King Arthur in Cornwall

CONCLUSIONS

To piece together the dislocated fragments which are all that remain of the life of Arthur, they thus present themselves. Arthur, though unknown or unrecorded by the Saxon chroniclers of the invasion, who say nothing of what went on in the west and north, finds abundant mention among the Welsh bards and poets assigned to the sixth century, who speak of him by name, attribute to him great fame as a warrior, and briefly refer to certain details which connect him with places some of which can still be identified. This positive and detailed evidence is of more weight than the negative evidence, if so it can be called, which lies in the omission of Arthur’s name by Gildas and Bede, two ecclesiastics who touch only incidentally upon the wars of the sixth century and are satisfied with the mention of Ambrosius, who preceded Arthur, and apparently occupied a position more nearly approaching that of commander-in-chief, having regard to the whole country, than did the later champion.

But it is not my purpose now to recapitulate the writings to which I have already referred, but only to put together, with their help, some indications as to the probable biography of a personage who is at once so famous and so obscure.

We may look upon Tintagel as the birthplace of Arthur, and believe that he was the son or putative son of a petty Cornish king. The exact fitness of Tintagel and Damelioc for the story of which they are the scene lends probability to it: not that we need accept the narrative precisely as related. Time, verbal transmission, and Celtic imagination have to be allowed for; but we may without undue credulity believe that Gorlois was slain at Damelioc and Arthur born at Tintagel. We may presume that Arthur remained in possession and occupation of the country of his nativity. Tintagel Castle has been from time immemorial known as King Arthur’s; Kelliwic, which is mentioned in the earliest records in connection with Arthur, may with probability be identified with Kelly Rounds and placed near the estuary of the Camel; and Cardinam Castle, which credible though later tradition assigns to Arthur as a palace or residence, exists near Bodmin. Great interest, to my mind, attaches to these memorials. Military engineering is older than the corps of Royal Engineers; and it may be said that the most ancient history of our country is written in earth. These memorials, together with Tintagel, a fortification constructed by the hand of nature, indicate that King Arthur occupied the coast line from Tintagel to the Camel, and the inland country to the vicinity of Bodmin.

If we accept the evidence of names, that of Pentargon in particular, we must suppose Boscastle to be included in the Arthurian country, which would thus extend from the mouth of the Camel to the mouth of the Vallency. The town of Camelford lies within this district, and it is difficult not to think of Camelot as possibly on the Camel, though we have no indication, excepting the name, to justify the assumption, and other places compete for the distinction of supplying the site of this somewhat hypothetical creation.

We can speak with more confidence of Kelliwic, assuming that it is still with us under the name of Kelly Rounds. This lies 2½ miles from Wadebridge, where the Camel forms a practicable tidal harbour, and was no doubt used as such in the sixth century. The fortification covered the landing-place, at a convenient distance, and commanded what must have been the chief line of communication between Arthur’s Cornish domain, Wales, Ireland, and the north-west coast. The sea is a connection rather than a separation, and may have provided the lord of Kelliwic with an access to the north which would have been practically unattainable by other means.

It may be doubted whether in Arthur’s time the Saxons had reached Tintagel: it is clear that in the ninth century they were fighting on the Camel, apparently unsuccessfully, and that they never generally superseded the Celtic population much further to the west than the traditional territory of Arthur. That Arthur ever fought a great battle on this river is improbable; nor is it likely that the Saxons in his time got far enough to the west to assault his earthworks; but these at any rate may have served as places of retreat, and been used by him as Torres Vedras was by Wellington.We may accept the statement of Nennius, who was apparently an historian of honest intentions, that Arthur was selected to command against the Saxons, and that in this capacity he fought many, perhaps twelve, battles. There must, it is certain, have been much fighting in the west and north as well as elsewhere, and we may give Arthur the credit of much of it, though details, if not entirely absent, are by no means explicit. It seems clear that he entered Scotland, perhaps more than once, became a prominent character in the Lowlands, as the dissemination of his name implies, and finally perished at Camelon or Camlan, near the Firth of Forth, fighting against a coalition of Saxons, or, strictly speaking, Angles, Picts, and Scots, or, according to another tradition, against one consisting of Picts, Scots, and revolted Britons. It is a far cry from Cornwall to Scotland, but the feat is not impossible. Agricola marched from the south of England to Scotland at an earlier date; but he had the resources of the Roman Empire behind him. Arthur must have been aided by his access to the sea, and probably found allies in the Celts of the west and north-west along the whole front of the Teutonic encroachments. His movements in the south and in the north were attended with a series of British victories in which the invaders were pushed back from the western parts of the island, and which contributed to the preservation of the Celtic race in the regions of Cornwall and Wales, where it still survives. Such achievements were enough to make Arthur famous from the Camel to the Forth, however little in those days of imperfect communication his reputation extended to the ‘Saxon shore.’ The places where above all others he was held in memory and where his name was handed down as a local tradition were his little inheritance in Cornwall, where he was born, and which we cannot doubt that he occupied—more or less; and the northern region, where he apparently did much fighting and where he ultimately perished. I need not repeat that if, as seems probable, Arthur’s last battle was in Scotland we must dissociate his death with the Camel and his burial with Glastonbury.

So much for what may be accepted as history. We might have had more had the Cornish language survived like the Welsh. I do not propose to deal with the superstructure of romance which in succeeding centuries collected about Arthur’s name. The magnitude of this echo, if so it may be called, is in some sort a measure of the impression produced by Arthur in his life time. The romance seems to have come chiefly from France. There was little communication in Arthur’s time between the west and east of England: even between Cornwall and Devonshire there seems to have been little. The chief connection between Cornwall and the rest of the world was by sea, and Wales, Britanny and Ireland were the countries in the most intimate association with this peninsula. Navigation is an ancient art, older than the mariner’s compass: in the comparatively late sixth century crossing the Channel and the narrow seas must have been familiar to our ancestors, whether Saxon or British. Britanny and Wales, countries within touch of Cornwall, were, like it, occupied by Celts, a race gifted with more imagination than has been granted to the practical and hard-headed Saxon. The fictions of which Arthur is the centre, constructed chiefly in France, but to a lesser extent in Wales, were brought to England in the twelfth and later centuries, and replaced history by myth. In these poetic regions this story attained a complicated development the like of which is not to be found in British history, though we can discern something like it in connection with the siege of Troy and the subsequent adventures of some of the persons supposed to have been concerned in it.

That Arthur was a patriot, a defender of the soil against foreign invaders, is sufficiently obvious. That he was also a Christian must be believed. Christianity reached Cornwall before St. Augustine preached in Kent: Britain probably received some sprinkling of Christianity during the Roman occupation, though we cannot suppose that much of this religion penetrated from London to Cornwall. The western extremity of the island was much associated with Ireland, and we have reason to believe that as early as the fifth century the creed of St. Patrick was brought to Cornwall, which thus became one of the earliest places in Britain to receive the Christian religion. It is worth observing that the ancient Cornish crosses, of which there are so many, generally present the Greek cross rather than the Latin, and would appear to belong to the Eastern rather than the Western Church. The oldest of these crosses are supposed to date back to the sixth century. It is more than probable that a Cornish chieftain at this period would have been a Christian, and possible that Arthur himself may have knelt before some of the crosses which still exist.

THE END

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Footnotes:

[1] I have to thank the Rev. S. Baring-Gould for supplying me with these particulars, which are to be found in the Report of the Launceston Meeting of the Cambrian ArchÆological Society, ArchÆologia Cambrensis, No. 51, fifth series, July 1896. This relic is preserved in the royal collection at Osborne, and is described and figured in the ArchÆological Journal, vol. xxiv. p. 189. The vessel is represented as in excellent preservation and of artistic design. It is of hammered gold, and is supposed to be of Scandinavian workmanship.

[2] See The Four Ancient Books of Wales, by W. F. Skene, 1868; also an essay on Arthurian localities, by J. S. Stuart Glennie, Merlin, part iii., published by the Early English Text Society, 1869.

[3] History of Britain, by John Milton.

[4] I need not refer to La Morte d’Arthur, a work of which Roger Ascham disapproves as encouraging manslaughter and incontinence: ‘yet I know,’ says Roger, ‘when God’s Bible was banished the Court, and La Morte d’Arthur received into the prince’s Chamber.’

[5] Skene’s Four Ancient Books of Wales, vol. ii. p. 457.

[6] Guest’s Origines CelticÆ, vol. ii. p. 194.

[7] Dr. Guest’s opinion as that of an antiquarian scholar deservedly carries great weight, though some at least of the bardic fragments usually ascribed to the sixth century are held by Stephens to belong to the twelfth. (See Literature of the Kymry, 1849.) This writer allows certain of these fragments to have come down from the sixth century, and the admission of so scrupulous a critic goes far to establish their antiquity. I may refer to Skene’s Four Ancient Books of Wales for information regarding the works in question, as well as for the text of some of them. There appears to be no reasonable doubt that Taliessin, Llymarch Hen, and Myrddin lived in the sixth century, though their supposed compositions are not presented to us in any manuscripts which bear an earlier date than the twelfth. The Black Book of Caermarthen, which contains some of these remnants, of the greatest reputed antiquity, was written in the time of Henry II. But though all intermediate writings have perished or remain hidden, we are not to infer that none ever existed. It is clear that some of the bardic fragments refer to the sixth century; for example, that relating to the fight at Llongborth between Geraint and, as is supposed, Cerdric, in which Arthur is mentioned. It is possible that this and other poems may at first have been transmitted by word of mouth, but impossible that they could have been so conveyed for six hundred years. Intermediate writings there must have been; these have not survived, but they are probably fairly represented in the Black Book of Caermarthen and similar records. It cannot be doubted that these compositions relating to the sixth century, by whatever means and with whatever modifications they reached the twelfth century, must have had some substantial foundation. It would have been impossible in the twelfth century to create out of nothing stories and allusions so suited to the sixth in historic probability and local association.

[8] Skene’s Four Ancient Books of Wales, vol. i. p. 426.

[9] Quoted from the edition by J. A. Giles in Six Old English Chronicles.

[10] See the Chronicle of Henry of Huntingdon.

[11] As bearing upon Arthur’s early campaigns and their connection with Scotland, it is of interest to recall the tradition which connects Arthur with Mordred. Arthur’s sister, Anne by name, married Llew, otherwise Lothus or Lot, King of the Picts, to whom Arthur is supposed to have given Lothian. Of this marriage came Mordred, or Modred, Arthur’s nephew and mortal enemy. From this it would appear that the southern adventurer was associated with the northern monarch before Mordred was born, and had visited Scotland apparently as a conqueror in the time of Mordred’s father.

[12] An elaborate and learned disquisition relating to Arthur and his battles is to be found in Whitaker’s History of Manchester, published in the year 1775. See book ii. chapter ii.

[13] Quoted by Camden from Marianus Scotus.

[14] Jacit, instead of jacet, calls for remark. Mr. Iago assures me that this spelling was not unusual in the time to which the inscription belongs, and refers to Professor HÜbner for instances of Christian inscriptions in Britain in which the same spelling was employed.

[15] See Trigg Minor, by Sir John Maclean, vol. i. p. 583, where is a representation of the stone and inscription provided by Mr. Iago.

[16] Skene’s Four Ancient Books of Wales, vol. i. p. 60; Stuart Glennie, Arthurian Scotland, Merlin Early English Text Society, part iii. p. lxi.

[17] The Scots with whom Arthur fought were probably, like the Picts, inhabitants of Scotland, though the term Scotti is also applied to a portion of the inhabitants of Ireland.

[18] Leland’s Assertio Arturii.

[19] There are discrepancies of date with regard to disentombment which increase the doubts which on other grounds surround the story. The date commonly assigned is that adopted by Camden, 1189, the last year of King Henry’s reign. Leland gives the date as 1191, in which he is followed by Hume, in the reign of Richard I. Giraldus, who represents himself as an eye-witness, and is necessarily the earliest authority, does not give the year, but indicates the time within certain limits. He states that the grave was opened by order of Henry II. during the rule of the Abbot Henry. This Abbot was apparently Henry de Blois, the grandson of the Conqueror and the brother of King Stephen; Henry II. was therefore his first cousin once removed. It has been supposed that the consanguinity may have disposed the Abbot to gratify the king by finding what he wanted. Henry de Blois was the 37th Abbot. He was appointed in 1126, in the time of Henry I., and died in 1171, in that of Henry II. In the year 1129, three years after his appointment to Glastonbury, this Abbot became, according to Leland, also Bishop of Winchester. Giraldus tells us that the discovery took place before the Abbot became Bishop. If that were so the remains were found not later than 1129, in the reign of Henry I., not in that of Henry II., as Giraldus represents. Giraldus himself was not born until 1147, or 1150 (both dates are assigned); so it is evident that a large error has come in with regard to the date of the disentombment, in reference to the appointment of the Abbot to the bishopric. Putting aside this contradiction as possibly due to some mistake in the ecclesiastical records, we at any rate cannot doubt, if any credit is to be attached to Giraldus, that the exhumation took place, if at all, in the time of Henry de Blois, who died in 1171. This is inconsistent with the dates 1189 and 1191 which are respectively assigned to the event. Thus three Kings are presented as contemporary with the finding of Arthur’s grave, while two Abbots and a locum tenens offer themselves as immediately concerned in the transaction. For in the last year of the reign of Henry II., in which according to one account the grave was opened, there was no Abbot of Glastonbury, the King from the year 1178 until his death in 1189 having retained the Abbey in his own hands and administered it by means of a subordinate. Thus in 1189, the date authoritatively assigned for the concurrence of the Abbot and the King, there was no Abbot and the King was approaching his end. In the year 1191 Richard I. and the 39th Abbot bore sway. Like the Abbot of royal blood, he was named Henry (which may have led to confusion), one Henry de Saliaco, but he does not supply the requirements of the case if we are to believe that King Henry was the instigator and his sacerdotal kinsman the agent. Thus the whole story is beset with doubts. This much may be believed: in the time probably of Henry II. the bones of Arthur were sought for; two skeletons were found where skeletons most do congregate, which with judicious exaggeration and some invention were made to come up to what was demanded of the remains of the warrior and his beautiful consort; these were re-interred under the names of Arthur and Guenevere, and about 100 years later were honestly accepted as such by Edward and Eleanor.

[20] History of the Deanery of Trigg Minor, by Sir John Maclean, vol. iii. p. 194.

[21] Among the more noticeable particulars in the buildings, both on the island and the mainland, especially on the island, are the numerous holes in the walls. These have given rise to much remark and speculation; by some they have been inconsiderately interpreted as arrow holes. It is sufficiently obvious that they once gave lodgment to the beams which formed the scaffolding employed in the construction of the walls. The orifices are rectangular, about 7 inches × 6 or 6 inches × 5. The passages in connection with them are horizontal and give no scope for the adjustment of the weapon; many of them have no exits, but come to an end against rock or masonry. The holes are generally arranged so that several are on the same level. Similar holes for the same purpose are not uncommon in the neighbourhood, and may be seen in the Vicarage wall. I am indebted to Colonel Mead, of the Royal Engineers, for the self-evident explanation which I have adopted.

[22] A similar projecting course is to be seen on a wall which cuts off the neighbouring peninsula of the Willapark from the mainland. This wall, though ancient and probably defensive, cannot be supposed to be Roman or to show Roman methods.

[23] Rickman’s Gothic Architecture.

[24] I insert the description of Tintagel Castle as given in The High History of the Holy Grail, a French romance of the thirteenth century:

‘They (i.e. Arthur, Lancelot and Gawain) came into a very different land, scarce inhabited of any folk, and found a little castle in a combe. They came thitherward and saw that the enclosure of the castle was fallen down into an abysm, so that none might approach it on that side, but it had a right fair gateway and a door tall and wide, whereby they entered. They beheld a chapel that was right fair and rich, and below was a great ancient hall. They saw a priest appear in the middle of the castle, bald and old, that had come forth of the chapel. They are come thither and alighted, and asked the priest what the castle was, and he told them it was the great Tintagel. “And how is the ground all caved in about the castle?” The priest then relates the death of Gorlois and the transfiguration of Uther, “so that he begat King Arthur in a great hall that was next to the enclosure there, where this abysm is. And for this sin hath the ground sunken in on this wise.” He cometh then with them toward the chapel, that was right fair and had a right rich sepulchre therein. “Lords, in this sepulchre was placed the body of Merlin, but never mought it be set inside the chapel, wherefore perforce it remained outside. And know of very truth that the body lieth not within the sepulchre, for so soon as it was set therein it was taken out and snatched away, either in God’s behalf or the Enemy’s, but which we know not.”’ The High History of the Holy Grail, by Master Blihis (1200-1250), translated by Sebastian Evans, vol. ii., p. 75.

If we may suppose, as probably we may, that Master Blihis describes the castle as it was in his own time, though affecting to adapt his description to that of King Arthur, we may infer that in the thirteenth century when the existing castle was comparatively new it had already begun to suffer from the encroachments of the sea.

[25] In connection with the identification of Damelioc Castle, I have to acknowledge my obligation to the Director-General of the Ordnance Survey, and to Staff-Surgeon Trevan, of Bideford.

[26] See Gilbert’s History of Cornwall, 1838, vol. i. p. 328, vol. iv. p. 94.

[27] These measurements and others relating to the camps are only to be taken as approximate, the horizontal distances were measured by pacing, the heights by the eye. They will serve to give a generally correct impression, though not made with the accuracy of a land-surveyor. This may be found in the Ordnance maps which are attached.

[28] The Arthurian Legend, by Professor Rhys, pp. 15 and 38.

[29] The Arthurian Legend, by Professor Rhys, pp. 129 and 132.

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