Finding Arthur (43 page)

He is said to have retired to a monastery, but that is the type of thing that was invariably said of powerful men to bolster the power of the church. When he died, somewhere between 606 and 608, his body was not taken north, to be buried with his ancestors and with Arthur on Iona-Avalon. Even at the end it appears Aedan wanted nothing to do Columba-Crimthann, even though Columba-Crimthann was dead, and Columba-Crimthann’s monks probably wanted nothing to do with him.

Twenty years after the Battle of Camlann, Mordred was the Lord and Cywyllog the Lady of the lands of Dunipace and Camlann, by this time no longer the eastlands of Manau but the westlands of the Gododdin. This left her perfectly placed to play a central part in the plot that would lead to Merlin-Lailoken’s assassination.

In the mid-610s the Angles won a great victory over the Britons at Chester or Carlisle, and the British kings and chiefs of the north panicked, thinking they would be the Angle armies’ next victims. The kings and chiefs called a conference at Dunipace that, according to the
Vita Merlini Silvestris
, was held under the aegis of the “Underking” Mordred. Merlin-Lailoken attended at Dunipace along with other political leaders, but he was unwilling to cooperate with the kings and chiefs by bringing the people of the Old Way into what was, in effect, a Christian alliance. As a result Mordred had Merlin-Lailoken imprisoned for three days to make him change his mind. Merlin-Lailoken remained obdurate, “putting off for feigned reasons what they wanted to hear.”
²⁵

Mordred’s wife, Cywyllog, encouraged Mordred to kill Merlin-Lailoken after he refused to comply with the wishes of the Christian majority, but Mordred refused for political reasons to go along with Cywyllog. Cywyllog “burst … into tears, because she was not able to
get what she wanted and she secretly prepared snares to bring about the death of [Merlin-] Lailoken.”
²⁶

After an exchange of insults with Cywyllog, Merlin-Lailoken “made for the trackless wastes of the wilderness. No one pursued him, but all alike began to nod significantly.” They knew he had been marked for death.

Nothing came of the expected Angle invasion.

Some two or three years later, Merlin-Lailoken was again called to Dunipace to attend another conference. It was anticipated that, once again, he would be uncooperative and so it was decided to kill him as he “was passing through the fields near Drumelzier castle at sunset.” Assassins, “who had been stirred up against him by the wicked woman [Cywyllog]” fell upon Merlin-Lailoken and “an end was made of him.”

Mordred had, for political reasons, forbidden his wife to kill Merlin-Lailoken on his first visit to Dunipace, and so it is likely that when Merlin-Lailoken was finally assassinated it was with Mordred’s approval.

The assassination of Merlin-Lailoken brought to an end the age of Arthur.

11

Finding Camlann: The Last Battle

B
Y THE TIME
I
TACKLED THE MATTER OF
C
AMLANN
, I
KNEW THAT
Arthur Mac Aedan had fought all twelve battles on the battle-list of Nennius and that all twelve of these battles had been fought in Scotland in the 570s and 580s. Therefore, it seemed sensible to suppose that Arthur’s last battle was also fought in Scotland, but where? I started looking for Camlann where everyone starts, with the name. I found that
Camlann
had been variously translated as ‘crooked glen” and “crooked stream,” but there are innumerable crooked glens and crooked streams all over Britain—indeed they outnumber the straight glens and the straight streams—and so this translation was of little help. It did, however, prompt the question of why, if
Camlann
means “crooked glen” or “crooked stream,” anyone would give such a nondescript name to such an important battle. It would have been like naming the Battle of
El Alamein
, the battle of the sandy place, accurate but not informative. I came to suspect that there was more to the name Camlann than crooked glen or stream.

Unable to find an answer to this question, I looked at the district of Camelon in the town of Falkirk, where, as long ago as the nineteenth century, Skene said there was a local tradition that Camelon was Camlann where Arthur died. The names sound so similar it would have been
surprising if Camelon, Falkirk, had
not
been associated with Arthur, irrespective of any actual historical basis for this association, although, in fairness to Camelon, it did sound more like Camlann than Camboglanna, Camelford, or Cam.

Camelon, Falkirk, also fitted neatly with the other evidence I had found that pointed to Arthur Mac Aedan being Arthur. It is only fourteen miles from Arthur Mac Aedan’s Stirling base, a traditional site of the “Round Table,” and only a few hundred yards upstream from the one-time site of a circular beehive-shaped building known as
Arthur’s O’en
, around from at least the thirteenth century until it was destroyed by “developers” in the eighteenth century.
¹
On a military level, Camelon, Falkirk, lay close to the Manau–Gododdin border and being border-country was a likely place for a battle to have been fought. This alone was far weightier evidence than any evidence for any southern location. This evidence alone would have been enough to enable me to argue that the Battle of Camlann was fought at Camelon. However, as there is almost always more evidence to be found, I looked for more evidence.

I took a step back from Camelon and looked again at Geoffrey’s
History of the Kings of Britain
, which, while it is mainly fiction, was based on some solid historical foundations. I looked for the history. Geoffrey says Arthur was marching on Rome to fight a Roman emperor when he heard that Mordred, whom he had appointed regent in his absence, had made himself king and taken Arthur’s wife, Guinevere, as his mistress. This is obvious nonsense. There had been no emperor in Rome since 476 CE. Geoffrey’s Arthur returns to Britain and frightens Guinevere into taking refuge in a nunnery but only after he has fought Mordred’s army at Winchester in the far south of England.

“The fight began and immense slaughter was done on both sides.”
²
Pursued by Arthur, Mordred fell back to Cornwall where, Geoffrey says, the final battle took place at the River Camblam [
sic
].
³
“Arthur, with a single division … charged at the squadron where he knew Mordred was. They hacked a way through with their swords and Arthur continued to advance, inflicting terrible slaughter as he went. It was at this point that the accursed traitor [Mordred] was killed and many thousands of his men with him.”

Mordred’s men fought on, and in the ensuing fight Arthur was mortally wounded. When the battle was over Arthur was “carried off to the Isle of Avalon, so that his wounds might be tended to.”
⁴

Malory’s version of the Battle of Camlann in
Le Morte d’Arthur
is also mostly fiction, but again there is history to be found in his romance, magic, and propaganda. By Malory’s account, Lancelot and Guinevere were engaged in a sexual affair. Mordred, Arthur’s nephew, plans to break Arthur’s alliance with Lancelot by telling Arthur of Lancelot’s deceit and Guinevere’s infidelity. Taking other knights with him as witnesses, Mordred surprises Lancelot and Guinevere when, “as the French book saith, the queen and Launcelot [
sic
] were together. And whether they were abed or at some other manner of disports, me list not hereof make no mention, for love that time was not as is nowadays.”
⁵

Lancelot fights his way out, killing Agravain, Mordred’s brother, wounding Mordred, and leaving Guinevere behind with the promise that he will return and save her.
⁶
Arthur feels bound to uphold the law and so sentences Guinevere to death by burning. She is only saved when Lancelot rides to her rescue and carries her off to
Joyous Garde
, his castle in France.
⁷

The sales-minded Malory knew his market well and so, as he was writing at a time when the English and French aristocracy were culturally close, he has his Arthur go to war not against a Roman Emperor in Rome but against Lancelot in France.

Malory’s Mordred takes advantage of Arthur’s absence in France to falsely claim that Arthur had been killed in battle, and set himself up as king in Arthur’s place. He also takes steps to marry Guinevere, Arthur’s “widow.” Arthur returns to Britain to put down Mordred’s rebellion, whereupon, “there was a great battle betwixt them, and much people were slain on both parties; but at the last Sir Arthur’s party stood best, and Sir Mordred and his party fled.”
⁸

A truce is called and a meeting arranged. Arthur, ever wary of treachery, goes forward to meet Mordred between the armies, but only after he has told his men that if they see a sword drawn they are to, “Come on fiercely and slay that traitor … Mordred, for I in no wise trust him.” Negotiations go well, until,

Right soon came an adder out of a little heath bush, and it stung a knight on the foot. And when the knight felt him stungen, he looked down and saw the adder, and then he drew his sword to slay the adder, and thought of none other harm. And when the host of both parties saw that sword drawn, then they blew beams, trumpets, and horns, and shouted grimly. And so both hosts dressed them together.

Arthur and his men fight bravely all day long until many on both sides are “laid to the cold earth.” Still Arthur fights on “until it was near night” and all but two of Arthur’s knights are dead. In despair Arthur looks for Mordred.

Then the king gat his spear in both his hands, and ran toward … Mordred, crying, “Traitor, now is thy death day come.” And when … Mordred heard … Arthur, he ran until him with his sword drawn in his hand. And there … Arthur smote … Mordred under the shield, with the foin of his spear, throughout the body, more than a fathom. And when … Mordred felt that he had his death’s wound he thrust himself with the might that he had up to the bur of … Arthur’s spear. And right he smote … Arthur with his sword, holden in both his hands, on the side of the head, that the sword pierced the helmet and the brain pan, and therewithal … Mordred fell stark dead to the earth.
⁹

Malory’s Battle of Camlann ends with Mordred dead, and Arthur mortally wounded, ready to be taken off to Avalon.

The great thing about trying to find Arthur is that, even when you cannot find something of historical interest, the stories are still great stories. I was, however, about to find something. I felt confident that Camelon, Falkirk, was the site of the Battle of Camlann, because it was part of Manau where Arthur Mac Aedan lived and because, if Arthur Mac Aedan really was the man who became the legendary Arthur, it would be surprising if Camelon was not Camlann—the two names were just so similar.

Still, I had to stay objective. I went back to the name,
Camlann
. I knew the prefix
cam
meant “twisted” or “crooked.”
Lann
, however, was more of a puzzle. One possible meaning was “blade” or “sword”:
lan
, in Scottish Gaelic;
lann
, in Irish Gaelic;
llain
, in Welsh.
¹⁰
The battle of the twisted or crooked sword almost worked as a sensible name, particularly when considered along with the passage in
Le Morte d’Arthur
in which Malory makes much of the disposal of Arthur’s sword Excalibur in the aftermath of Camlann. The problem with this possibility was that Excalibur was neither twisted nor crooked; on the contrary, the whole point of Malory’s Excalibur episode is that Excalibur was
too perfect
to be thrown away. I decided it was unlikely that Camlann was the battle of the twisted or crooked sword.

I then considered the Scottish and Irish Gaelic meaning of
lann
, “land.”
Camlann
—the battle of the twisted or crooked land? This was possible, but it did not come with any sensible context. “Twisted or crooked land” was as good a translation as any other I had found, but it was, like “twisted or crooked glen or stream,” too vague to be of any real help. The landscape of Scotland is not like the Great Plains of North America, where some strangely shaped piece of land might stand out amidst the flat vastness. In Scotland it is impossible to go far without going up or down a hill, or over or through a river or a burn. Indeed almost all of Scotland could be described as “twisted or crooked land.” If battle of the twisted or crooked land were to make sense, then the land in question would have to be twisted or crooked beyond even the Scottish norm.

I moved on. I had acted in legal cases in Falkirk, and so I knew Camelon because it is just across the road from the Sheriff Court. I knew that the area is now almost entirely built-up, but despite this I decided to walk the ground, because, no matter what has happened to it, I have always found walking the ground to be instructive.

On Wednesday, February 20, 2008, I was sitting in my car in Camelon, Falkirk, looking at maps and trying to find a place where I might usefully walk. Almost nothing was the way it was 150 years ago, far less 1,500 years ago. Things did not look promising. Then I imagined what Camelon would have looked like in the sixth century and focused on one of the few sixth-century features that remained: the
ruins of a fort on Falkirk Golf Course. I was given permission by an officer of the golf club to walk the course, and I set off to find what was left of this fort.