed in Chapter 8, this Artúir immortalized himself through a lucky slingshot throw in killing the Irish champion Mongan, and with the Arthur name now gathering
interest this exploit was yet another to add to the list of achievements. If the episode had reappeared in the legends it would have meant something, but as it didn’t, we can only conjecture
that Artúir’s moment of fame, sufficient for him to be remembered in the Irish Annals, served to feed the rumour mill even more on the growing legend of Arthur.

20. Athrwys ap Meurig (610–680)

Of all the “Arthurs”, this one is both the most promising and the most frustrating. Athrwys was a ruler of Gwent sometime in the seventh century, or possibly
earlier. Blackett and Wilson, in
Artorius Rex Discovered
, date him 503–579, a century earlier than the date given in Table 3.7, whilst Barber and Pykitt, in
Journey to Avalon
,
date him even earlier, 482–562. Since everyone has used the same pedigree, the difference is due to methods of dating. We know that his great-grandson Ffernfael died in 775, a date unlikely
to be wrong, as the
Annals
in which that is recorded were brought into their final form only fifty years afterwards. Even if Ffernfael lived till he was 90, and was thus born in 685, and
each respective father was 50 when their son was born, we could only push Athrwys’s birth back to 535. There may be a missing generation but, in all probability, Athrwys was a seventh-century
ruler, perhaps born as early as 600 or 590 at a push, but no earlier.

Although I have used the name Athrwys here, he only appears in one pedigree under that name. Elsewhere he is listed as Atroys, Adroes, Athrawes and Adros, scarcely names to cause confusion with
Arthur.

Bartrum notes that whilst he appears frequently in the
Book of Llandaff
as a witness to charters and grants, he is never identified as a king. Possibly his father Meurig lived to a great
age, as seems the case with several of the rulers of Gwent, and thus outlived Athrwys. This would support Nennius’s remark that Arthur fought alongside kings but was not apparently king
himself. Perhaps Athrwys served as regent in his father’s old age, and
was thus king in all but name, and he may have served as a sub-king of Ergyng.

There is a deed in the
Book of Llandaff
apparently witnessed by
Athruis rex Guenti regionis pro anima patris sui Mourici
, and though the grant may be accurate the other witnesses
all date from the time of Dubricius, a hundred years earlier. The
Book of Llandaff
was not compiled until 1108, when the abbey needed to establish its rights over lands being appropriated by
the Normans, and though it was drawn together from surviving documents doubtless much creativity was exercised in trying to reconstruct the more ancient and lost ones. It suggests that Athrwys was
believed to be a contemporary of Dubricius and no one really knew which century that was.

Does all this necessarily matter? It certainly does, because Arthur of Gwent lived in the century or two before the tales of the
Mabinogion
and the
Welsh Annals
and other old
documents were being created. He was the Arthur freshest in people’s collective memories. He was far enough back for all history to be blended together (200 years might as easily be 400 in
folk memory) but recent enough that the oral tradition remembered him fairly freshly. Thus all memories of Arthur could be pinned on to him.

However, Athrwys ap Meurig had to have been a memorable king in his own right in order for the blurring of memories to work. It would be no good if he were remembered as a coward or an imbecile.
The memory of Athrwys ap Meurig could most easily be confused with Arthur of Badon if they had done something similar – something remarkably similar.

The clue to this may lie in the fact that at the time that the Arthurian legends were coming together, in the late eighth century, there was another Athrwys ruling Gwent, the
great-great-grandson of Athrwys ap Meurig. This later Athrwys was the son of Ffernfael and ruled from about 775 to 800. This was when Offa ruled Mercia. At that time no other ruler in Britain
mattered. Offa was the great king, the first to style himself “King of the English”, with designs on becoming Emperor. He had come to power in 757 and defeated the Welsh at Hereford in
760. It is believed that part of the treaty was that Ergyng was taken over by Mercia, perhaps still administered by Ffernfael ap Ithel, but subservient to Offa. After Ffernfael’s death in
775, it seems
that Ergyng passed completely to the English. From 777 onwards Offa instigated a further series of raids into Wales, this time in retaliation for an offensive
from Powys under Elisedd. Having asserted his authority Offa instigated the construction of the great earthwork known as Offa’s Dyke and the building of this must have run throughout the
reign of Athrwys ap Ffernfael. Although the Dyke did not run continuously into the south, as the Wye effectively formed the border, it was particularly strong around the border with Gwent. The
ditch of the Dyke was on the western side, meaning it was there to stop the Welsh getting out. Wales was being hemmed in.

We know next to nothing about Athrwys ap Ffernfael, yet I am sure he is the key to the Arthurian legend. Here was a king who had lost part of his kingdom and was now being further humiliated by
the greatest king Britain had known and was powerless to respond. What better way to save face than to revel in the glories of the past and to remember the great deeds of his ancestors?

What great deeds?

Well, there was one of great significance and that was the battle of Tintern Ford or, to give it its proper name, Pont y Saeson. Tintern had once been a royal fortress, and in the days of
Tewdrig ap Llywarch it was one of the glories of the kings of Gwent. The story, as told in the
Book of Llandaff
, says that Tewdrig had ruled for many years and was old and tired. He wished
to retire into the church and pass the governance to his son Meurig. Not long after, however, the Saxons invaded Ergyng and Meurig was under pressure. Tewdrig, who had a vision in which an angel
told him he would be victorious but would himself be killed, came out of retirement, buckled on his sword and led his army to one last victory. It was the greatest victory of them all. As
Archenfield Archaeology report, “This stopped their advance and South Wales was never again to be seriously threatened by the English people.” This battle has strong resonances of
Badon, perhaps even of Camlann, because, as prophesied, Tewdrig was injured by a lance and died three days later. He was buried at Matharn near Chepstow, close to Caradog Vreichfras’s palace
at Caldicot, and Caradog was probably present at that battle.

The battle of Tintern was as important to the kings of Gwent and Ergyng as Badon had been a hundred years earlier. Could
Athrwys of Gwent have been at the Battle of
Tintern? If so, maybe some of the glory of that battle passed to him and over time, Tintern and Badon merged in the collective memory.

There has always been a problem dating this battle. Amazingly, it does not feature in the
Welsh Annals
, which may be a point in favour of arguing that by the time those
Annals
were
compiled, memories of Tintern and Badon had started to blur. John Morris in
The Age of Arthur
suggested the battle may have happened in 584. After their victory at Dyrham in 577, when the
Saxons defeated the rulers of Gloucester, Cirencester and Bath, the Saxons invaded the Severn Valley. The
ASC
reported a setback in 584 when Cutha was killed at Fethan Lea. The identity of
that battle site has not been resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. Both Stoke Lyne in Oxfordshire and Stratford-on-Avon have been suggested and Tintern can’t be ruled out. However,
other dates have been suggested. Sarah Zaluckyj in
Mercia
cites 597, whilst Hereford’s own archaeological studies suggest around 620 or as late as 630.

It is unlikely to have happened much after the succession of Penda of Mercia, whose rise to power began in 626. The evidence suggests that Penda had an alliance with various Welsh princes, which
he called upon as he fought his way to Mercian control. The battle would probably have been after Chester, which had been an overwhelming victory for the Northumbrians against the British. That
defeat had been one of the factors that caused the Welsh to ally with Mercia. Chester also frustrates dating, but the prevailing view is that it happened in 615. The West Saxons were heavily on the
offensive in the late 620s. Penda managed to defeat them with British help at Cirencester in 628. In all likelihood a West Saxon defeat by the Welsh at Tintern happened just before then, perhaps
with Penda’s help, in around 626. It could have been slightly earlier. It’s unlikely to have been later.

If we suggest 626x628, that fits in remarkably well with our pedigrees in Table 3.7. Despite the problem in dating the Gwentian kings, that date exactly fits the lifespan for Tewdrig. It would
also suggest that his grandson Athrwys could have fought at the battle. He was probably around twenty and it might have been his first major conflict.

Perhaps thereafter Athrwys fought alongside Penda. Perhaps
some of Nennius’s battle list relates to Penda’s climb to power between 626 and 633. Penda had
combined forces with Cadwallon of Gwynedd who was on a personal vendetta of revenge against Edwin, king of Northumbria. Cadwallon and Edwin had apparently been childhood friends but when Edwin
defeated Athelfrith and became king in 616 all that changed. Cadwallon succeeded to Gwynedd around the year 620. In that same year Edwin conquered and extinguished the British enclave of Elmet near
Leeds, and doubtless refugees settled in Wales. This was probably the spark that lit the fire, as Cadwallon is supposed to have fought Edwin soon after and was soundly defeated. Geoffrey of
Monmouth places the battle at Widdrington, near Morpeth in Northumberland, but it is unlikely that Cadwallon would have undertaken a battle so far from his base at that stage. Edwin continued the
campaign through North Wales and into Anglesey. Cadwallon was driven to the very tip of the island and had to flee to Ireland (or possibly Brittany) where he remained in exile for seven years.