Arthur, King of the Britons

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

Arthur, King of the Britons

    Who was Arthur? This is a very complicated question. There is no correct answer, no definitive individual that can be plucked from history and the statement made- 'here is King Arthur!'. However, there is a growing body of authors who lay claim to this very fact.
    Within the last century, scholars and amateurs alike have stepped forward to answer our quest. Each attempt to claim the elusive grail sheds light on our 'Once and Future King' but each time that the light rises at the boundary of our mystical realm, Arthur laughs and steps back into the shadows. Briefly for our elucidation, some of Arthur's claimants have been --Riothamus, a Breton king of the mid fifth century that may have had lands in Britain proper; Arwiragus, the historical Caractacus son of Cymbeline, who fought the Romans in the first century; Owain Ddantgwyn, king of Powys and uncle of Maelgwn ap Gwynedd who ruled in the later part of the fifth and early sixth century; Lucius Artorius Castus, a Roman officer who commanded troops in the north of Britain; and in recent discussions, Cerdic or Cynric his son who were early kings of Wessex in Cornwall. Arthur has been claimed by the Bretons, the British, the Cornish, the Welsh, and the Scots. His histories grew in times of civil war to boost the legal claims of the Norman and Angevin kings and centuries later the rise of the Tudors.
   On the dark, storm-shrouded horizon, we also have the historians that claim Arthur never existed, that he was the invention of the Welsh and Britons, a shining hero for their dark times, a humanity laid over old tales of the gods and modernized as a backdrop for the romances of the present.
   The historical Arthur is shrouded in the mists of the Dark Ages; the strength of his existence falling mainly on the brief mentions in the Annales Cambriae and the Historia Brittonum written and compiled in the ninth and tenth centuries; although there is a first glimpse in the sixth century poem, the Gododdin in which a warrior was extolled - 'although he was no Arthur'. The best description of what we know and do not know about Arthur might be found in the introduction to:   The Encyclopaedia of Arthurian Legend by Ronan Coghlan: "What is certain is that Arthur was NOT a medieval King. The modern images of knights in plate armour and a grand castle called Camelot are not historical at all. We know very little historically speaking but Arthur was probably a 5th century warrior chieftain who protected his peoples from invaders for a time. The battle of Camlan is probably connected to Arthur. More than this is pure conjecture, though there is an awful lot of conjecture.
   A more modern approach to the question "Who was Arthur?" might say that history is irrelevant and that the mythology surrounding the legend is more important. Even the mythology is complex though and Arthur changes in stories from a God-like Celtic King to a deflated early medieval monarch."
   As Professor Gwyn Williams stated, we have only two alternatives: either accept the whole as a myth, legends created for the times; or do as he does and accept Arthur as a historical figure, his story as painted in the histories broadly true.
   The quest that we have embarked on will find a flesh and blood man, a warrior for his age, a king for all time. At the end of Malory's Morte D'Arthur, Malory states:
   Yet some men say in many parts of England that King Arthur is not dead, but had by the will of Our Lord into another place; and men say that he shall come again and he shall win the holy cross. I will not say that it shall be so, but rather I will say, here in this world he changed his life. But many men say that there is written upon his tomb this verse:

Hic Iacet Arthurus, Rex Quondam Rexque Futurus

Here Lies King Arthur, The Once And Future King