CHAPTER XIV

Sir Lancelot attacked by Sir Agravaine, Sir Modred, and thirteen other

Knights--He slays them all but Sir Modred--He leaves the Court--Sir Modred

accuses him to the King--The Queen condemned to be burnt--Her rescue by

Sir Lancelot and flight with him--The War between Sir Lancelot and the

King--The Enmity of Sir Gawain--The Usurpation of Sir Modred--The Queen

retires to a Nunnery--Sir Lancelot goes on Pilgrimage--The Battle of

Barham Downs--Sir Bedivere and the Sword Excalibur--The Death of King

Arthur

ILLUSTRATOR'S NOTE

Of scenes from the Legends of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round

Table many lovely pictures have been painted, showing much diversity of

figures and surroundings, some being definitely sixth-century British or

Saxon, as in Blair Leighton's fine painting of the dead Elaine;

others--for example, Watts' Sir Galahad--show knight and charger in

fifteenth-century armour; while the warriors of Burne Jones wear strangely

impracticable armour of some mystic period. Each of these painters was

free to follow his own conception, putting the figures into whatever

period most appealed to his imagination; for he was not illustrating the

actual tales written by Sir Thomas Malory, otherwise he would have found

himself face to face with a difficulty.

King Arthur and his knights fought, endured, and toiled in the sixth

century, when the Saxons were overrunning Britain; but their achievements

were not chronicled by Sir Thomas Malory until late in the fifteenth

century.

Sir Thomas, as Froissart has done before him, described the habits of

life, the dresses, weapons, and armour that his own eyes looked upon in

the every-day scenes about him, regardless of the fact that almost every

detail mentioned was something like a thousand years too late.

Had Malory undertaken an account of the landing of Julius Caesar he would,

as a matter of course, have protected the Roman legions with bascinet or

salade, breastplate, pauldron and palette, coudiére, taces and the rest,

and have armed them with lance and shield, jewel-hilted sword and slim

misericorde; while the Emperor himself might have been given the very suit

of armour stripped from the Duke of Clarence before his fateful encounter

with the butt of malmsey.

Did not even Shakespeare calmly give cannon to the Romans and suppose

every continental city to lie majestically beside the sea? By the old

writers, accuracy in these matters was disregarded, and anachronisms were

not so much tolerated as unperceived.

In illustrating this edition of "The Legends of King Arthur and his

Knights," it has seemed best, and indeed unavoidable if the text and the

pictures are to tally, to draw what Malory describes, to place the fashion

of the costumes and armour somewhere about A.D. 1460, and to arm the

knights in accordance with the Tabard Period.

LANCELOT SPEED.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

The Marriage of King Arthur

Then fell Sir Ector down upon his knees upon the ground before young

Arthur, and Sir Key also with him.

The Lady of the Lake

The giant sat at supper, gnawing on a limb of a man, and baking his huge

frame by the fire

The castle rocked and rove throughout, and all the walls fell crashed and

breaking to the earth

Came forth twelve fair damsels, and saluted King Arthur by his name

Prianius was christened, and made a duke and knight of the Round Table

Sir Lancelot smote down with one spear five knights, and brake the backs

of four, and cast down the King of Northgales

Beyond the chapel, he met a fair damsel, who said, "Sir Lancelot, leave

that sword behind thee, or thou diest"

"Lady," replied Sir Beaumains, "a knight is little worth who may not bear

with a damsel"

So he rode into the hall and alighted

Then they began the battle, and tilted at their hardest against each other

And running to her chamber, she sought in her casket for the piece of

iron ... and fitted it in Tristram's sword

By the time they had finished drinking they loved each other so well that

their love never more might leave them

Waving her hands and muttering the charm, and presently enclosed him fast

within the tree

Galahad ... quickly lifted up the stone, and forthwith came out a foul

smoke

"This girdle, lords," said she, "is made for the most part of mine own

hair, which, while I was yet in the world, I loved full well"

At last the strange knight smote him to the earth, and gave him such a

buffet on the helm as wellnigh killed him

Then was Sir Lancelot sent for, and the letter read aloud by a clerk

But still the knights cried mightily without the door, "Traitor, come

forth!"

THE LEGENDS OF KING ARTHUR