Moments in Time

Who was King Arthur?

Arthur's name will forever be linked to Camelot, the Lady of the Lake, the Round Table and brave tales of chivalry, but did he really exist?. Can the facts and the myths be separated?.

In the middle of the 6th century, the monk Gildas wrote of the ruin of Britain by the invading Anglo Saxons, a race he describes as "hateful to God". He tells of the destruction wrought by the invaders in haunting detail, "In the streets lay the tops of lofty towers tumbled to the ground, stones of high walls, holy altars, fragments of human bodies covered with livid clots of congealed blood looking as though they had been squeezed in a press and with no hope of burial save in the ruins of their houses, or in the ravening bellies of wild beasts".

If the Celts ever needed a leader, it was now and, if they did not have one, he would need to be invented. Step forward Arthur,  styled "King of the Britons" by some writers, although the scant details available record him as "Dux Bellorum", or War Leader. Some believe that Arthur was an authentic historical figure, while others think him a romantic wish fulfilling myth, indeed, the very name Arthur can be traced to a number of possible roots such as the Roman "Artorius"(meaning Plowman), or to the Welsh "Art", meaning "Bear". Tag this to "Ur", old Welsh for "Man" and we have Arthur or Bear Man, ie, a man of strength. The name might even derive from the Saxon "Ar Thur", or the Eagle of Thor. It was not unknown for leaders to be known by a title that indicated strength and power as can be seen in in the name of the northern ruler Vortigern, which has the meaning "Great King"and also in the names of the legendary Hengist and Horsa have roots meaning "powerful horseman".

It has long been pointed out that no direct reference to Arthur was recorded by Bede, Gildas or the Anglo Saxon Chronicle and this omission has been used to discount his existence. It must be remembered however, that these sources wrote from an Anglo Saxon point of view and would not necessarily  wish to give him currency. Much of what we know of the romanticised version of Arthur comes from the pen of Geoffrey of Monmouth, writing in the 12th century, but the earliest reference to the name appears around 600 AD in the writings of the Welsh monk Anerien, who, in a passage in his poem "Y Goddodin" tells of a warrior who, "Glutted blavk ravens on the ramparts of the fort, although he was no Arthur". There are later references to him in The Historia Brittonium, written by Nennius in 830 AD and in the Welsh Easter Annuals (Annales Cambriae) which mentions Arthur by name and states that he fought in the Battle of Blaydon, thought to have taken place in 516 AD, and records, " Arthur carried the cross of our lord, Jesus Christ on his shoulder for three days and three nights and the Britons were victors".

The modern view of Arthur is of Camelot, the Round Table, courtly knights Lancelot and Galahad, mainly through the works of Geoffrey opf Monmouth and Sir Thomas Mallory, writing in the 12th and 15th centuries, but thye reality seems more mundane. Arthur is claimed as king by almost every Celtic kingdom from Cornwall to Scotland and it would be useful to examine these claims in more detail. Geoffrey states that Arthur, the son of Uther Pendragon, was from Breton stock, his grandfather Constans having been sent to Britain by King Aldrian of Brittany, who had been asked to help rescue the country from the turmoil created when the Romans left. The Anglo Saxon Chronicle has much to say regarding the devastation being caused by the warlike Angles and Saxons and the wealthier Britons did send their children   to neighbouring Brittany for safety. It notes that a Romano-Briton named Ambrosius Auelianus , with his brother Uther, were smuggled abroad during the upheaval  following the murder of King Constans. The Welsh monk Nennius confirms that Ambrosius was the grandson of the self styled Emperor Constantine and had "worn the purple" and was the rightful heir to the kingdom of Britain.

Ambrosius returned to Britain, landing at Totness in Devon and raised an army to oppose both Vortigern and the invaders. He fought a battle against Vortigern's forces at Guloph, thought to be present day Wallop in Somerset and went on to attack and kill Vortigern by burning him to death in a tower. Nennius goes on to name Ambrosius as "king among all kings in the British nation". In 495 AD he fought and won a major battle against the Anglo Saxons at Mount Baydon, thought to be in the region of Bath in Somerset, and, as a result, according to Gildas, "stemmed the tide of invasion for forty years". Could this be our prototype Arthur?.

Turning to Uther, the brother and staunch ally of Ambrosius, fighting at his side in the many battles against the invaders and also commanding an expedition to Ireland to try and subdue its wild inhabitants. He became king on his brother's death, taking the name Pendragon from a fiery star that appeared in that year and continued to fight the invaders and all the other factions bent on ravaging the country. It was while helping the King of Strathclyde in his battle against the northern Angles that he did through the poisoning of a well contaminated by a fleeing enemy. Nennius states that Uther's son Arthur became king in 521 AD at the age of fifteen and ruled for twenty one years before he himself being killed in a battle. He goes on to relate that Arthur fought twelve battles against the Anglo Saxons, the last being at Mount Baydon where he is said to have killed 960 men!. This lionising of folk heroes and exaggeration of numbers is a common theme among the early writers. He is also said to have fought a number of battles against his rebellious half brother Mordred, the last being at Camlann in 537 AD, described by Tennyson as ,"the last dim weird battle of the west", where both Arthur and Mordred were killed. Historians have long sought to prove the locations of all these battles and opinion has placed them in all and every corner of the country. The balance of probability puts them in the north and if so, Arthur's opponents were more likely to have been Picts ans Scots rather than Anglo Saxons.

Various other sources confirm that battles did indeed take place at the sites mentioned, but often many years apart. This may be partly due to the sequence of dates in the Chronicle and other writings which relates history in nineteen year cycles and often repeats itself.

Legend has it that Arthur died at Camlann, killed by Mordred.  The Welsh Annuals written in 573 AD provides part of the scant evidence and tells of "the strife at Camlann in which Arthur and Mordred fell". Alternatively, there is a battle recorded in the  Annals of Ulster between Aedan, king of Dal Riada and the Picts of Miathi (an ancient kingdom centred around the Forth) which is recorded as the battle of Manann, fought in 582  which Arthur, son of Aedan was killed. The Annals of Tigermach also refers to a battle at Circinn in 596 AD in which Arthur was killed. Perhaps all these battles were one and the same despite the differences in dates and places. It was certainly a time of violent struggle and many battles would have been woven into songs and stories.

So we have scraps of historical references from the native Britons naming Arthur, but nothing from the later, but equally biased Anglo Saxon chroniclers. The probable truth is that Arthur was a romantic amalgam of many Celtic leaders involved in the fight against the invaders.

True or legend, in Avalon he rests in peace. He provided a rallying point when hope was lost, when hope was needed, and later supplied the basis of legends of the Round Table and knightly chivalry so beloved by generations of schoolboys.