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.
The fatal battle of Camlan, as it is called, which is assigned to the year 542, in which Mordred is supposed to have been slain and Arthur mortally wounded, is stated by Geoffrey, and generally believed, to have taken place on the Camel. There was undoubtedly a great battle on this river, near Camelford, at some remote time, and its position seems to be exactly indicated by a bridge which still bears the name of Slaughter Bridge, or Bloody Bridge. Near the bridge, close to the river, is an inscribed sepulchral stone, obviously of great antiquity, which is held in repute in the neighbourhood as marking the grave of King Arthur.
The position is a likely one to have been chosen by an army on the defensive. The stream, which was probably larger then than now, runs through a marshy bottom with hills ascending on both sides. That a great battle was fought here may be accepted as certain, and equally so that it was between the Britons and the Saxons. One of the writers who attributes it to Arthur tells us that the Camel[13] overflowed its banks with the blood of the slain. So far we have a likely Arthurian story, and we may look with interest at the inscription on the stone which presumably covers (or rather covered, for the stone has been slightly moved from its original situation) the bones of some one killed in the fight, perhaps of the king himself. Carew, in his ‘Survey of Cornwall,’ speaks of the stone as ‘bearing Arthur’s name, though now depraved to Atry.’ Borlase accepts the tradition that Arthur fought his last battle near this spot, but denies that the stone bears reference to that warrior. The inscription, according to Borlase, runs thus: ‘Catin hic jacit[14]—filius Magari,’ and refers not to Arthur but to the son of Magarus. The letters are about six inches high and much weatherworn. They are not easy to be made out, but the Rev. W. Iago, of Bodmin,[15] has brought his special skill to bear upon them, and, with the aid of casts and rubbings, has determined the inscription to be as follows:
Latini ic jacit filius Magarii.
which Mr. Iago thus interprets:
(The monument) of Latinus; here he lies; son of Magarius.
ic stands of course for hic.The use of the Latin language points to British rather than Saxon authorship.
Latinus was probably a Briton of Roman descent who was presumably fighting on the British side. That his fellow soldiers had leisure to construct a memorial on the battlefield may be accepted as an indication that they retained their position as victors, but we seek in vain for evidence that Arthur was here concerned.
It is certain that a great battle was fought in this position in the time of Egbert in the year 823. This is mentioned in the ‘Saxon Chronicle,’ in ‘Ethelwerd’s Chronicle,’ and by Henry of Huntingdon, as having taken place at Camelford between the Britons of Cornwall and the Saxons of Devonshire. Several thousands fell on both sides according to Henry of Huntingdon, but we are not told which was victorious. Probably the Britons, for the Saxons do not seem to have pushed their conquests further, at least until the time of Athelstan, nor ever to have generally replaced the former inhabitants in the further parts of the county.
So much for the historical battle in the year 823. Now for the traditional battle on the same river in the year 542. Nennius makes no mention of either. His history terminates in the year 640, and does not reach the later battle, but his failure to mention the earlier, if it took place when and where it is supposed, is remarkable. Another English writer, Henry of Huntingdon, who is disposed to give much credit to Arthur, speaks of the twelve battles, with particular reference to Badon Hill, but makes no mention of the subsequent battle or of the death of the king. These appear to have been entirely ignored so far as English chroniclers are concerned until we reach Geoffrey of Monmouth, in the twelfth century, who must be regarded as a romancer rather than a serious historian. We must either suppose that there were two great battles on the Camel, the earlier of which, in the sixth century, escaped the notice of chroniclers until the twelfth, and then was recovered with ample circumstance and detail by the highly imaginative writer to whom I have referred; or we must suppose that there was only one great battle in this situation; that this was fought in the ninth century; and that between the ninth century and the twelfth it came to be confused with a battle in Scotland in which Arthur was really engaged, and in which he met his death.In relation to the earlier battle on the Camel, if there was one, and the supposed connection of Arthur with it, I must mention a scrap of topographical evidence, which is far from conclusive, but which may be taken for what it is worth. In this supposed battle, Cador, Duke of Cornwall, half-brother to Arthur, or, according to another account, his nephew, takes a traditional place among the slain. About three miles from Camelford, between the Camel and the sea, stands a large sepulchral mound which looks down upon the Atlantic from an elevation of over a thousand feet. This is known as CadÕn Barrow, and the tradition is that it covers the body of Cador. To this tumulus especial consideration and sanctity have long been attached. If it covers the bones of Arthur’s kinsman the place consorts with his death on the Camel. At a distance of about seven miles from the battlefield, be it Arthur’s or Egbert’s, stands another sepulchral mound in which an interested person might find an Arthurian association. This mound is known as the Giant’s Grave, or King Arthur’s Grave. It lies within a gigantic double-walled enclosure which has the name of Warbstowe Bury, one of the largest of the British camps of Cornwall. This occupies a commanding situation, and would furnish an ideal resting-place for a Cornish hero. But whatever be the purpose of the mound, we have no reason to connect it with Arthur. The name is employed somewhat at random: barrows are common in Cornwall; and we must have consistent historical evidence before we suppose Arthur to occupy the Giant’s Grave or his kinsman CadÕn Barrow.
The evidence which is wanting with regard to Arthur’s battle on the Camel comes to light on the Firth of Forth. There is reason to suppose that tradition did not err in the fatal association of Arthur and Mordred, though the place of the last scene was not Cornwall but Scotland. The name Camlan, which has been freely given by later writers to the supposed battle on the Camel, is not to be found there, nor, so far as I can ascertain, in Cornwall.
Skene and Stuart Glennie maintain with much converging evidence that Camlan is Camelon[16] on the river Carron, in the valley of the Forth, where it is said are the remains of a Roman town. Here, according to Scotch tradition, Arthur and Mordred met. We have evidence which appears to be sufficient that Mordred was King of the Picts, or, as he is sometimes termed, King of Scotland, and the head of a confederacy of Picts, Scots, and Saxons, or, as some authorities have it, Picts, Scots, and renegade Britons. With this composite army he gave battle to Arthur and his faithful British force, in which the latter were defeated and Arthur slain.
It is worth noting as in favour of the Scottish location of the battle that Geoffrey, who places it on the Camel, nevertheless states Mordred’s force to have consisted of Picts and Scots. It is surely improbable that Arthur could have been confronted in Cornwall by a great army of these northern savages. On the Forth[17] they were numerous and much at home. Mordred was supposed to have been the son of Llew, to whom Arthur had given Lothian. These particulars are confirmed by the ‘Chronicle of the Scots.’ It may be added that an earthwork with double lines of circumvallation in the neighbouring valley of the Tay, now known as Barry Hill, is designated by tradition as Mordred’s Castle, not the only instance in which testimony of this nature has been found to throw light upon Arthurian history.
It is impossible to dissociate the place of Arthur’s death from that of his supposed burial. According to the well-known story which we owe to Geoffrey of Monmouth, the king was desperately wounded on the Camel, and thence conveyed to Glastonbury, where we must suppose he died; for there, in confirmation of Geoffrey’s account, was his grave found, or said to have been found, after the lapse of 647 years. The circumstantial report of the finding and identification of the grave on the spot indicated by the story gives verisimilitude to the legend, and demands for it serious criticism. In the first place, there is reason to believe, as I have shown, that though there was a great battle on the Camel, Arthur was not in it, and though he died in battle, it was not on the Camel. If Arthur concluded his career, not on the Camel but the Forth, the question of sepulture at Glastonbury may be dismissed as a fabrication. On the other hand, if the burial in this place can be maintained, then we must abandon the Scottish localisation of the last battle, and may accept the statement of the unveracious Geoffrey that it was fought on the Cornish river. It behoves us, therefore, to examine the Glastonbury story as one upon which much turns. The tradition that Arthur, mortally wounded on the Camel, was conveyed alive to Glastonbury may be at once discarded. Such a transporting of a desperately wounded man must be regarded as impracticable. He was within easy reach of his Cliff Castle at Tintagel and of his fortified camp of Kelliwick (assuming this to have been Kelly Rounds), and would probably, if moved at all, have been deposited in one or the other. On the other hand, if he was killed outright the removal of the body to Glastonbury by way of the Camel and the sea would be neither impossible nor unlikely.
Glastonbury was one of the earliest seats of Christianity in this island, and no doubt was reverenced as such in the time of Arthur. The tumulus and the churchyard were at this time competing as receptacles for the dead—the tumulus as a heathen, the churchyard as a Christian place of rest. A tumulus was raised over a Saxon chief in the time, and with the permission, of Ambrosius. Christian burial was probably practised at Glastonbury at as early a date. Giraldus Cambrensis, together with a monk of Glastonbury quoted by Leland, professed themselves to have been witnesses of the opening of Arthur’s grave. There are two accounts as to the finding of this—one that it was sought for by order of Henry II., who had learned from the British Bards that Arthur was buried between two pyramids at Glastonbury; the other that it was found accidentally in this situation in digging to bury a monk who had selected this spot for his interment. The pyramids undoubtedly existed before the alleged discovery of Arthur’s grave; for they were described by William of Malmesbury in the reign of Henry I. They displayed some inscription, apparently Saxon, and an ecclesiastical effigy, but no mention of Arthur.
So circumstantial is the statement of Giraldus, who represents himself as an eye-witness of the exploration, that if in any essential respect he departed from the truth, whether by way of addition or otherwise, we can scarcely suppose that the falsehood was unintentional. Though there are differences, as I shall presently show, relating to the date of the alleged exploration, preponderating evidence places it in the time of Henry II., in whose interest it has been suspected that a fraud was devised to gratify the king and serve a political purpose. Henry as a Norman might, it has been thought, desire to rehabilitate Arthur as, like himself, an enemy of the Saxons. Priests were deceivers ever: here they may have had both the motive and the means for deception. But it must be allowed that if the ecclesiastical explorers lied they lied so much like truth that if any exception be taken to their report it is only that it comes up too exactly to what might have been expected. The story, as told by Giraldus, is as follows. On digging between the pyramids in the monks’ cemetery a leaden cross was found at a depth of seven feet, which bore this inscription in rude letters:
HIC JACET SEPULTUS INCLYTUS REX ARTHURIUS IN
INSULA AVALLONIA, CUM WENNEVEREIA UXORE
SUA SECUNDA
Camden gives what professes to be a facsimile of the inscription, which ‘was formerly written and preserved in the monastery of Glastonbury.’ The lettering has the appearance of great antiquity, but suspicion attaches to the mention of the name of the place in connection with the interment. Avallonia, or Avalon, is of course Glastonbury—probably in Arthur’s time an island in a swamp. As to its place, the body speaks for itself. It may be necessary to say whose it is; it is not necessary to say where it is; nor is it usual on tombstones or coffins to give their address.
At a depth of nine feet, or two feet below the cross, was found a coffin, consisting of a hollowed oak, in which were the bones of a man and a woman. The man was represented as of great stature. I am indebted to the scholarship of Mr. T. Holmes for as exact a translation of the words of Giraldus as the Latin of that author allows. Speaking of the male occupant of the coffin, Giraldus says: ‘His tibia placed beside that of the tallest man in the place (whom the Abbot pointed out to me), and fixed into the earth by the side of his foot, extended fully three fingers’ breadth above the man’s knee. His skull bone also was capacious and large enough for a prodigy or a show—so much so that the interval between the eyelids and the space between the eyes might contain the size of a man’s palm fully. And in this were seen ten or more wounds, all of which, except one larger than the others and which had made a great gash, and which alone seemed to have caused death, had joined into a firm cicatrix.’
The body of the woman found in the same receptacle presented yellow hair nicely braided, a lock of which on being handled by a monk crumbled into dust. Here we have all we could expect—almost more. Strength and valour, together with as much of female charm as could survive six centuries. Hair will last and retain its colour for an indefinite time. With regard to the male skeleton, the large recent wound on the head corresponds with the manner of Arthur’s death and the wounds of earlier infliction with the manner of his life. In the length of the tibiÆ there is nothing impossible. But with regard to the skull the dimensions possible to humanity are so much exceeded that it is difficult to suppose that we are reading the honest report of an eye-witness. The palm between the eyes savours more of imagination than observation. The space between the orbits in an ordinary skull on a level with the eyelids, where the distance is greatest, is at most 1½ inch. One of the largest human skeletons known is that of the Irish Giant at the College of Surgeons, which measures 7 feet 7 inches in height. The distance between the orbits in a level with the place of the eyelids is 2 inches. The palm between the eyes is impossible even to procerity. Thus doubts gather round the grave: if the king desired that this should be found attempts not wholly ingenuous might have been made to gratify him. Apart from the inscription and the skull, the completeness of the alleged discovery, the appropriately wounded skeleton and the fascinating queen, are suggestive of invention.
A postscript or corollary was added to this story in the time of Edward I. The skeletons, when first found, were removed, as we are told, from the cemetery to the church; not as yet to find final repose, for in the year 1278 ‘Eduardus Longus’ (Edward I. or Longshanks), together with Queen Eleanor, caused the tomb to be reopened and the bones to be again buried in front of the high altar, with the exception of the skulls, which were kept outside for the devotion of the people.[18] The chests in which the bones were found were painted with representations, and the arms, of the occupants. Within the new sepulchre was placed a writing referring to the finding of the bones by Edward and Eleanor, and attested by many witnesses whose names are still to be read in the pages of Leland.[19]I think it may be credited that bones were unearthed, probably in the time of Henry II. and the Abbot Henry de Blois, which were adopted as those of King Arthur and provided with suitable conditions and surroundings. That bones were re-buried as those of Arthur and found by ‘long Edward’ I think admits of no doubt. But much may we doubt whether the bones were those of Arthur, not only from the inconsistency and improbabilities of the story of the disinterment, but from the lack of evidence that Arthur died within practicable reach of Glastonbury.
But perhaps the most convincing negative evidence is supplied by Gildas, to whom I have already referred. This historian, a fellow-countryman and contemporary of Arthur, was either ignorant of his existence or thought him not worth mentioning. Now Gildas, as we are told by William of Malmesbury, ‘took up his abode’ at Glastonbury ‘for a series of years.’ If Arthur died, as was supposed, in the year 542, and Gildas was born in 520, the historian must have been twenty-two years old when the king was buried under the description of ‘the famous King Arthur,’ inclytus Rex Arthurius. Gildas might have been present had this taken place as represented, or at any rate must have heard from his friends the monks of what could not fail to be of interest to the British historian. But neither Arthur’s death nor his life appealed to Gildas. Thus we must discredit both the Camel and Glastonbury as connected with Arthur’s death and burial.
