Le Morte D'Arthur by Thomas Mallory

Le Morte D'Arthur, written by Sir Thomas Mallory, is a compilation of stories of the Arthurian legend plus some original material from Mallory himself. The whole work is twenty-one chapters long, organized into eight books. It begins with the story of King Unther Pendragon, the father of Arthur. He has a child with Igraine which was raised by Merlin the magician. The boy Arthur was declared king of England after the death of Unther, when he was able to draw a “fated” sword from a stone. (This sword is often misidentified as the legendary Excalibur.)

Mallory also tells (in Chapters XIII-XVII under Book VI) of several knights--Sir Lancelot, Sir Percival, Sir Bors, and Sir Galahad--embarking on the Quest for the Sangreal, or the Holy Grail. They had several encounters with hermits who told them to repent of their sins in order to be worthy of the Grail. They part ways to their own adventures, only to meet again. At the Castle Corbenic, where the Grail was, Lancelot was shown not to be worthy of the quest. Galahad achieves the Grail but dies shortly afterwards, translated directly into heaven. Percival became a hermit while Bors returns to Arthur's court.

The story below covers Chapters XX and XI (under Book VIII), which begins with the adulterous affair of Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere (which has been going on for quarter of a century), the rebellion of Sir Modred, King Arthur's son (by Lot's wife) until King Arthur's death. The story ends with the fate of the knights after the Round Table was disbanded.

The following is a summary from Arthurian-Legend.Com, lightly edited.

Chapter XX

Lancelot and Guinevere by Emma Florence Harrison. (Image courtesy of ArtsyCraftsy.com)

Sir Agravaine and Sir Mordred made their move to reveal the affair between Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere, which has been happening for quarter of a century, and with King Arthur's reluctant permission, plotted to catch Lancelot and Guinevere the next night, while Arthur was away hunting. Arthur had pointed out that a simple accusation was useless, because Lancelot would simply kill--in Trial by Combat--anybody who spoke the "truth", thus "proving" his innocence. 

Sir Gawain and two other knights, Sir Gareth and Sir Gaheris wanted nothing to do with the affair, so Agravaine and Mordred recruited a dozen Scottish knights to help, including Sir Florence and Sir Lovel, two sons of Gawain. 

That evening, Lancelot attended Guinevere as usual, with no armor but his sword, and in no time was disturbed by Agravaine's party outside the queen's door, shouting "Traitor, trailor!" loud enough to wake the entire castle. Lancelot managed to drag Sir Colgrevance of Gore inside on his own, kill him, and with the help of the queen and her ladies, steal his armor. Lancelot then strode out and killed Agravaine and the dozen Scottish knights, and wounded Mordred, who barely escaped.

Lancelot returned to his lodging, and, realizing that the game was up and that this could mean civil war. From among his own kin and the knights of Wales and Cornwall, he treacherously recruited over a hundred knights to his side, including Bors, Ector, Lionel, Lavaine, Urre, Palomides and Bellangere le Beuse.

Meanwhile, Mordred rode to tell Arthur everything, and under the law of treason, he had no choice but to regretfully sentence Guinevere to death at the stake. Sir Gawain tried to dissuade him (in spite of just having lost a brother and two sons to Lancelot) and refused to be present at the burning, and his brothers Gareth (whom Lancelot himself had dubbed long ago) and Gaheris attended only under protest, and refused to wear armor.

As Guinevere was tied to the stake outside Carlisle, one of Lancelot's spies raised the alarm and he rode down from the hill where he and his band of traitors had been waiting. They rescued her from the flames and killed everyone else in sight. Lancelot then took her to his castle, named the Joyous Gard, and raised an army from Arthur's enemies.

Sir Lancelot rescuing Guinevere from execution on the stake. (Image courtesy of TimelessMyths.Com)

Over two dozen more knights had died at Lancelot's hands, including King Pellinore's sons, Sir Aglovale and Sir Tor, and Gawain's last two full brothers, Gareth and Gaheris, who had been unarmed, and when Gawain found out, he went into a terrible rage. Together with Arthur, he raised a huge army from all over Britain, and laid seige to Lancelot's castle. Arthur was still minded to make peace but Gawain was completely embittered, and Lancelot was loath to leave his castle and attack "that most noble king that made me knight".

After fifteen weeks of taunting, Lancelot eventually came out to fight, and in the ensuing battle (Arthur's eighth), Lancelot actually saved Arthur from Bors, and then Gawain and Bors injured each other. The battle only ended after two days because the Bishop of Rochester arrived with a papal bull in which the Pope ordered Arthur to take Guinevere back and make to peace with Lancelot. Arthur returned to Carlisle, and eight days later, Lancelot duly delivered her there.

Lancelot brings Guinevere to Arthur. (Image courtesy of Project Gutenberg)

After delivering a long series of excuses, in which he pathetically denied everything and threatened to kill anyone who said any different, Lancelot eventually returned to France, taking one hundred knights with him, including all his kin.

Even though Arthur now had Guinevere back, he still pursued Lancelot, sailing for France from Cardiff with an army of sixty thousand, leaving Sir Mordred in charge.

Although Lancelot's kin advised immediate revenge for their French lands--just ravaged by Arthur--Lancelot sent a maiden and a dwarf to sue for peace, but Gawain refused and besieged them inside the city of Benwick. Each day, he taunted Lancelot and challenged and defeated his knights at jousting, including Bors and Lionel, until after six months, Lancelot was forced to meet him in single combat. 

Lancelot ang Gawain prepare to duel. (Image courtesy of Michaelson.Com)

The battle began at nine in the morning and on the first clash, their horses fell, but, as only Arthur and Gawain knew, Gawain's strength grows triple from that hour until noon, and for three hours a perplexed Lancelot was forced to cover himself and retreat before the berserking knight from Orkney. Then at noon, Gawain weakened, and Lancelot knocked him down and left him there, refusing to kill a stricken knight. 

After three weeks Gawain was sufficiently recovered to repeat the challenge, and again he battered Lancelot viciously for three hours, until his strength failed, and Lancelot struck him on his old head wound and left him fallen. 

This time, Gawain rested for a month to recover, but three days before he was ready to fight for a third time, Arthur heard news from England, which forced him to lift the siege and begin the return home.

Chapter XI

After Arthur had sailed for France to fight Lancelot, Mordred waited for some time, then circulated a forged letter saying that Arthur had died at Lancelot's hands, and he made himself king at Canterbury. He even tried to marry Guinevere, but she locked herself in the tower of London and wouldn't come out. The Bishop of Canterbury tied to stop Modred but had to flee to Glastonbury because Mordred had threatened to chop off his head. It was discovered that Arthur was still alive and on his way home, but Mordred was still successful at persuading most of the English people to take his side against Arthur by promising them peace and joy.

When Arthur returned, Mordred failed to stop him landing at Dover, though in the battle (Arthur's ninth) the still-weak Gawain was fatally struck (yet again) on his recent head-wound, surviving just long enough to write to Lancelot, apologizing and asking him to return to help Arthur. He died at noon and Arthur interred him in the crypt under Dover Castle.

Arthur pursued Mordred and defeated him again at Barham Down (Arthur's tenth battle), and Mordred fled to Canterbury to strengthen his army from amongst Lancelot's old supporters, and the counties of London, Kent, Sussex, Essex, Surrey, Suffolk and Norfolk.

On the night of Trinity Sunday [the Sunday after Pentecost Sunday, the fiftieth day of Easter], before they were due to battle again near the seaside outside Salisbury, the deceased Gawain, flanked by all the lovely ladies he had ever saved, appeared to Arthur in a vision as he slept, and told him to delay the battle for a month, while Lancelot came to his rescue. Arthur sent the two brothers, Sir Lucan the Butler and Sir Bedivere, to offer Mordred Cornwall and Kent in return for a delay, and the following morning both parties met to agree the deal.

As Arthur and Mordred (each flanked by an honor guard of fourteen) met to bargain on the field between their armies, an adder bit a knight on the foot, and as he drew his sword to kill it, the worst was assumed, and soon the Battle of Salisbury (Arthur's eleventh and last) had accidentally started.

By evening, the field was strewn with a hundred thousand dead and very few living, other than Arthur, the badly injured brothers Lucan and Bedivere, and Mordred, but at last Arthur had his recreant son in his sights, and taking his spear from Lucan, he went to kill him. He quickly impaled Mordred on his spear, but his son pulled himself along the length of it and as he died he struck Arthur a lethal blow to the head.

King Arthur and Sir Mordred, father and son, engage in mortal combat.(Image courtesy of the University of Idaho.)

Looters had by now appeared on the darkening battlefield, and when the two brothers Lucan and Bedivere tried to move the dying Arthur to safety, Lucan's guts fell out and he died.

Realizing that his own end was near, Arthur commanded Bedivere to throw Excalibur into a nearby lake, but out of regard for the unique value of the sword, Bedivere twice hid it and lied, but could only say that he had seen it sink, so Arthur was not fooled. Driven by Arthur's curses, at last Bedivere did as he was told, and thus could report back how he had seen a hand rise from the water, catch it, shake it thrice, brandish it, then pull it down. 

Sir Bedivere Throwing Excalibur into the Lake, by Walter Crane. (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Then he carried Arthur to that same water side, where he was put aboard a mysterious barge. On it were three queens: Queen Morgan le Fay, the Queen of Northgalis, and the Queen of the Wastelands, and also many damsels including Nimue, all in black hoods.

Morgan le Fay and the damsel carry off the body of Arthur on a barge. (Image courtesy of DeathDyingGriefAndMourning.Com)

In spite of their ancient and bitter rivalry, Morgan rested Arthur's head in her lap and said, "Ah, dear brother, why have ye tarried so long from me? Alas, this wound on your head hath caught over-much cold."

As the shrieking women bore him away across the waters, Arthur told Bedivere that he was being taken to the Vale of Avalon to be healed, and bid him farewell.

Alone and distraught, Bedivere wandered through the night, and by next morning had somehow arrived in Glastonbury, over fifty miles from Salisbury, where he found the old Bishop of Canterbury, now a hermit, standing vigil over a body which he said had been delivered at midnight by three queens, and which he believed was Arthur, but he was not be sure. But just in case it was, Bedivere moved in with him to fast and pray over it.

Having received Gawain's note, Lancelot and his army finally landed at Dover, where he wept over the tomb of Sir Gawain, who he fought with twice in France. He then left his army behind and traveled alone to Almesbury to meet Guinevere, who had become a nun there upon hearing of Arthur's death. After a very tearful scene, she told him to go back to France, and they parted for the very last time.

Lancelot then went to Glastonbury (another thirty miles), where he heard the full story from Bedivere, and he became a monk himself, joined within the year by Bors and seven of his knights who had become bored at Dover and had come looking for him (except Lionel, who had died in a skirmish in London on the search, and Ector, who was still looking for his brother elsewhere.)

Six years later, Lancelot had a vision, and he and the rest of the aging knights rode feebly for two days to Almesbury to get Guinevere's corpse (she had died half an hour before they arrived), which they brought back to Glastonbury and buried next to (what was believed as the body of) Arthur. Lancelot pined from grief and guilt and was himself dead six weeks later. His body was taken to Joyous Gard for burial, where his brother Ector appeared just in time, after having wandered Britain for seven years looking for him.

After a prolonged fifteen-day wake, Sir Lancelot was finally buried, and the company returned to Glastonbury for a month.

Sir Constantine, son of Sir Cador of Cornwall, was made the new king of England, and ruled well. He sent for the old hermit back to Canterbury to be Bishop again, and Bedivere went with him but remained a hermit.

King Constantine also asked Ector, Bors, and the other French knights to stay with him, but they returned to their lands in France and became monks, except for Ector, Bors, Blamore, and Bloeberis, who headed East to fight the Turks in the Holy Land.

"And there they died upon a Good Friday for God's sake".