So the archbishop departed and in due state pronounced the words of excommunication upon the false king. Mordred then sought him out, in all haste, but the holy man had fled from Canterbury and had taken refuge at Glastonbury. Here he found a hermit’s cell, beside a chapel, where he lived in poverty and prayer. He prayed for the realm of England because he knew that danger was rushing upon it.
Mordred, meanwhile, sent many letters to Guinevere imploring her to leave the safety of the Tower and entrust herself to his care. She was not persuaded. She told him, shortly and decisively, that she would rather kill herself than marry him.
Then the news came that Arthur and his host had abandoned the siege of Lancelot, and were about to return home in order to wreak vengeance on Mordred. At once Mordred summoned all the magnates of the land. Many of them supported him, saying that Arthur had given them nothing but bloodshed and battle whereas Mordred promised peace and prosperity. So was Arthur slandered and his good deeds slighted. He had rewarded many lords with land and treasure, only to be betrayed by those whom he had benefited.
Do you not see, all you Englishmen, what evil had come among us? Here was the noblest king and worthiest knight in the world. Here was the sovereign who had most loved the fellowship of his warriors of the Round Table. Yet the lords of our country were disloyal to him and lacking in reverence. What was the reason? The English are forever unstable and untrue, seeking novelty in new guises. Nothing satisfies us for long.
And so it happened this time. The people were better pleased with the false Mordred than the noble Arthur; they saluted him, and promised their support. Mordred thereupon marched with his army to Dover, where Arthur was supposed to disembark, with the firm intention of depriving his own father of his lands. The fleet of Arthur approached, complete with galleys and carracks, while Mordred waited for him on shore. Those on land tried to thwart the arrival of those at sea, but they could not withstand their might. Many knights fought in hand-to-hand combat, and were laid low. King Arthur himself made his way on to the beach, and made short work of his assailants. His courage inspired his followers, and they poured on to the land. Mordred fled with the remains of his army.
After the battle was over Arthur ordered that the dead and the dying should be taken up and cared for. Sir Gawain was discovered, lying half-dead on the deck of a great ship. When Arthur was informed he hurried over to him, and took the knight in his arms. He cradled his injured companion, and cried out in sorrow. ‘Alas, good Gawain,’ he said, ‘you are the son of my sister and the man I loved most in all the world. Now you lie dying. All my joy is gone. Let me tell you this. You and Lancelot were the two knights I revered and cherished. Now I have lost you both. What is left for me but woe?’
‘My dear uncle,’ Gawain replied, ‘you and I know that the day of my death has come. My fate is entirely my own fault. I was injured today in the head, where Lancelot wounded me. I will be dead before noon. There is no escape. And I blame myself for all this warfare. My pride has been the cause of your shame and sorrow. If I had not quarrelled with Lancelot, this war would not have been fought. If Lancelot had been at your side, he would have kept all your enemies in fear and subjection. Now you will be deprived of his company for ever! My conceit has caused you nothing but grief. Please, uncle, bring me pen, paper and ink. I wish to write a letter to Lancelot before it is too late.’
The materials were quickly brought to him and, after being confessed by a priest, Gawain took up his pen and began to write. ‘To you, Sir Lancelot, flower of all chivalry, I, Sir Gawain, send greetings. I wish to tell you that on this day, the tenth of May, I received a deep wound where you wounded me before. That wound will now be the cause of my death. Outside the walls of your castle you delivered a perilous stroke to me. But I tell the world that you are not responsible for my death. I caused it through arrogance and self-seeking. I have slain myself. Wherefore I beseech you, Lancelot, to return to this realm of England and come to my tomb; I beg you to pray there for the salvation of my soul. I will sign this letter now with my own blood, just two and a half hours before my death. I beseech you once more, Lancelot, to make your way to my tomb.’
He wept, with Arthur, and was so frail that he fainted away. When he recovered he was given the last rites and, at noon of that day, he died. The king buried him in the chapel of the castle at Dover. His skull, with the mark of the wound that Lancelot gave him, may still be seen there.
The civil war continued. Mordred had marched his army to Canterbury, and there offered battle. The king encountered him on the following morning and, after a long and bloody fight, claimed the victory. Other warriors now joined Arthur, volunteering for his cause as a just one. So he took his army west, to the neighbourhood of Wells, and a day was fixed for combat between the forces of Arthur and Mordred. It was to be held, in a field close to the coast, on the Monday after Trinity Sunday. Whereupon Mordred raised more troops in London and in the counties of Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk; these were the shires that had always favoured the usurper. The army of Arthur came from other parts of the kingdom. The supporters of Lancelot, however, followed Mordred.
On the night of Trinity Sunday, Arthur dreamed a wonderful dream. In this dream he sat in cloth of gold upon his throne, raised high on a wooden platform; but the throne was fastened to a wheel. Beneath him he could see a deep pool of black water, horrible to behold, filled with serpents and snakes and other writhing things. Suddenly it seemed to him that the wheel turned and he was toppled from his throne, falling into the dark water where the fangs of the creatures fastened upon him. He cried aloud for help. His courtiers ran to his side and woke him, but he was so disturbed by the dream that at first he did not know where he was. He could not sleep, and lay awake until it was almost day. Just before dawn he fell into a light slumber that was neither sleep nor waking. In this state he saw, or seemed to see, Sir Gawain come towards him with a number of fair ladies. ‘Welcome, son of my sister,’ the king said. ‘I thought you were dead. Now I see you in life. Jesus be praised! But tell me, fair nephew, who are these ladies walking by your side?’
‘Sir,’ Gawain replied, ‘these are all ladies for whom I fought when I was among the living. I did battle for them in righteous quarrels, and God has granted their prayer that they should be allowed to bring me to you. God has also given me leave to foretell your death. If you fight with Mordred tomorrow, gracious king, you will fall. So will many of your bravest knights. Out of pity for you and your men, Almighty God has by His especial grace granted me this chance to give you warning. Do not engage in battle with Mordred tomorrow morning. Sign a treaty with him that will last a month. Lancelot will then come to these shores and assist you. He will slay Mordred and all his men.’
When he had finished speaking, Gawain, and the attendant ladies, melted into a mist. All at once Arthur awoke and called for his courtiers. He told them to summon the magnates and prelates of the realm. When they arrived the king informed them of his vision and of Gawain’s warning to him. He instructed Sir Lucan and Sir Bedevere the Bold, together with two bishops, to visit the camp of Mordred and there arrange a treaty with him. ‘Spare nothing to persuade him,’ he told them. ‘Give him lands and treasure.’
So they departed and rode to Sir Mordred, who was settled in the fields with one hundred thousand soldiers. They bargained with him for a long time, eventually promising him the territories of Kent and Cornwall. It was also agreed that, after Arthur’s death, Mordred would rule over all England. The two men were to meet, before their armies, with fourteen of their noblest followers; they would there exchange the kiss of peace.
‘This is well done,’ Arthur said on hearing of the treaty. But then he turned to his knights. ‘If you see any one of Mordred’s men raise his sword from its scabbard, then fall upon Mordred himself. I do not trust him. He is wily. He is treacherous.’
In turn Mordred told his supporters that, if any one of Arthur’s men should unleash his weapon, they were to massacre as many of the enemy a
s they could. ‘I do not trust this treaty,’ he said. ‘I know well enough that my father wishes to be revenged on me.’
The two men met at the appointed time, and made their agreement. Wine was fetched, and they drank together. At that moment of assent, an adder came from the cover of a heath bush and stung one of Mordred’s knights on the foot. The warrior unsheathed his sword to slay the snake, and was of course seen by Arthur’s men. They feared the worst and, with drums and trumpets sounding, they fell upon the enemy. The two armies rushed at each other, their swords and lances raised. Arthur rode forth, whispering, ‘This day will not bring me good fortune.’
There never was, or will be, such a dreadful battle in any Christian land. There was nothing but blood and slaughter, savagery and sorrow. King Arthur led his troops into battle, swinging his sword from side to side, while Mordred fought him back with stroke and counterstroke. They exchanged bloody blows all that long day, until the knights were brought low on the cold earth. They fought until nightfall, when one hundred thousand warriors lay dead upon the field. Arthur was almost mad from grief, with all his men gone from his side. He looked about him, and could see only two knights of his allegiance. Yet these two – Sir Lucan and his brother, Sir Bedevere – were badly injured.
‘Have mercy on us, Jesus Our Saviour!’ the king cried out. ‘What has happened to all of my noble knights? I should not have lived to see this doleful day. Now I have come near to my end! Yet I pray to God that I may yet see my son, Mordred, and slay him. He is the maker of all this mischief.’ He looked over the field of battle and found him; Mordred was leaning on his sword among a heap of dead men. ‘Give me my spear,’ Arthur said to Sir Lucan. ‘I have seen the traitor who has wrought all this woe.’
‘Let him be, sire,’ Lucan replied. ‘Can you not see he is in despair? If you survive this day, then you will be sufficiently revenged. Do you not recall your dream? Do you not heed the words of Gawain concerning your fate? God has protected you so far. You have won the victory. The three of us are still alive, whereas Mordred is alone. He has lost all his men. So leave off now, sir king, and this dreadful day of destiny will pass.’
‘Whether I live or die, I will have my revenge upon him. What better time than now?’
‘Then God go with you,’ Sir Bedevere told him.
Arthur took up his spear and ran towards Mordred, crying, ‘Traitor! Your death day has come!’
When Sir Mordred saw Arthur rushing upon him he took up his sword, ready to defend himself. Arthur caught his son in the body below the shield, and his spear went through the flesh; Mordred, knowing that he had received his death wound, forced himself along the length of the spear in terrible agony. Then with his sword he struck a great blow against the side of the king’s head, breaking his helmet and cracking his skull open so that the brain could be seen. After that stroke, Mordred fell dead to the earth.
Arthur collapsed in a faint to the ground. Sir Lucan and Sir Bedevere supported him, and with great effort they carried him to a little chapel on the seashore where he might rest.
While they remained there, they heard the shouts and screams of people coming from the field of battle. ‘What noise is that?’ Arthur asked. ‘Sir Lucan, can you return there and report to me?’ So Lucan, grievously wounded though he was, made his way back to the site of the struggle. By the light of the moon he could see clearly enough that robbers and rioters were looting the bodies of the dead and the dying. They stripped the armour and the jewels from the corpses; they took the rings from their fingers, and the saddles from their horses; they finished off those who were wounded, and fell upon them. When Lucan understood that this had become a place of pillage, he went back to Arthur and informed him of what he had seen.
‘In my judgement,’ he said, ‘it is best that we take you to some town close by. You will be safer there.’
‘I am of the same opinion. But look at me. I cannot stand upright. My head is . . .’ Arthur seemed to waver. ‘Ah, Lancelot! I have missed you this day! Why was I ever against you? Now I am close to my death, as Gawain warned me in a dream.’
Sir Lucan and Sir Bedevere tried to lift up the king, but the effort was too great for Lucan. He fell in a swoon upon the ground, and his guts spilled from his body; then he died.
When the king saw that his follower had fallen, he set up a great lament. ‘Nothing but death and despair all around! He was so intent upon serving me that he did not save himself. He never complained, or cried out. Now Jesus have mercy on his soul.’ Bedevere was bowed over in grief, weeping at the death of his brother. ‘We must leave aside our mourning,’ the king told him quietly. ‘Weep no more, gentle knight. Tears will not help us. If I were going to live, I would cry for ever at the fate of Sir Lucan. But my time on earth passes quickly. I cannot stay. Therefore I beseech you to take my good sword, Excalibur. Here. Lift it up. I charge you to carry this sword to the lake that lies just beyond the edge of the forest. When you arrive at the lake, you must throw the sword into the water. Then come back and tell me what you saw and heard.’
‘My lord, I will obey your command and bring you word of what happens.’ So Sir Bedevere departed. On his way to the lake, however, he looked more carefully at Excalibur; he noted how richly it was decorated with precious stones on the pommel and upper guard. ‘If I throw this costly sword into the water of the lake,’ he said to himself, ‘it will be a great loss to the kingdom.’ So he hid the sword under a bush and returned to Arthur. ‘I have fulfilled your order,’ he said. ‘I have dispatched Excalibur into the lake.’
‘Then what did you see?’ the king asked him.
‘Sir, I saw nothing but wind and water.’
‘You are lying to me. Go back to the forest and the lake. Take the sword and toss it into the water as I commanded you.’
Bedevere returned to the forest and retrieved the sword. Yet he still believed it to be a sin, and an indignity, to throw away such an expensive and noble weapon. So he hid it within a hollow tree, and once again lied to Arthur. ‘So what did you see?’ the king asked him again.
‘I saw nothing, sire. Just the long lake beneath the sky.’
Arthur rose up from his bed of suffering. ‘You are a false traitor to me, Bedevere. You have betrayed me twice. Who would believe that so dearly loved and cherished a knight would covet my sword? Will you deceive me for the sake of some jewels? Now return as quickly as you can. Take up the sword and throw it into the lake. Your long delay has brought me closer to death. I feel the cold coming upon me. If you disobey me again, I will kill you with my own hands.’
Bedevere returned to the forest, took up the sword, and went with it to the water’s edge. He wrapped the girdle around the sheath and hurled Excalibur into the lake as far as he might. Then a hand and arm rose from the water, took up the sword and brandished it; the hand waved the sword three times in the air, and then disappeared with it beneath the surface of the lake.
Sir Bedevere returned to the king, and told him what he had witnessed.
‘Help me now,’ Arthur replied. ‘You must take me to the lake. My time has come.’
Bedevere lifted the king upon his back, and carried him to the side of the lake. As they stood there a dark barge crept over the waters towards them; Bedevere saw that this barge held many fair ladies, three sovereign queens among them, all of them wearing black hoods.
‘Now put me into the barge,’ Arthur told him.
Very gently he lowered the king into the craft, and the ladies received him with great mourning. The king lay down and set his head softly in the lap of one queen. ‘Ah, my dear brother,’ she whispered, ‘why have you waited so long to see me? The wound on your head is wide and cold.’ It was Morgan le Fay, his sister.
Thereupon they rowed the barge away from the land. Bedevere watched them depart, and cried out in grief, ‘Ah, my lord Arthur, what shall become of me? I am alone now among all my enemies.’
‘Comfort yourself,’ Arthur replied to him. ‘Trust in your own strength. Lo
ok not to me, for I can no longer help you. I must hurry to Avalon and be healed of my wound. If you never hear of me again, pray for my immortal soul.’
The ladies wept and wailed as they bore Arthur away on his last journey. Bedevere, standing alone on the shore, cried bitterly at this parting. He took himself into the forest, and roamed among its trees all night.
In the morning he saw, half-hidden in some rocks, a small chapel and hermitage. He walked into the chapel, where he saw a hermit kneeling on the ground and weeping beside a freshly dug grave. He knew him at once to be the Archbishop of Canterbury, whom Mordred in his pride and anger had banished so many months before. ‘Tell me, father,’ he asked him, ‘what man is buried here? For whom do you pray?’
‘Fair son, I do not know. I can only imagine. Last night, at midnight, some ladies came here bearing a body. They begged me to bury him, offering me a hundred candles and a thousand gold coins.’
‘You have interred your king. My lord Arthur is buried here.’ In his grief Bedevere fell down upon the floor. When he had recovered himself, he begged the hermit to let him stay as his companion. ‘I will never leave this place. I will kneel by the tomb in everlasting prayer.’
‘Welcome, sir. I know you already. I know you very well. You are Sir Bedevere the Bold, brother of the noble duke Sir Lucan.’ Then Bedevere told the good priest the story of Arthur’s death and departing. He put on the clothes of a poor hermit, and from that time forward began a life of prayer and penance.
I have learned no more of the death of Arthur. The hermit himself did not know for certain that the tomb contained his body. Nothing is written in the old books of England, except for the fact that the king was carried across the lake in the company of three queens. One was the sister of Arthur, known as Morgan le Fay; the second was the queen of North Wales; and the third was the queen of the Waste Lands. Some say that the Lady of the Lake, Dame Nineve, was also with them; but I have no sure proof of this. I have only the tale that Sir Bedevere has caused to be written. So I will leave him and the hermit, mourning by the sepulchre.
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