Finding Arthur Read online

  ALSO BY ADAM ARDREY

  Finding Merlin:

  The Truth Behind the Legend of the Great Arthurian Mage

  Copyright

  This edition first published in hardcover in the United States and the United Kingdom in 2013

  by Overlook Duckworth, Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc.

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  For bulk and special sales, please contact [email protected],

  or write us at the above address.

  LONDON

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  Copyright © 2013 by Adam Ardrey

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.

  ISBN: 978-1-4683-0843-3

  For Dorothy-Anne, Claudia, Kay, and Eliot

  Contents

  ALSO BY ADAM ARDREY

  COPYRIGHT

  MAPS

  CHRONOLOGY

  GLOSSARY OF NAMES

  INTRODUCTION

  1. The Four Horsemen of History

  2. The Would-Be Arthurs

  3. Why Arthur Is Lost to History

  4. A Fragmented Kingdom

  5. La Naissance d’Arthur

  6. The Sword in the Stone

  7. Camelot

  8. The Scottish Civil War

  9. The Great Angle War

  10. The Legend Is Born

  11. Finding Camlann: The Last Battle

  EPILOGUE: ÁRYA

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

  NOTES

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  INDEX

  About the Author

  Argyll, Scotland

  The Nennius Battles

  A. GLEIN (ARGYLL)

  B. THE FOUR BATTLES OF DOUGLAS (LOCH LOMOND)

  C. BASSAS (CIRCENN-CHIRCHIND-CARPOW)

  D. CALEDONIAN WOOD

  E. GUINNION (STOW)

  F. CITY OF THE LEGIONS (TRIMONTIUM, MELROSE)

  G. TRIBRUIT (RIVER TEVIOT)

  H. BREGUION / AGNED (BENDERLOCH)

  I. BADON’S (BADDEN, ARGYLL)

  Chronology

  410

  The Romans leave Britain.

  c. 475 to c. 548

  The traditional time of Arthur.

  c. 500

  Fergus Mor Mac Erc, Arthur’s great-great-grandfather, invades Argyll and becomes king of the Scots of Dalriada-Scotland.

  c. 501

  Death of Fergus—Domangart Mac Fergus, Arthur’s great-grandfather becomes king of the Scots.

  c. 507

  Death of Domangart—Comgall Mac Domangart, Arthur’s great-granduncle, becomes king of the Scots.

  c. 525

  Gabhran Mac Domangart, Arthur’s grandfather arrives in Manau.

  c. 530

  Birth of Aedan Mac Gabhran, Arthur’s father.

  c. 538

  Comgall Mac Domangart, Arthur’s great granduncle, abdicates—Gabhran Mac Domangart, Arthur’s grandfather, becomes king of the Scots.

  c. 540

  Birth of Merlin-Lailoken and his twin-sister, Languoreth, at Cadzow-Hamilton.

  c. 544

  The Angles arrive under the warlord Ida.

  547

  Ida stages a coup and founds the Angle kingdom of Bernicia.

  553

  Emrys leads resistance to the Angles.

  c. 557

  Emrys takes the title Pen Dragon.

  c. 558

  Arthur’s grandfather, Gabhran Mac Domangart, king of the Scots, defeated by Bridei Mac Maelchon, king of the Picts. Gabhran dies this year or perhaps the following year. Conall Mac Comgall, Arthur’s second cousin once removed, becomes king of the Scots.

  c. 559

  Birth of Arthur Mac Aedan (Arthur).

  c. 563

  Gwenddolau becomes the second Pen Dragon, the “other” or Uther Pendragon.

  563

  Columba-Crimthann arrives in Scotland.

  c. 568

  The rebel lords rise against Conall, king of the Scots. Columba-Crimthann is given Iona.

  c. 570

  Aedan, Arthur’s father, becomes king of Manau.

  573

  Battle of Arderydd. Merlin goes into exile in the Caledonian Wood.

  574

  Aedan, Arthur’s father, becomes king of the Scots of Dalriada. Arthur takes the sword from the stone and becomes tanist and warlord of the Scots.

  c. 574 to c. 575

  Scots civil war—Battle of Delgon and Arthur’s Battle of Glein.

  575 to 576

  The Council of Drumceatt.

  c. 577 to c. 580

  Arthur’s four Battles of Douglas.

  c. late-570s

  Arthur kills Hueil the brother of Gildas.

  c. 580

  Merlin returns from exile. The Orkney campaign of Aedan, Arthur’s father.

  c. 584

  The Battle of Bassas—Arthur defeats the Miathi-Pictish king, Bridei Mac Maelchon.

  c. 586

  Part one of the Great Angle War—Arthur is victorious in every battle:

  Campaign of the Caledonian Wood

  The Battle of the Caledonian Wood

  The Battle of Guinnion

  The Battle of the City of the Legions

  The Battle of Tribruit.

  c. 588

  Part two of the Great Angle War—Arthur is victorious in both battles:

  The Badon Campaign

  Battle of Agned-Breguoin

  Battle of Badon.

  c. 592

  Death of Muluag of Lismore.

  593

  Death of Éoganán Mac Gabhran, Arthur’s uncle.

  c. 596

  Battle of Camlann and the death of Arthur.

  597

  Death of Columba-Crimthann.

  c. 598

  Gildas completes De Excidio Britanniae. Battle of Catterick in which the Angles defeat the Gododdin.

  c. 600

  Merlin-Lailoken is forced from court by Saint Mungo Kentigern.

  c. 603

  Battle of Degaston at which the Angles defeat Aedan’s army and the man now called Lancelot.

  c. 603 to c. 608

  Death of Aedan, Arthur’s father.

  612

  Death of Rhydderch, king of Strathclyde, and of Saint Mungo Kentigern.

  c. 615

  The Angles cut Britain in two at Chester or Carlisle.

  c. 618

  Death of Merlin-Lailoken.

  c. 830

  Nennius completes Historia Brittonum.

  c. 1136

  Geoffrey of Monmouth publishes Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain).

  1152

  Geoffrey of Monmouth becomes bishop of St. Asaph.

  1485

  Thomas Malory publishes Le Morte d’Arthur.

  Glossary of Names

  THE SCOTS

  Fergus Mor Mac Erc, Fergus the Great, Arthur’s great-great-grandfather, the man who led a Scots army from Ireland to Scotland c. 500 (r. 500–501)

  Domangart Mac Fergus, Arthur’s great-grandfather (r. 501–507)

  Comgall Mac Domangart, Arthur’s granduncle, king of the Scots (r. 507–538)

  Gabhran Mac Domangart, Arthur’s grandfather, (r. 538–559)

>   Conall Mac Comgall, king of the Scots (r. 559–574 ), Arthur’s second cousin once removed

  Aedan Mac Gabhran, Arthur’s father, king of the Scots (r. 574–608)

  Arthur Mac Aedan

  Éoganán, Arthur’s uncle

  Duncan, Arthur’s third cousin

  STRATHCLYDE

  Rhydderch, king of the Strathclyde Britons (r. 580–612)

  Gwyneth, daughter of Morken of Cadzow, twin-sister of Merlin-Lailoken, wife of Rhydderch, queen of Strathclyde, known as Languoreth (the Golden One), The Swan-Necked Woman, The Lioness of Damnonia

  Merlin-Lailoken, son of Morken of Cadzow, twin brother of Languoreth, Rhydderch’s chief counselor, a leading druid

  Gawain, Arthur’s nephew by the first marriage of his sister Anna

  Cai (Kay), one of Arthur’s warriors, perhaps his foster-brother

  Gildas, Gille Deas, Servant of God, son of Caw of Cambuslang

  Hueil, Gildas’s brother

  Domelch, a Pictish princess of Manau, possibly Arthur’s mother

  Ygerna/Igraine, a lady of Strathclyde, possibly Arthur’s mother

  THE PICTS

  Bridei Mac Maelchon (Brude Mac Maelcon), king of the Miathi Picts

  Guinevere, a princess of the Picts of Manau, Arthur’s wife

  THE ANGLES

  Hussa, king of the Angles of Bernicia (r. 585–593)

  Hering son of Hussa, an Angle prince

  Aethelfrith, king of the Angles of Bernicia (r. 593–616)

  THE GODODDIN

  Mungo, son of Taneu (a princess of the Gododdin) and a lord of Strathclyde

  Mordred, son of Arthur’s sister, Anna, by her second marriage to Lot of the Lothians

  “There is … no more difficult task than to substitute the correct ‘sumpsimus’ for the long cherished and accepted ‘mumpsimus’ of popular historians. All that the Author has attempted … is to show what the most reliable authorities do really tell us of the early annals of the country [Scotland], divested of the spurious matter of superstitious authors, the fictitious narratives of our early historians, and the rash assumptions of later writers which have been imported into it.”

  —W. F. SKENE, Historiographer Royal to Queen Victoria

  Introduction

  FOR MORE THAN A THOUSAND YEARS INNUMERABLE WRITERS HAVE invented stories about King Arthur. Even now, children all over the world grow up hearing tales of Arthur’s legendary adventures with the Knights of the Round Table, his love for Guinevere, his friendship with the magician Merlin, and his mythical home in Camelot.

  The writers telling these stories have been, by and large, Christian, English, and monarchist. Naturally, their Arthur has been portrayed, almost invariably, as a Christian English king—perhaps the greatest one of all.

  But was he any of these things? Who was the historical Arthur, really? When did he live? Where did he live? What did he do? Why did he do it? Why is he so famous?

  The question Who was Arthur? has confounded scholars for centuries. It has never been satisfactorily answered or, at least, it has never been answered in a way that allows all these other questions to be answered too.

  Geoffrey of Monmouth’s twelfth-century History of the Kings of Britain is one of the main pillars upon which the story of Arthur stands. According to Geoffrey, his History was based on “a certain very ancient book written in the British language,” which was given to him by his mentor, Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford. Unfortunately Geoffrey did not identify this book, and it is now lost.

  Some fifty years after Geoffrey wrote his History, a bishop of Glasgow commissioned a monk called Jocelyn of Furness to write a hagiography of a local saint, Mungo Kentigern (now patron saint of Glasgow). Jocelyn’s Life of Kentigern contains much of what we currently know about the story of Merlin. According to Jocelyn, his book was based on a “codicil, composed in the Scottic style” that he found while going about the streets and quarters of Glasgow. Like Geoffrey of Monmouth, Jocelyn did not identify his source material, and it too is now lost.

  Some 820 years after Jocelyn wrote his Life of Kentigern, I wrote in my previous book, Finding Merlin, of an “eighteenth-century book based on sixth- to ninth-century sources,” in which I found evidence that enabled me to identify the historical Arthur. Like Geoffrey and Jocelyn, I chose not to name my source, as I thought it was more a part of Arthur’s story than of Merlin’s. Some readers were justifiably annoyed when I said I would identify this book but that this would “have to wait until later.” Fortunately, unlike Geoffrey and Jocelyn, I am now able—and willing—to name my source: John O’Brien’s Focalóir Gaoidhilge-Sax-Bhéarla; An Irish-English Dictionary, which clarified the connection between the earliest reference to Merlin, at the Battle of Arderydd in the year 573, and the presence of a historical Arthur at a place called Dunardry in 574.

  Until I found that “eighteenth-century book based on sixth- to ninth-century sources,” I had had no particular interest in Arthur or in Merlin. I liked television programs and films about the “Knights of the Round Table” when I was a boy, but I also liked Sword-and-Sandal epics and Westerns. The comics and the books I read as a child were as likely to be about Custer and his Seventh Cavalry, or Jason and his Argonauts, as Arthur and his Knights. I was an equal-opportunity hero-worshipper.

  The Arthur who appeared in these children’s stories was almost always the same character. The young Arthur was the pure and simple boy of the Disney cartoon The Sword in the Stone, a film inspired by T. H. White’s book The Once and Future King. The adult Arthur could also be found in film—the musical Camelot; John Boorman’s atmospheric Excalibur; the stolid Knights of the Round Table starring Robert Taylor—as well as in television shows such as The Adventures of Sir Lancelot. This Arthur was almost always an avuncular stay-at-home, who lost the woman he loved to his best friend, the dashing Lancelot. Worse still in the boyhood-hero-stakes, this Arthur lacked the warrior spirit and fighting prowess of his rival.

  Like most people, I pictured King Arthur’s Camelot as existing in some vague conception of the Middle Ages inspired by Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur: a place of turreted castles somewhere in England, inhabited by men in plate armor and women in pointed hats topped with chiffon. It was only later that I realized there was no historical Arthur in medieval English history, far less a “King” Arthur, and came to accept the general consensus that if there really was a historical Arthur he must have lived in the late fifth or early sixth centuries. Later still I found out that there was no historical Arthur in the late fifth or early sixth centuries either.

  If I had known when I was a boy that Geoffrey’s “ancient book” was in a “British language”—that is, in a Celtic language—and that Jocelyn’s codicil was “Scottic,” I might have guessed that Arthur was probably a Celt and possibly a Scot and looked to the north to find him. But along with almost everyone else I did not doubt the conventional wisdom that Arthur had lived in the south of Britain.

  It was only in 1989, when I read Richard Barber’s The Figure of Arthur, that I realized there was another possible Arthur, a Scottish one. However, after considering a goodly number of possible Arthurs, Richard Barber concluded that “Short of some fantastic invention, a time machine, say, or an equally fantastic discovery, an inscription naming him from a period which has barely left a word engraved on stone, Arthur himself will always elude us.”1

  I thought Barber was right and accepted that Arthur would always elude us, unless, of course, someone discovered something fantastic. I didn’t imagine that I’d be the one to make or even to pursue such a discovery. Why would I? People who set out on such quests—and they do usually refer to them as quests—often end up as eccentrics, at best. Then, by sheer chance, I came across the source I’ve already mentioned, and the real story became clearer than I ever thought possible.

  Several years ago, I was researching my family name in advance of a trip I’d planned with my young son to Argyll, Scotland, where our family had lived before they beca
me part of the Protestant Plantation of Ireland in the seventeenth century. As I researched, two things helped me to look where no one else had looked and find what no one else had found: first, that our name, Ardrey, is rare in the extreme, and second, that very few people are interested in family trees other than their own. In a great many ways, I was lucky.

  When I was at school in Scotland, “British” history—in effect English history—was promoted and Scottish history was played down. Despite or perhaps because of this cultural indoctrination, I came to number among my heroes Scots who had been all but airbrushed out of history: men like William Wallace (of the film Braveheart) and Robert the Bruce, the real braveheart of history. This one-sided schooling left me open to the possibility that the story of Arthur too could have been worked on and warped for political purposes.