The search for King Arthur and his legendary Camelot

Posted in Archaeology, Historical articles, History, Legend, Myth, Royalty on Tuesday, 10 December 2013

Click on any image for details about licensing for commercial or personal use.

This edited article about King Arthur first appeared in Look and Learn issue number 485 published on 1 May 1971.

King Arthur, picture, image, illustration

King Arthur by James E McConnell

The legends of King Arthur are familiar to most of us, and have been the basis for many stories. But how true are they? Here is one of the stories which has lasted down the years.

Six great battles stained the fair land of Britain – but in them all King Arthur had the victory and Britain lay at peace. The Saxons had fled, the Picts also, so Arthur said to Merlin his Wizard: “Now we must leave the mountains, for I will make my capital at Camelot which will be the finest city in all Christendom. In this city I shall live with a wife. It is right that a King should have a Queen and I have chosen Guinevere for she is the fairest of all maidens.”

“This is true,” Merlin replied sadly. “But I wish you had chosen another maid to be your wife for Guinevere’s very beauty will I fear, destroy your kingdom.”

Camelot was a fine city, yet finer still was the wedding between Arthur and Guinevere. When it was over, the King and all his knights entered the great hall that Merlin had built, there to feast and rejoice.

“What is this?” cried Arthur when he entered the door.

“This is the Round Table,” said Merlin, smiling. “See – it has seats for one hundred and fifty knights. Here you shall find the adventures that will fill your years – though I shall not stay to see them.”

The knights were puzzled, but they took their places and ate their fill. All of a sudden there was a clatter of hoofs and a baying of hounds as into that hall ran a white deer pursued by a small white dog. Thundering after came a pack of black hunting hounds.

Round and round the Table they sped until the small white dog knocked Sir Abelleus from his chair. Seizing the dog, the knight stormed from the hall in fury. Then the deer fled through the door followed by the black hounds, and disappeared into the woods. Hardly had they gone when a fair maiden entered.

“That white dog was mine, noble Arthur,” she cried. “One of your knights has stolen it!” Then another figure entered, a huge knight on a war-horse, who snatched up the woman and galloped into the forest after the hounds.

So began the First Quest for Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, as they set out in pursuit.

The legends of King Arthur do not seem to have much to do with reality but whatever the truth of his adventures, the character of Arthur is based on facts – but facts that hover uncertainly in the least known period of our history, the Dark Ages after the departure of the Romans.

Rome’s power was disappearing fast and nowhere was this felt more strongly than in Britain. Yet the misty island of Britannia, on the edge of the civilised world, was the only bit of Rome’s Empire to win independence, and for a while defend it, before being overwhelmed by barbarian invaders.

Gaul fell to the Franks, Spain to the Goths, Africa to the Vandals – but the Romanised Celts of Britain again and again beat off their invaders, the Angles, Saxons and Jutes.

We know some of the heroes of this desperate stand. Men like Maximus the Prince Macsen of Cornish legend, Vortigern later to become a villain for trying to come to terms with the invader, and Ambrosius who even built a navy to fight the foe.

The struggle went on. A great victory was won at Badon Hill – but who led the victorious British? Welsh legends insist if was Artorius, otherwise known as Arthur.

The search for this true Arthur isn’t new. As long ago as 1542 John Leland, Henry VIII’s personal Antiquary, visited South Cadbury in Somerset and recorded that: “At South Cadbyri standithe Camallate. The people can tell nothing thar but that they have hard say that Arture much resortid to Camalat.”

South-west England overflows with legends of the Noble Arthur – but what about some archaeological proof? Somerset’s “Arthur enthusiasts” have scratched around South Cadbury for years without finding much. Then some years ago two amateur archaeologists dug up some pottery that experts recognised as coming from Byzantium. They were only bits of broken wine-jars but they were the first real clues!

A Camelot Research Committee was formed from such varied groups as the dignified “Society of Antiquaries” and the less formal “Honourable Society of Knights of the Round Table.” And they wanted facts – just facts!

Patience and skill brought no hidden treasures, no immediate answers, but when the digging was over they had found more clues. Things were slowly falling into a pattern.

Cadbury Hill was certainly an important fort long before the Romans arrived. Under the Romans it was abandoned, then some time in those. Dark Years Cadbury was reoccupied and refortified. It also seems to have grown rich.

Could Cadbury have been Camelot where Arthur rallied the Christian British in a desperate and, for a while, successful stand against the invader? Its strong ramparts suggest a vital fortress, and then there was the church – the church that never was!

The diggers poking about on South Cadbury Hill came across a strange zig-zag line in the earth. When this was excavated it turned out to be a foundation trench for a large cross-shaped building – a church. But it was never finished. The church would have been made of stone, judging by the depth of the trench.

Did Arthur think up this bold idea of building a great church? Its design, an equal sided cross, seems Byzantine Greek in style. Perhaps a traveller from the east gave Arthur the idea. If his wars with the invaders were going well he might have dreamed of copying the great churches of mighty Constantinople, here in Britain, in civilisation’s last stronghold at the edge of the world. But it was a dream that came to nothing!

The Dark Age of Arthur was a time when the foundations of our country were being laid. Arthur – whoever he was – played a vital part in the story of these islands and only by more patient and skilful digging will we ever find out what his world was really like.

Comments are closed.