The Mammoth Book of King Arthur

by Mike Ashley

  Colgrim’s brother is awaiting further reinforcements from Germany under the leadership of Cheldric, but learning of Colgrim’s predicament he leads his troops overnight to York. He is attacked by Cador, Duke of Cornwall, in a vicious battle in which many are killed. Baldulf disguises himself as a minstrel and manages to get into York and be reunited with his brother. Arthur learns of the arrival of Cheldric’s forces, and rather than face so large an army retreats to London.

  Arthur calls upon Hoel, king of Brittany, who brings an army of 15,000 warriors to Britain. Geoffrey calls Hoel the son of Arthur’s sister, but he had already stated that Anna, who was younger than Arthur, was married to Loth, and certainly could not have been married previously. According to Geoffrey, Hoel’s father was Budic, the king who reared Ambrosius and Uther, and no direct relation to Arthur.

  The Saxons Colgrim and Baldulf do not appear in other documents, which makes one wonder where Geoffrey found the names. I am convinced that he found most of his sources from old records, and though he may have elaborated some aspects of his stories the names are almost certainly based on genuine people. The name Colgrim, for instance, while it does not feature in the Anglo-Saxon histories, appears on some of the coins of Athelred the Unready and Canute in the early eleventh century, and was the name of the moneyer working at the Lincoln mint. The connection with Lincoln is interesting, because of the suggested site of Arthur’s battles with Colgrim. Colgrim is actually a Norse name and so, once again, it seems likely that Geoffrey had found the name of a Scandinavian chieftain from a later vintage, who had nothing to do with the original Angle and Saxon settlement.

  There are also some parallels between Baldulf and the Norse demi-god Balder, especially in the tale from Saxo Grammaticus’s History of the Danes about the battle between Balder and the Danish king Høther (III.69). One night, during a pause in a violent battle, Høther disguises himself as a minstrel to infiltrate Balder’s camp, and accidentally stumbles across Balder and kills him. In Geoffrey’s story, it is Baldulf who disguises himself, but Geoffrey may have drawn his tale from the same source. The name Høther could have been treated by Geoffrey as Arthur.

  The Norwegian philologist Sophus Bugge (1833–1907) believed that some of the sources for the early Scandinavian sagas were founded on Christian and Latin tradition imported to Scandinavia from England. Therefore, it is possible that some of the sources for Saxo’s History, though told as Danish history, could owe their sources to earlier British events. Bugge suggested that Høther, in its original spelling Höur, could have been corrupted into Cador, and that Cheldric, or Cheldricus, may be a corruption of the Saxon king Gelderus, who was also defeated by Høther. As we shall see, there are various episodes from the early history of the Danes that have parallels, albeit slight, with Geoffrey’s account.

  Arthur and Hoel advance on Kaerluideoit (Kaer-lwyd-coed in Tysilio), which was being besieged by the Saxons. Geoffrey translates this as Lincoln, but it should be read as Lichfield (Letocetum). Making such an error shows that Geoffrey must have been working from an old document. Arthur lifted the siege and won a resounding victory, killing over six thousand Saxons. Though the town’s name is supposed to mean “grey wood” (llywd coed), it was long believed to mean “field of corpses” (lic feld), referring to an ancient battle. It was called Licitfelda as early as 710. In his Natural History of Staffordshire (1686), Robert Plot relates the name to the martyrdom of a thousand Christians here following the death of St. Alban. But the arms of Lichfield represent three slain kings on a field, and seem more appropriate to some long forgotten battle, possibly Arthur’s.

  The survivors flee, pursued by Arthur. The armies meet again at Caledon Wood where Arthur is able to lay siege to the Saxons. Eventually he starves them out, and agrees to grant the Saxons their lives if they return to Germany and pay tribute. The Saxons sail away but soon change their minds, sail round Britain and land at Totnes in Devon, ravaging the countryside of the southwest as far as the Severn estuary. Then they lay siege to Bath. Arthur, furious at their duplicity and swearing revenge, rushes south, leaving Hoel, who had fallen ill, at Alclud.

  Geoffrey describes Arthur’s preparation for the battle. Arthur dons his golden helmet with a dragon’s crest, and across his shoulders is his shield Pridwen, on which is painted a likeness of the Virgin Mary. His sword is Caliburn and his lance is Ron. Dubricius says a prayer, and the battle commences. The first day is deadlocked and the Saxons retreat to a nearby hill, still confident they will win by sheer weight of numbers. The next day Arthur and his men valiantly fight their way up the hill. Again, the battle seems deadlocked until Arthur, as Geoffrey describes it, goes berserk. Drawing his sword, Arthur rushes into the thick of battle, killing men with every blow – 470 in total, Geoffrey reports. Both Colgrim and Baldulf fall in the battle. Cheldric admits defeat and retreats, pursued by Cador who captures the Saxons’ ships and hunts the men down relentlessly. Although the Saxons seek safety in the Isle of Thanet, still Cador pursues them and succeeds in killing Cheldric, whereupon the remainder surrender.

  Arthur, in the meantime, has hurried back to Alclud, where Hoel is being besieged by Picts and Scots. His battles rage across Scotland, even up to Moray and Loch Lomond. Gilmaurius, the king of Ireland, arrives with reinforcements for his fellow Scots, but Arthur defeats him as well. Eventually the Scots are driven to famine by Arthur’s tactics and, taking pity upon them, Arthur relents and grants a pardon.

  Clearly in this section, Geoffrey’s description of the battle of Bath is the same as Nennius’s of Badon, complete with the description of Arthur’s shield with the image of the Virgin Mary. In a way that is almost convincing, Geoffrey paints a picture of Arthur defending his realm at two extremes, in the far north and in the southwest, not dissimilar to the valiant efforts of King Harold in 1066, who after defeating the Norse at Stamford Bridge, then marched south to fight the Normans at Senlac Hill.

  However, it is only two days’ ride from Lichfield to Wroxeter (Viriconium) and on to Welshpool, where The Dream of Rhonabwy places Badon at Caer Faddon. The retreat by the Saxons to “Thanet” could be to the River Tanat, just west of Breidden. It would also tie in with Clun, just south of Wroxeter and east of the river Tanat, being the Forest of Caledon.

  On the map opposite I have plotted the campaigns of Ambrosius, Uther and Arthur. With Arthur, I have taken the liberty of showing his campaign where I believe Geoffrey’s “ancient book” meant. If we were to believe that he went from York to Lincoln to Caledon in Scotland, and then down to Bath, it would be nonsense. But if we accept a route from the Douglas in Lancashire, on to York, down to Lichfield, then over to the Clun Forest and Caer Faddon, then there is a clear and straightforward pattern. This theory would support an Arthur based at Wroxeter, Chester or York.

  10. The Saxon Campaigns adapted from Geoffrey of Monmouth.

  Having subjugated his enemies, Arthur returns to York to restore law and order in the city. He appoints a new archbishop, as Samson has been driven out. Geoffrey notes that there were three brothers in York descended from the royal line, Loth, Urien and Auguselus. To each of these, Arthur restores his kingdom: Auguselus (whom Tysilio calls Arawn) receives Scotland; Urien receives Murray (Tysilio says Rheged); and Loth (Llew) receives Lothian (Tysilio says Lindsey). Geoffrey also says that Loth, “in the days of Aurelius Ambrosius had married that King’s own sister.” This makes more sense than Loth marrying Arthur’s young sister Anna. We know nothing of Ambrosius’s sister, but it is here that Geoffrey says that she was the mother of Gawain and Mordred.

  There is much to ponder in this passage. If the kings Geoffrey named were historical then we ought to have a record of them. The best known is Urien of Rheged, who reigned from about 570–590. Loth we have already mentioned, but it is interesting here that Tysilio makes him a ruler of Lindsey, rather than Lothian. Lindsey had been a separate kingdom but was taken over by the Saxons at an early stage, and its earliest attested ruler (if the genealogies are correct) was Crida
(or Critta), in the 580s. His successors included a king with the British name Caedbaed, suggesting that the territory changed hands at some stage. The third brother, Auguselus, is probably Geoffrey’s version of Angus, brother of Fergus of Dál Riata, who had established himself as ruler in Argyll in 498. Angus became chief of Islay and the surrounding islands. He was not related to Urien – indeed, he was not even British – and is a good example of how Geoffrey’s Historia, like a sponge, soaks up individuals regardless of when and where they lived and works them into an apparently cohesive story.

  Of most interest, however, is that Arthur is clearly operating from York, and York had always been the base for the dux Britanniarum. It is entirely possible, indeed very likely, that Geoffrey had found an ancient account of a campaign waged by a sixth century prince, still operating from York like the dux of old, and rallying the other princes – all of whom would have been his direct or distant cousins – against the Saxons. If this was the Arthur of the Welsh Annals, with the dates corrected as per Gildas and Nennius, then we need to look for such a ruler in the period 480–500. Table 3.3 shows that at this time dominating the north were Arthwys of the Pennines and his son (some pedigrees suggest his brother) Eliffer of the Great Host. Eliffer could well have been based at York and we have also seen that his name is Latin was Eleutherius and that Geoffrey may have found a manuscript listing Eleutherius’s son as Arthur. There is every possibility that Geoffrey had found a chronicle of the battles of Arthwys and Eleutherius and connected this to the works of Nennius and Gildas.

  Circumstantial though this is, we nevertheless have names similar to Uther and Arthur, based in the area and period covered by Geoffrey, who were likely to have rallied fellow princes against the Saxons. Since we have also seen that Arthur could have fought at Breidden, the Caer Faddon of Welsh tradition, we may at last be seeing a pattern emerge.

  Geoffrey continues by telling us that having set these matters to rights Arthur marries “the most beautiful woman in the entire island”, Guenevere. According to Geoffrey, she is descended from a noble Roman family, and has been raised in the household of Cador. Cador is Arthur’s half brother, son of Gorlois and Ygerna. Perhaps Guinevere had been Arthur’s childhood sweetheart. Tysilio’s version, however, says that it was her mother who was descended from the Roman nobility, and that her father was the hero Gogfran. Despite his hero status, we don’t know much about Gogfran, or Ogrfan as he’s often called. His home is variously placed at Aberysgyr (now Aberyscir), just west of Brecon or Caer Ogyrfan, the old name for Oswestry (see Gazetteer).

  After his marriage, Arthur rebuilds his fleet and, with the coming of summer, sets off to take revenge against the Irish king Gilmaurius. Although Gilmaurius faces Arthur with a huge army, Arthur defeats him without any trouble.

  Having subjugated Ireland, Arthur sails to Iceland, where he subdues the island, bringing immediate submission from the kings of “Gotland” and the Orkneys. Even assuming that Iceland was known to Irish navigators at this time, which has not been proven, it is not somewhere that Arthur or any other British ruler would be concerned with. In Tysilio this name is rendered as Islont, and it has been suggested by Peter Roberts, in his translation of Tysilio’s Chronicle, that this means Islay, the island in the southern Hebrides ruled by the descendants of Fergus’s brother Angus. It is far more likely that a sixth-century prince would be fighting the Irish Scotii in the Hebrides, and that Geoffrey is here recalling a campaign by a British warrior in the western and northern isles. It is also likely that this is where Geoffrey’s “Irish” kings lived, amongst the Scotii of Kintyre.

  However, it is worth noting that later, when Geoffrey lists all the notables attending Arthur’s court, he refers to Malvasius, king of Iceland. Malvasius is Geoffrey’s Latinization of Melwas, the king notorious in the Arthurian legends for the abduction of Guenevere. Melwas is usually described as the king of the Summer Country, or Somerset, but in Breton tales he was called the Lord of the Isle of Glass (Isle de Voirre), usually interpreted as Glastonbury, then an island in the Somerset marshes. Geoffrey may well have mistaken “glass” for “ice”, and is really referring to Arthur’s subjugation of Melwas. The story of Guenevere’s abduction is not otherwise told by Geoffrey, but does appear in the Life of Gildas.

  The use of the word Gotland by Geoffrey may seem strange at first. Tysilio uses Gothland, which normally means Sweden, when referring to that part of Scotland restored to Auguselus. By Geoffrey’s day there had been considerable dispute between Scotland and Sweden and Norway (then one country) over ownership of the Hebrides and Orkneys. Most telling here is the story in one of the Icelandic sagas, of the ninth-century adventurer Ketil Flatnose, a Viking who had settled in the Norse kingdom of Dublin. King Olaf of Dublin, who had married Ketil’s daughter, sent Ketil on a mission to rid the Hebrides of Danish pirates. Ketil was successful and set himself up as king of the Hebrides. After his death in about 870, his family left Britain and settled in Iceland. Ketil’s grandson Thorstein later returned and established himself as a power in Caithness and Orkney.

  However, Gotland is a corruption of Geatland. The Geats were a people of south Sweden, and were amongst those who settled in eastern England between the sixth and tenth centuries. Beowulf was king of the Geats, and it has been suggested that there may be a connection between the Geats and the later ninth-century kings of Mercia, starting with King Wiglaf in 827. Wiglaf does not fit comfortably into the genealogy of the Mercian kings, and it is possible that he was related by marriage and came from the vassal rulers of the sub-kingdom of Lindsey, in which case Geoffrey’s reference to Geatland may be to the name by which Lindsey was known in the ninth and tenth centuries.

  There was an earlier warlord whose battles followed this sequence. Aedan mac Gabhran, king of the Dál Riatan Scots, came to power in 574. In confirming his authority Aedan was in conflict with his Irish overlord Baetan map Cairill who defeated Aedan at Dun Baetan in that year. In 580, Aedan led a campaign to the Orkneys whose inhabitants were doubtless causing havoc around the Scottish Isles and, in 582, after Baetan’s death, he conquered the Isle of Man. If we allow for Geoffrey to have confused Islay with the Isle of Man, we have both Arthur and Aedan in battle in Ireland, Man and the Orkneys. And accompanying Aedan on these campaigns would have been his son Artúir!

  This northern theme continues in Geoffrey’s next section. Apparently, after subjugating all the rebellious parts of Britain and Ireland, Arthur settles down to a reign of peace and harmony, a Pax Arthuriana. It is now that a code of courtliness and chivalry arises, and that Arthur’s knights travel abroad, undertaking deeds of bravery. The other nations of Europe are so in awe of Arthur that they build major defences in case he should invade. Arthur reacts to this in what seems a sudden change of character. He becomes arrogant, and believes he can conquer Europe.

  His first assault is on Norway. Geoffrey reveals that Loth, who is once again described as Arthur’s brother-in-law, was the nephew of Sichelm, king of Norway. Sichelm had bequeathed Loth the kingdom but after Sichelm’s death the Norwegians raised Riculf to the throne. Arthur invades Norway and in his usual manner sheds much blood, quells the country and is victorious. Both Norway and Denmark become subject to Arthur’s growing imperial rule. Riculf is killed, and Loth becomes king.

  The origins for this section of Geoffrey’s narrative are not straightforward. Neither Norway nor Denmark existed as separate nations until a century or two after Arthur’s day. It is possible that Geoffrey misunderstood Norway for Norgales, a common word in the Norman period for North Wales. But in any case, by Geoffrey’s time both Norway and Denmark had proved themselves to be amongst the most powerful nations in Europe, through the domination of the Vikings. Both nations had ruled in Britain, most famously under Canute. Earlier, Alfred the Great had held on to Wessex by his fingernails when the Danes overran England, and his fight to defeat the Danes and recover his kingdom has some resonance with Arthur’s story. After Alfred, England was divided for over a c
entury with the Danes ruling half the country, and the Norse ruling, for a while, in York. Geoffrey probably knew this as history, and could have been influenced by Alfred’s actions in presenting his own narrative.

  There may be two other sources for this story, which Geoffrey wove together. At the time Geoffrey was writing, the Orkney Isles were still owned by Norway. In the early 980s, the earl of Orkney was Ljot, and his claim to the throne was disputed by his brother Skuli, who succeeded in raising the support of Kenneth II of Scotland. Ljot, however, won so convincingly that he laid claim to much of northern Scotland. Soon afterwards, he was killed in battle by Maelbrigte, uncle of Macbeth. Ljot’s authority in northern Britain may well have echoed down the years, and Geoffrey might have linked the name with the following episode which took place in Gaul, at a time contemporary with Geoffrey’s other stories of Arthur. Gregory of Tours tells the story in his History of the Franks, and, as he was directly involved, the story is wholly reliable. In the 570s, the Count of Tours was Leudast, the son of a slave who had risen to prominence under the patronage of the wife of Charibert, king of Paris. Leudast was a schemer, working one faction against another, but after Charibert’s death he fell foul of Chilperic, king of Soissons, and was removed from office. Leudast then told Chilperic that Bishop Gregory was scheming to have the son of the late King Sigebert elevated to his former post. Chilperic saw through Leudast and had him cast into prison, but Leudast contrived with a priest called Riculf to spread stories to discredit Bishop Gregory. Leudast promised Riculf that he would make the priest bishop in Gregory’s place, but their plot was eventually uncovered after Riculf was tortured to within an inch of his life. Leudast fled, but later met his just deserts.