Finding Arthur (29 page)

Camelot was neither Dunadd nor Dunardry, far less Stirling Castle Rock, Cadbury, Colchester, or Carlisle. Camelot was a corrupted description of the land that lay about and between Dunadd and Dunardry, the twin hillforts of Dalriada.

Even today, after centuries of drainage, the River Add still runs a crooked path through the Great Moss to the Sound of Jura. It is easy to picture the way this area would have looked in the sixth century, when the marsh was wider and deeper. In the sixth century it would
have been even more likely that someone would describe the marsh as twisted by the river, or as the crooked marsh,
Cam Loth
.

My name Ardrey is written in the fourteenth-century land titles, the
Poltalloch Writs
, as
Ardarie
and
Ardare
before becoming
Ardarike
and even
Dare
, all in the space of one hundred years, and these variations were in important legal records written in the place to which these place-names referred. How much easier would it have been for
Cam Loth
to become
Camelot
over six centuries, during which descriptions of the place where Arthur Mac Aedan had lived were passed on orally from Q-Celtic speakers to P-Celtic speakers to English speakers to French speakers, with, no doubt, innumerable Latin speakers also being involved along the way? Some corroboration for this idea can be found in Maxwell’s
Scottish Place-Names
. Maxwell’s
camlodain
, the bend of the swamp, is close to my
cam loth
, crooked marsh.

It is unlikely that Chrétien simply invented the name Camelot—why would he? Stories of Arthur were plentiful in the vast oral tradition, and his patron Marie de Champagne had provided him with an abundance of source material, although what these sources were, whether they were “Celtic, Classical or contemporary,” no one knows exactly.
⁴
It was quite open to Chrétien to take what he wanted from what he had, and use it to name Arthur’s capital, albeit in a corrupt form.

It is very possible that some of Chrétien’s source material originated hundreds of years before his time, in the form of oral accounts by people who had actually seen where Arthur Mac Aedan lived. Someone would have said something like, “Arthur’s base was a fort surrounded by a marsh through which a crooked or twisted river ran.” Picture this informant describing the place where Arthur lived using the words
cam
(twisted, crooked) and the Q-Celtic
loth
(marsh). Picture these words,
cam
and
loth
, being conflated by non-Gaelic speakers as Cam-Loth and ending up with a name that was more euphonic to a French speaker’s ear—Camelot.

If Chrétien had no source material and just invented the name Camelot, it would be quite a coincidence if he simply hit upon a name with Gaelic roots that describes the place where Arthur Mac
Aedan lived and where Arthur’s father the king of the Scots had his capital. It may be this evidence is too slight to stand alone but, of course, it does not stand alone. Even today the ideals that are exemplified by the name Camelot are inextricably linked with Arthur, but Arthur did not make his name because of idealism. Arthur made his name, and made it a legend, by war. Before he took the sword from the stone, Arthur had always fought under another’s command. Soon after he took the sword from the stone he was leading his first fighting force. From then on, Arthur was in always in command, not only of armies but on occasion of kings.

8

The Scottish Civil War

C
IVIL WAR BROKE OUT AMONG THE SCOTS OF DALRIADA IMMEDIATELY
after Aedan’s inauguration as king, and Arthur, who had just taken a sword from a stone, soon had to wield a sword in his father’s cause.

Éoganán, Aedan’s half-brother and Arthur’s uncle, a man of both the houses of Gabhran and Comgall, and his main supporter Duncan Mac Conall of the house of Comgall, had been caught off balance by Aedan’s march on Dunardry-Dunadd, but they had not been completely defeated; they were still in the field and not prepared to give up without a fight.

The
Annals of Tigernach
tell of a decisive battle in the year 574, probably in the first few weeks or months after Aedan’s inauguration, “The Battle of Delgon in Kintyre, in which Dunchad [Duncan] Mac Conall Mac Comgall and many others of the House of Gabhran were killed.”
¹
The house of Gabhran was divided. Some of them fought alongside Duncan for Éoganán of the house of Gabhran against their friends, neighbors, and relatives of the house of Gabhran who were on Aedan’s side. Duncan “and many others of the House of Gabhran were killed,” means that Duncan of the house of Comgall and many others, who were of the house of Gabhran, were killed.

The Battle of Delgon was Aedan’s victory. Delgon is not among
the twelve battles of Arthur listed by Nennius. This makes sense. After all, Arthur was only about fifteen years old at this time. He may not even have been present at Delgon, and present or not, he was not in command at Delgon: he was too young.

This insight allowed me to place the Battle of Glein, the first of Arthur’s battles listed by Nennius, both geographically and historically. Arthur was not in command at Delgon because he was too young, but he was in command at Glein, and yet, it seemed, Delgon and Glein were fought at about the same time, perhaps in the same year. How could this be? There had to be something about the battles themselves.

I am grateful to John N. McLeod for identifying the site of the Battle of Delgon as the island
Ealain da Ghallagan
in West Loch Tarbert, south of Lochgilphead.
²
McLeod wrote in the late nineteenth century, and so he did not have access to modern maps that were available to me, which perhaps explains why he does not appear to have noticed corroborating evidence for his identification. Two miles southwest of McLeod’s battle-site of Delgon is the island of
Eòghain
, that is, the island of Éoganán, a name that commemorates the man who lost the Battle of Delgon.

It seems likely that Aedan and Arthur caught Éoganán and Duncan off guard with a lightning advance to Dunardry-Dunadd in the heartlands of Dalriada and forced Éoganán and Duncan to retreat to the south, where they strove to marshal their supporters and build an army. Aedan stopped his advance only long enough to be inaugurated before setting off in pursuit. It makes sense to suppose that Arthur was not with the main body of the army that followed Éoganán and Duncan. The matter of the kingship was still an issue while Éoganán and Duncan remained undefeated in the field, and many people must have remained undecided as to where their loyalties lay, and so Aedan and Arthur’s position was insecure. It seems likely that Arthur remained at Dunardry-Dunadd to ensure Éoganán’s supporters did not rise against his father. In any event, it would have made sense to separate Aedan and Arthur at this time lest they go down to defeat and death together, leaving their forces without a recognized successor.

The armies met at Delgon. Aedan’s army had momentum, and his men could claim they were the army of the king. Éoganán and Duncan’s
army had probably been hastily put together, and was probably demoralized by recent events.

It is probable that Éoganán was only an ineffectual figurehead, a
Toom Tabard
, an Empty Shirt, and that the real power lay with Duncan. In any event, when the battle was over Duncan was dead, along with many of his house of Comgall and many of the house of Gabhran who had chosen to fight for Éoganán.

Éoganán was either not with his main battle-force or, when he saw that his people were losing, he retreated to the small island further down the loch that bears his name today. The fact that this island is now called
Eòghain
suggests either that he was based there before the battle or that he held out there after the battle while he negotiated terms, or perhaps both. Éoganán was allowed to go into exile in Ireland. Aedan, ever the politician, would have seen that clemency might bring some of the house of Comgall and those of the house of Gabhran who had taken up arms against him to accept him as king.

If Aedan and Arthur separated after their inaugurations, and if Arthur, who was about fifteen years old at that time, was deemed too young to be given command of an army (although only just), and if Aedan went off to fight and win the Battle of Delgon, where did this leave Arthur?

It would be unreasonable to suppose that Arthur was given command of an army immediately after his inauguration as tanist: he was still in his mid-teens. He was however the son of the new king, and he had probably acquitted himself well at the Battle of Arderydd, and so it makes sense to suppose that he was given some form of independent command.

Éoganán’s main army had been defeated at Delgon, and Éoganán himself was in exile, but there must have been many discontented men of Éoganán’s faction still at large. It is likely that it was in action against these men that Arthur won his first independent victory. The battle-list of Nennius’s begins, “The first battle was at the mouth of the river called
Glein
.” In this one line there are three clues: “Glein” is first on the list, Glein was fought at the mouth of a river and the river was called Glein.

Glein is the first battle on the list, and so, in effect, it is on an open
flank, with no earlier battle to point to where it might have been fought. I had to wait until I had identified the next five battles before I was able to work backward and find Glein. The other eleven battles turned out to have been listed in chronological order, and so it was reasonable to suppose that the Battle of Glein really was the first of twelve battles fought under the command of Arthur Mac Aedan. The other eleven battles also turned out to have been fought in close proximity to each other and in a pattern that made it possible to see that one battle naturally followed upon the one before it and led on to the one that came next.

When I found the locations of the four Douglas battles, battles two to five, and Bassas, the sixth battle, and drew a line from Bassas through the sites of the Douglas battles, I found that this took me to Argyll. This made sense. Arthur played a part in the coup that had brought his father to power in Argyll in 574, and there had been fighting soon thereafter, at Delgon. It made sense to suppose that, if Glein was fought at about the same time or soon after Delgon, that the Battle of Glein was fought in Argyll.

Arthur was in Argyll in 574, before the first of the Douglas battles was fought. Argyll was, quite literally, where the action was at this time. Everything suggested that the first battle, Glein, was fought in Argyll. This was not, of course, conclusive—far from it.

Who might Arthur have fought in Argyll? The obvious answer was, of course, supporters of Éoganán and Duncan and the House of Comgall, but they had been beaten at Delgon and so there was no reason to believe the Battle of Delgon was the Battle of Glein. On the contrary, while there are innumerable burns and rivulets in the vicinity of Delgon, there is no large river that might have given its name to the battle.

I looked for another battle in the records that might be Glein by another name but without success. Delgon had merited an entry in the annals. Glein did not. I thought, perhaps the Battle of Glein was not as important as the Battle of Delgon and so did not justify an
Annal
entry. This made sense. If Delgon was a large battle, it might have its own
Annal
entry for this reason, and, if Glein was a small battle, it might not have an
Annal
entry for this reason.

It is unlikely that Arthur, who was still very young at this stage, would have been entrusted with command in a vital battle. He may have been the titular warlord of the Scots, but I could not see that, even allowing for the fact that Arthur had proved himself at the battle at Arderydd, Aedan would have entrusted him, an untried commander, with command of an army at such a crucial time.

I looked again for a possible Glein battlefield, but given there are nearly as many river mouths as there are glens in Scotland, my prospects were not good.

I found one possible site eight miles east of Glen Airigh, across Loch Fyne in the hills of Cowal, where the River Ruel runs south through
Caol Glienn
, the slender or the steep glen, to Loch Riddon and the Kyles of Bute. Was Glein fought at the mouth of the river of the slender glen? Like the rivers Glen in Northumberland and Lincoln-shire there was nothing to suggest this was the right spot. Of course, unlike those who argue for Northumberland and Lincolnshire, at least I had a historical Arthur who was at about the right time. Still
Caol Glienn
did not seem right to me.

I thought again about what was going on in Argyll at the time in question. Immediately after Arthur became warlord of the Scots, Éoganán’s supporters had been defeated at the Battle of Delgon.

Where did Glein fit in? The evidence suggested that Delgon and Glein were not the same battle; that no one river gave its name to this first battle; that Glein was not important enough to justify an
Annal
entry.

I concluded that if Glein was Arthur’s first command, it was unlikely that he was put in charge of an army and fought a major pitched battle; it was more likely that he was in charge of a division and involved in a relatively minor engagement or series of engagements. What probably happened was this. Aedan’s main battle force defeated Éoganán and Duncan at Delgon. Duncan was killed and Éoganán fled into exile in Ireland. Arthur was not present at Delgon, having been left in command of a small force to literally “hold the fort” at Dunardry-Dunadd.

Then, after the Battle of Delgon, Arthur was given his first independent command, not a battle-army but a smaller fighting-force, and ordered to stamp out the last flames of resistance among the supporters
of Éoganán and the late Duncan. This would have been an ideal opportunity to try a young man with his first independent command, because it is likely this resistance was restricted to guerrilla fighting by the rivers and in the glens of Argyll.