(soft orchestral music)
[Simon] Who's our greatest national hero?
Churchill perhaps?
Admiral Nelson maybe?
Nobby Stiles, anyone?
It's tricky, but my hero is someone
of unrivaled legendary status.
(soft orchestral music)
He drew his sword, Excalibur, from the stone.
He assembled the Knights of the Round Table at Camelot.
She ever grows more beautiful.
[Simon] He was betrayed
by his queen, Guinevere and Lancelot.
This is the knight who came so swiftly to my rescue.
[Simon] And it's said he will one day return
in our hour of need.
(soft orchestral music)
His name is King Arthur.
Hail to Arthur, King of England!
[Crowd] Hail to Arthur, King of England!
(soft orchestral music)
But where does this timeless legend come from?
It's difficult to know,
but I believe its origins lie here at Hastings.
(soft orchestral music)
When the Normans defeated King Harold here in 1066,
it wasn't the end of the conquest,
it was only the beginning and to exert control,
they had to conquer not just the country, but the culture.
And in doing so, they embraced the legend of King Arthur
to such an extent that the Arthur that we think of today,
that great icon of Britishness,
is as much a Norman creation as he is our own.
(military orchestral music)
As a poet, I'm not interested
in whether Arthur existed or not.
Instead, I want to trace the story through the literature
and manuscripts of the medieval age.
(military orchestral music)
To show how the Norman invaders plundered him
from the poems of Welsh bards,
fixing him in their own image and language.
(military orchestral music)
How foppish French poets would recast him
as cuckold and coward.
(military orchestral music)
And finally, how a new generation of English writers
would reclaim him as our quintessential national hero.
(military orchestral music)
(waves crashing)
(melodic orchestral music)
"Some men in England say that King Arthur is not dead,
that he shall come again, he's the once and future king."
Those are the words of Thomas Mallory,
the greatest of all Arthurian writers,
and he was right too.
About 10 years ago,
King Arthur actually came to my hometown in Yorkshire.
♪ One, two, a one, two, three, four ♪
♪ It's time to open the curtains ♪
♪ It's time to light the lights ♪
♪ It's time to go berserk at the pantomime tonight ♪
[Simon] I was there all singing, all dancing,
the night Puleside Working Men's Club,
put on our annual panto.
♪ Round and round at the pantomime tonight ♪
♪ We're rolling out the ♪
This surreal vision of Arthur was dreamed up
in the overactive mind of one Peter Armitage, my dad.
The first voice that anyone heard was the voice of Merlin
who said, "Roll up over here, over here.
Get the sword out of the stone and rule England!"
(audience laughing)
Have a go. You'd make a lovely king.
(audience laughing)
(crowd encouraging)
I've broken me nail!
There's some dresses there.
[Peter] Yeah, look at them.
[Simon] That was Guinevere's dress, wasn't it?
[Peter] Yeah, there's a bit of quality there.
-Hey, look at these. -(both laughing)
It's got blood on it.
Yeah, well, it will. You've got to have realism.
Look at that, man.
Now, a man's got a certain amount of pride,
when he writes his initials on his own sword.
(laughs) I remember being in one of the battles
-with one of these swords. -(laughs|) Hey, look here!
Hey, what can't speak can't lie, have a look at that.
"SA," Simon Armitage, my sword.
(both laughing)
It is, that's my writing.
It's your writing, isn't it?
-Hey, reunited. -Yeah.
I am the true Arthur! (chuckling)
[Peter] Yeah. (chuckling)
-Fantastic, isn't it? -Yeah.
It's an "Aladdin's Cave."
I'm reluctant to let that go now, I have to say.
Do you want it?
I think it's part of my inheritance, yeah.
-Do you want it? -I do, yeah.
Hey, speaking of inheritance, that might be it, pal.
The way I'm spending on me holidays at the moment,
that might be what you're getting.
(both laughing)
-Are you ready? -Ready?
[Player] One, two, three, four!
(crowd encouraging)
[Simon] My dad's panto was an idiosyncratic take
on the Arthur story.
-(audience laughing) -I can't do it.
(triumphant orchestral music)
[Simon] But every generation
has seen Arthur in a different way.
(triumphant orchestral music)
For the Victorians, he offered a nostalgia kick
in an age of industrialization.
In the 20th century,
he was popularized in children's literature.
(children cheering)
For archeologists, evidence of Arthur
can be the key to fame and fortune.
[Archeologist] Maybe the bones of King Arthur
lie beneath this grass, maybe they don't.
My Lord, let me go in search of the Grail.
[Simon] There have been countless screen adaptations
and who could forget Rick Wakeman's,
prog rock extravaganza, "Arthur on Ice"?
(prog rock music)
The one thing that unites them all
is the image of Arthur as our great national hero.
But it's only when I started translating medieval poetry
that I realized our Arthur is a Norman.
-(military drumming music) -(crows cawing)
Imagine you're William the Conqueror.
You were victorious at the Battle of Hastings
and now you're marching to Wales to subdue the people
and to see what else you can filch.
But in this part of the country,
the natives just won't lie down.
-(military drumming music) -(crows cawing)
This area around here along the English-Welsh border,
I mean, it seems very serene and pleasant
and quiet this morning, but it would've been a scene
of great conflict and endless skirmishes
and castles like this remind us how the Normans
not only wanted to fortify their interests
and subdue the people,
but almost stands as a metaphor for how they wanted
to impose themself on the cultural landscape.
-(military drumming music) -(crows cawing)
The Norman Conquest would be a total conquest
of land, of people, of culture,
and to achieve that, they needed someone to rewrite history.
(military drumming music)
You're a Norman cleric with literary ambitions.
You live and work here.
These days, the place is empty.
-(playful orchestral music) -(keyboard tapping)
There's only Hazel who works in the office
weekdays, nine until noon.
But in 1135, Monmouth Priory was a thriving monastery
and home to the writer, Geoffrey of Monmouth.
Geoffrey was determined to write
a new Norman version of history to please his superiors.
In doing so, he would kickstart
the Arthurian legend we know today.
You get the impression of Geoffrey
as a young and ambitious man, he was a cleric,
he was a scholar with an eye for the main chance,
maybe noticing a gap in the market
and contemplating writing a bestseller.
-(light melodic music) -(keyboard tapping)
[Hazel] "Oftentimes, in turning over in mine own mind
the many themes that might be subject matter of a book,
my thoughts would fall upon the plan
of writing a history of the kings of Britain."
(light melodic music)
That's Geoffrey himself in his preface
to what will become his famous work,
and it gives us a little insight into the man himself
sitting down with the intention of writing
a lucid, sober, clear-minded history of these islands.
(keyboard tapping)
At the heart of his history
will be the reign of King Arthur,
but Geoffrey's Arthur would prove a very different character
from the Arthur celebrated by the local Welsh bards.
(soft eerie music)
This Arthur was a mythological Welsh chieftain,
whose spirit inhabited the landscape.
-(Twm speaking Welsh) -(soft eerie music)
[Simon] He was a shadowy character,
his mere name, a symbol of hope
and unity in uncertain times.
-(Twm speaking Welsh) -(soft eerie music)
[Simon] And in the taverns of the Welsh Hills,
his story is still told.
-(Twm speaking Welsh) -(soft eerie music)
(soft eerie music)
Arthur, from very early times,
his name was always sung like a bell
down through the centuries in Welsh poetry
as a wonderful example
of what all chieftains
or leaders or patrons should be.
[Simon] Do you think it would've been
politically convenient for the Normans
to appropriate Arthur?
I do.
The Normans, being very canny people,
they knew how to use history and legend,
and if they could appropriate the story of King Arthur,
they could also become the proprietors
of all that Arthur belonged to.
[Simon] So by possessing one of their heroes,
they become possessors of the hearts and minds
-of the people as well? -I think so, yeah.
But we know
that he is one of us.
[Simon] Am I one of us?
You can be, if you like.
[Simon] Thank you.
(soft orchestral music)
In writing his history, Geoffrey of Monmouth stole
the figure of Arthur from the Welsh bards
and began molding him into a Norman character.
-(hammer thudding) -(soft dramatic music)
He forged an ancestral link between Arthur
and the new Norman ruling elite.
He hammered out Arthur's rough edges,
creating a polished and refined magisterial king.
-(hammer thudding) -(soft dramatic music)
He even drew comparisons between Arthur
and William the Conqueror himself.
Geoffrey had crafted the first clear image of King Arthur,
and that image was of a Norman conqueror.
(soft orchestral music)
(soft haunting music)
[Hector] "Arthur did set upon his head the helm of gold.
Gert was he also with Excalibur, best of swords,
that was forged within the Isle of Avalon."
[Simon] And Arthur's tool of conquest
was the sword, Excalibur.
At his Wiltshire forge, Hector spends his days
contemplating the power of the sword.
You know, all hand-forged swords have character,
and then if they're used by the right person
and they're successful,
this is where your myths and legends start.
The swords in Arthurian literature
often seem to be imbued with magical properties as well.
I'm just wondering, when you're making these,
do you feel as if you're working in an ancient craft
on sort of almost sacred object?
That is my pleasure in making them.
There is a magical quality about it,
I don't care what anyone says,
but it's that earth, fire, water and air
that you're using, all those elements
and they're all going into that blade.
[Simon] What about in the 12th century,
when Geoffrey of Monmouth was writing,
is this the kind of thing that he would've had in mind?
The sword that we've been working on today
is the sword that he would be familiar with.
It was still very much a slashing weapon,
and if you were on horseback then you needed a long blade
and a reasonable amount of weight in that sword,
so that it would function when you used it.
It does feel very usable, you know, very balanced.
They are, yes, they should float in your hands
-so that you can use them. -It does, it really does.
No, that could be very handy in Huddersfield
on a Friday night.
-Oh, definitely. -Yeah.
(both laughing)
(soft melodic music)
With Excalibur in his hand,
Geoffrey's Arthur defeats the Anglo-Saxons
and conquers vast swathes of the continent,
just as the Normans had done.
They say the pen is mightier than the sword,
but you feel pretty mighty
with a sword in your hand as well.
And Arthur is certainly mighty,
when Geoffrey of Monmouth writes about him going into battle
and this is the sign of his power.
He says that Arthur
goes swishing into the thickest part of the battle,
crying out, "Holy Mary!"
And kills 470 of the enemy just by touching them,
and it's as if Excalibur
is the embodiment of Arthur himself.
(soft orchestral music)
London, 1150, and Geoffrey's King Arthur is all the rage.
If you're a poet looking to make a quick bob,
you can do much worse than pick up Geoffrey's "History"
and make it your own, cutting here and adding there.
It was the Norman poet, Robert Wace,
who first translated Geoffrey's prose history into poetry.
He wrote in Old French and called it the "Roman de Brut,"
the "Romance of the Britons."
(soft piano music)
One of the few remaining copies
rests here at the Royal College of Arms.
(clock ticking)
This is the nerve center
from which all of Britain's heraldry is administered.
(soft piano music)
Step inside and it's like a medieval world that time forgot.
Even today, members of the College of Arms
have a heraldic title.
This is Bluemantle Pursuivant,
also known as Peter.
(soft piano music)
He's the keeper of Robert Wace's precious manuscript.
(soft eerie music)
(Peter speaking Old French)
It's always exciting to see an original
and exciting for me because this is a poem,
you can see it's a poem from the way it's laid out.
I can't really read it, my Old French is not too hot,
in fact, some people say my English isn't great either,
but I can make out references in the poem.
I can see Arthur's name popping up here
and mention of the Round Table,
in fact, the first ever reference to the Round Table
in Arthurian literature.
The rhyming couplets are pretty clear.
"Arthur da-dee-da-dee-da-dee-da Table,
da-dee-da-dee-da-dee-da fable."
It just makes me think of the stamina needed
for a task like this, some huge work in rhyming couplets
and suddenly you're confronted with finding a rhyme
for Round Table once again, and you've used fable already
and where do you go from there?
I'd be trying to get in the Tower of Babel
in there, I think, or Auntie Mabel.
Robert Wace's mention of the Round Table was inspired.
These two words were to change the course
of the Arthurian legend forever.
(haunting orchestral music)
Poets and writers from across Europe saw the opportunity
to create wonderful tales that focus not on Arthur,
but on the quests of the Knights who sat at the Round Table.
(haunting orchestral music)
I'm heading back to Wales, hot on the tracks
of the most famous and daring of all Arthurian quests.
(dramatic orchestral music)
It's a quest taken up by the Welsh Knight, Percival,
who leaves the court of King Arthur
and sets out in search of the Holy Grail,
the humble cup that Christ drank from at the Last Supper.
The tale captivated medieval readers across Christendom.
Presumably, these knights of the road are unaware
that Al & Glo's Diner on the A40,
sits on a sacred route of pilgrimage
to what is believed to be the true Holy Grail.
(melodic orchestral music)
Many people think the Holy Grail still exists.
The story is this.
After the death and resurrection of Jesus,
Joseph of Arimathea came to Britain
and brought the Holy Grail with him
and he left it at Glastonbury when he died.
It stayed there until 1539,
when Henry VIII's men came to sack that abbey
and then the abbot ordered the monks to flee
with the precious cup into Wales and here the cup stayed.
(melodic orchestral music)
[Simon] The cup fell into the hands of the Powell family
who kept it at their home, Nanteos Mansion for 400 years
until the estate was broken up in the 1950s.
[Presenter] Mrs. Bliss, you live here now,
but when you were a child, you knew this house as a visitor?
Yes.
[Presenter] Did you ever see the cup itself?
Yes, I did.
Do people still come to see it?
Oh yes, they do,
but unfortunately we have to send them away,
because we no longer have the Cup of Nanteos.
[Presenter] Do people come from a long way away to see it?
[Mrs. Bliss] Yes, they do, a lot of people from abroad,
America, Italy, they've heard of the Nanteos Cup.
I haven't been allowed to see, leave alone film the Grail
or the Cup as it is in its present resting place.
But there are many, many stories of miraculous cures
brought about by drinking from the Nanteos Cup.
(soft ethereal choir music)
When the Powells left Nanteos,
the whereabouts of the Grail became a mystery.
But I've tracked down one of the last descendants
of the once great Powell dynasty.
She lives alone at a secret address
with only her pekinese dogs for company.
It's she who must shoulder the burden
of guarding the Holy Grail.
(Simon knocking)
(soft ethereal choir music)
(door clicking)
-Oh, welcome. -Hello.
Welcome to the home of the Grail.
-Pleased to meet you. -Hi, nice to meet you.
I've got you a little prezzie.
I got you some Welsh daffodils. (laughing)
Oh, thank you very much, thank you.
[Simon] It's a pleasure. Can I come in?
-Yes. -(dogs barking)
[Simon] Thank you very much.
Fiona, I'm on the trail of the Holy Grail.
[Fiona] Oh right, you've come a long way.
First of all, I had to go through huge trials
and tribulations to eventually see the Grail.
Yes.
Should that be the way it is now?
Should people have to overcome the same obstacles-
[Fiona] Yes.
To be able to achieve the Grail?
Yes, you have to go through certain challenges
to see the Grail, the real Grail.
Quite a challenge for me finding your house.
I don't know whether that's the equivalent.
Yes, yeah, I'm sure it was, yes.
And I see the road was dug up today as well,
that was like Percival's challenge,
I think it said "Road closed," yeah.
And would you let anybody see the Grail?
No, certainly not.
Nowadays, the world is quite a wicked and evil place
and only the pure in heart find the Holy Grail.
-Is that right? -Yes.
[Simon] How do you think I'm fixed on that front?
Yes, I think you look like someone who is pure in heart
and you like poetry, which I like and literature.
Well, I'm taking my heart in my mouth now,
but I'm going to ask you, Fiona, can I see the Grail?
I feel you are a person who should see the Grail,
you've got the right spirit and the right faith.
So I'll get it out and show it to you now.
Right, we usually keep it in here for safety.
[Simon] Before you show me this, Fiona,
if what you're saying is true.
Hm.
What I'm going to to look at now
is the actual vessel
from which Christ drank at the Last Supper?
It is the Holy Grail,
that Jesus drank out of at the Last Supper, yes.
So we preserve it very carefully.
It's always been in this box.
Yeah.
[Fiona] That's the glass bowl.
[Simon] Right.
Wow, it's seen better days.
[Fiona] Yes, it's not much left now.
I mean, forgive me for sort of pointing out the obvious,
has somebody had a bite out of this?
[Fiona] Yes, yes,
I think people did bite bits off it, yes.
What, thinking that it would be good luck
to swallow a bit or to-
Yes. But now, we don't let anyone even see or touch it.
No, I'm not going to bite it, don't worry, no.
No.
I'll just turn it over.
Okay.
Oh yeah, there's the base.
And is it okay for me to pick that up?
Or if you don't want me to, I won't, it's fine.
If you just touch it with your hands, Simon.
-Yeah, okay, okay, yeah. -Just say a prayer.
[Simon] I mean, I want to thank you for showing me that,
'cause I know it means a great deal to you.
[Fiona] Yes, it does. I guard it with my life, yes.
(soft piano music)
Well, I didn't hear hosts of golden angels,
when I touched the Nanteos Cup
and I don't think I feel any more enlightened,
but it was quite humbling that Fiona would share with me
something which was clearly so important to her.
And it does remind me,
that if you're prepared to let them be,
these ancient stories can be very powerful
and very persuasive.
And it's quite fantastic really, that, you know,
signs and symbols of these myths
that started in the Dark Ages
and were written down almost 1,000 years ago,
should still be existing today
in our contemporary newfangled world.
(solemn orchestral music)
You may have noticed something in this story.
Arthur has all but disappeared,
eclipsed by his more courageous knights.
But for the king, things were about to get much worse.
(cheerful accordion music)
(singing in French)
The Arthurian tales were the literary sensation
of the Middle Ages and they became a common language
among all the people of Europe.
-(cheerful accordion music) -(singing in French)
As the stories seep deeper
into the culture of medieval France,
King Arthur would fall victim
to the whims and fancy of French writers.
-(cheerful accordion music) -(singing in French)
We might think of France as a foreign country,
the old enemy even, but during the 12th century,
parts of Britain and parts of France were the same kingdom
with shared monarchs and a shared culture.
So there were no border controls
as far as literature was concerned,
and no immigration checks for its characters.
The hand of the French writers was reaching out
towards our Arthur and he was about to go all "Ooh, la la!"
-(bright guitar music) -(singing in French)
[Simon] It was here around Provins,
60 or so miles southeast of Paris,
that the Arthurian tale was about to take this new turn.
-(bright guitar music) -(singing in French)
The French writers decided to spice up the legend
with a soupcon of sex.
-(bright guitar music) -(singing in French)
And the sauciest of them all was a wandering minstrel
named Chretien de Troyes.
-(light melodic music) -(poet speaking French)
(soft eerie music)
(light melodic music)
(background people chattering)
We tend to think of authors these days
as people who write whatever they want, whenever they want
and long may it be so.
But back in Chretien's time,
they were often little more than jobbing tradespeople,
people who would kneel at the feet of their patrons
and produce work according to the needs
and desires of the day, sometimes for the royal family.
Imagine that.
-(soft orchestral music) -(birds chirping)
Chretien was writing at the service of his great patron,
the Countess Marie de Champagne.
At her court, Marie demanded refined manners
and utter devotion from her male subjects.
This kind of behavior became known as courtly love.
At the medieval Rose Garden in Provins,
the ideals of courtly love are alive in Claudine Glot.
If I wanted to practice courtly love,
what kind of things would I need to learn?
You must be proud,
generous, full of charity.
You must have a great valor in yourself
and you must do wonderful things.
You have to be elegant, clever, well clothed.
You have to have excellent manners
and you have to accept to do everything
your lady ask you to do.
[Simon] Quite a challenge.
A big challenge and a full life challenge.
So in that world,
in the world of Arthur and the Round Table,
courtly love would be the most noble moral code, would it?
It is, it's a big fight in this,
in these Arthurian books and Arthurian texts
because we still have the old chivalric codes
and we have this new story with this new way of life,
which is in court and Chretien de Troyes put them,
court's courtly love at such a high level.
In 2010, if I started practicing courtly love,
do you think that that would be appreciated by women,
or do you think they would just think I was insane?
No, I think it would be appreciated,
because you know, we are at a moment where all the books,
all the magazines are full of sex, sex, sex
and maybe it's too much.
We're not only sex machines, you know.
(both laughing)
(soft orchestral music)
It was Chretien who brought the ideals of courtly love
into the legend of King Arthur.
But in his hands, Arthur is barely recognizable.
(melodic orchestral music)
Chretien opens his story at the court of Camelot,
perhaps inspired by this building, the Tour Cesar,
which Chretien would've known well as he began to write.
We first find King Arthur luxuriating
with his queen, Guinevere,
but this Arthur is not the courageous hero you might expect.
(soft orchestral music)
One day, a stranger arrives at court
taunting Arthur about his lack of power and wealth
and claiming to be holding some of Arthur's people.
So as part of a medieval hostage exchange program,
Arthur rather meekly allows Guinevere
to be taken off into the forest
and it will need somebody more manly and handsome
than Arthur to rescue Guinevere,
enter Lancelot.
(solemn orchestral music)
Lancelot is perhaps Chretien's greatest invention
and outshines all the other knights, even Arthur himself.
Needless to say, he's a Frenchman oozing Gallic charm.
And when he falls for Queen Guinevere,
you can't help but fear the worst.
It's the sight of a golden strand of hair caught in a comb
that first sets Lancelot's heart racing
and their swooning and fainting
and heartbreak and histrionics, all this
and the couple have barely spoken, let alone kissed.
(solemn orchestral music)
Lancelot fights to reach the imprisoned Queen Guinevere,
and in Chretien's story of courtly love,
there can only be one ending.
(soft orchestral music)
Love must have its way.
And one night, Lancelot steals through an orchard
towards where Guinevere is sleeping.
He bends back the bars at the window with his bare hands
and he lays with Guinevere until dawn.
(church bells chiming)
(poet speaking French)
-(church bells chiming) -(wind blowing)
It's quite shocking to read that adultery scene,
it's quite a racy passage in the book,
and I suppose in modern terms, you could say
that Chretien takes it all the way.
It leaves Arthur cuckolded and emasculated.
It's as if Lancelot hasn't just stolen his wife,
he's stolen the story.
-(melodic pop music) -(singing in French)
[Simon] It would be 200 years
before a poem restored Arthur's reputation,
a poem him written much closer to home.
-(melodic pop music) -(singing in French)
-Come on, Albion! -Get a goal!
(football fans shouting encouragement)
Go on, boys!
(footballers and fans shouting)
[Simon] It's now the 14th century.
England is at war with France.
England is a new sovereign nation
fighting for her independence.
-Come on, Albion! -(football fans groaning)
[Simon] Out of this atmosphere
came a new patriotic spirit,
-(trumpet tooting) -(football fans shouting)
a spirit reflected in the emergence of the English language,
(football fans shouting)
Poems and songs were written down in English
for the first time and for me, one of the best
is an anonymous epic poem known by its unsexy academic title
as the "Alliterative Morte Arthure."
(muffled announcer speaking)
French and Latin were the established literary languages
of the day and nearly all Arthurian literature
was presented in those languages.
But this was a poem written
in the emerging English language.
I suppose by comparison, it was a little bit minor league.
There's something a little bit subversive about it as well
and northern, in fact, some people go as far as to say
that the poem was probably written by somebody
from West Yorkshire with a West Yorkshire dialect.
-(football fans shouting) -Go on!
Well played, lad, go on!
No!
The ball!
[Reader] Sir Arthur's army set eyes on the enemy,
shoved forward their shields
and shunt further delay,
shooting forward at the fore with fierce eye shouts
and battering through the bright bucklers at the warriors."
(footballers and fans shouting)
This is a very different Arthur
emerging through the English poems.
In the French literature,
he was a marginalized character, really,
I suppose a gentleman concerned with etiquette
and courtly love, but pushed slightly to one side.
Here, he's at the very center of everything that's going on.
He's a national hero, he's a ruler at home
and he's a conqueror abroad.
He's gonna make the whole world bow to his whim.
(soft orchestral music)
Arthur had come home.
But it would take a true masterpiece of English literature
to establish him as the great national hero we know today.
(soft melodic music)
"You're well-bred and refined.
You did your stint in the army
and inherited the family estate.
It's true you've had a privileged life,
but at heart, you're an unsavory character.
Only you know why you did it,
robbery, rape and murder."
(soft melodic music)
It was around 1450,
while awaiting trial for his heinous misdeeds
that Sir Thomas Mallory was locked up
in the Tower of London.
(soft melodic music)
To say that Mallory had led a colorful life
is a bit of an understatement.
He'd enjoyed power, rank, and privilege on the one hand,
on the other hand, he'd been a notorious criminal
living the life of a fugitive.
But all that would come to an abrupt halt
with his incarceration here.
From now on, Mallory's days
would be spent in enforced contemplation.
It was during his years of imprisonment
that Sir Thomas Mallory first started to write.
(raven cawing)
Mallory wasn't a writer at all until his imprisonment here.
But with books at his disposal, with stories in his memories
and with frankly lots of time on his hands,
he threw himself into this hugely ambitious project.
He set about writing a coherent
and compelling version of the Arthur story.
And he couldn't have foreseen it, but it would become
one of the great masterpieces of English literature
and would fix King Arthur in the imagination
of the British people for centuries to come.
-(soft tense music) -(clock ticking)
There are very few people in the world
who can truly appreciate Mallory's achievement,
but the author, Erwin James,
who also began his writing career in prison is one of them.
-(soft tense music) -(clock ticking)
I was living on the fringes of society,
smashing windows, getting drunk, getting into fights,
total directionless behavior.
I just became worse, I met this chap,
we were living in a squat, basically.
We'd go out together committing grubby crimes
like, I don't know, breaking into cars,
doing pathetic things really.
And ultimately, we ended up being involved
in two murders, two robberies,
two ordinary people lost their lives
because of me and my co-accused.
And because I was locked up in Wandsworth my first year,
just locked up in a cell 23 hours a day,
six books a week from the prison library,
bucket in the corner for my toilet,
and lots of time to think, you know.
[Simon] And at what stage then
did writing become important to you
or even reading before that?
Well, reading, I was literate, you know,
in many ways, I had the edge
on a lot of my fellow prisoners in some way,
'cause I was literate, I mean, I was barely literate.
I mean, I wasn't educated, but I could read
and I could write a bit, you know, I could write a letter,
but they weren't particular strengths.
Did you read Mallory in prison
and do you remember what you thought of it at the time?
I mean, when initially, I read it,
I couldn't imagine that this person who had written,
you know, this classic thing that everybody knows about,
this story of Arthur and all these legends
was sort of conjured up and made palatable
by this person in a prison cell,
who also had the opprobrium of his community.
And you know, it took me a while to really accept
that this was somebody who was in prison that did this.
But once he started,
he could probably see this great tapestry
stretching out before him, you know.
When you're locked up and you're isolated,
your imagination is unbelievable, you know,
'cause in prison, you spend most of your time in your head.
But of course for Mallory,
he was creating an amazing environment
populated with these great characters.
One thing that I think is very winning in Mallory
is the way that he keeps addressing you, the reader.
He's always telling you about his predicament
and he asks for deliverance.
Do you think that the writing
is a redemptive act in that sense?
I mean, that's a really good point,
because I wonder if Mallory did have some sense of remorse.
You know, remorse is a great driver.
(soft eerie music)
[Erwin] "This was drawn by a knight prisoner,
Sir Thomas Mallory, and I pray you all
that readeth this tale to pray for him,
that God send him good recovery
soon and hastily.
Amen."
That's Mallory speaking,
wanting to make his peace with us.
But his work has a wider resonance than his own redemption.
He wrote during the War of the Roses,
the civil war that had divided England.
In the legend of King Arthur,
he saw a parable for his own fractured times
and his book is dominated
by the themes of loyalty and unity.
(soft melodic music)
It's called "Le Morte d'Arthur."
It tells the story of Arthur's death
and this is the landscape of the king's last stand.
(soft piano music)
I can't imagine that these landscapes
have changed that much in several hundred years,
apart from the odd B road.
It's still largely empty, unoccupied,
and I think to any writer, that offers a blank canvas.
And you can imagine Mallory in his cell
in all that confinement and claustrophobia
thinking about this wide expanse
and dreaming of filling it with charging knights
and storming soldiers.
To journey through this landscape
is to understand the meaning of Mallory's masterpiece
and to understand why "Le Morte d'Arthur"
is one of the jewels in the crown of English literature.
(wind blowing)
(artillery firing)
The beginning of the end finds Arthur away fighting Lancelot
to avenge him for sleeping with Guinevere.
(artillery exploding)
But news reaches him of trouble back home at Camelot.
(tense orchestral music)
Arthur's son, Mordred has betrayed his father
and taken the throne.
Denied vengeance against Lancelot,
Arthur must instead begin the long march back
to do battle with Mordred.
I'm striding along a tank track
on MOD land on Salisbury Plain,
which is where Mallory located the last great battle,
and it's still a place full of danger.
One of those places on the map with nothing in it
and Keep Out signs all around the edge.
It's also one of those places
where the noise of weaponry is never far away
and where warfare is still being practiced and perfected.
So to my mind, it's the perfect place
to be thinking about Arthur's last stand.
(artillery firing)
(artillery exploding)
The stage is set, but before giving battle,
the armies set up camp to rest for the night.
(soft suspenseful music)
This is Copehill Down, the artificial village
where the British Army practice urban warfare.
It's a lonely and haunting place,
evoking the vision of desolation that King Arthur sees
as he drifts off to sleep.
(soft suspenseful music)
Arthur dreams of fortune's wheel,
it's a kind of metaphysical Ferris wheel.
It takes Arthur right up to the top
and then tips him out of the seat
into a pond full of serpents and and worms.
It's a prophecy of doom and the significance
is that Arthur has reached the very pinnacle of his powers
and the only direction to go after that is down.
It's a reoccurring scene in Arthurian literature,
but Mallory, the master craftsman,
heightens it to its full dramatic effect.
It gives us a foretaste
of the complete dismantling of Arthur's kingdom
and makes Arthur
one of the great tragic figures of literature.
(solemn orchestral music)
At dawn, Arthur is resolved to avoid war at all costs,
but he's powerless to prevent it.
(solemn orchestral music)
The decisive battle commences.
(solemn orchestral music)
"And never since was there seen
a more doleful a battle in no Christian land.
For those but rushing and riding, foiling and striking
and many a grim word was there spoken of either to other
and many a deadly stroke.
And thus they fought all the long day and never stinted
'til the noble knights were laid to the cold earth
and ever they fought still 'til it was near night,
and by then, there were 100,000 laid dead upon the earth."
Aware that his narrative is reaching its climax,
Mallory cranks up the rhetoric and ratchets up the numbers.
It's almost as if every conflict in British history
had led to this point
and what's at stake here is both the future of the king
and the future of the kingdom.
Hundreds of thousands of men
are pitched against each other in bloody battle,
but it will still come down to a fight
between father and son.
Mordred is killed, but Arthur is mortally wounded.
(soft tense music)
His dying wish is for Sir Bedivere,
his last surviving knight
to throw the sword, Excalibur into the lake.
♪ Oh oh oh ♪
[Simon] Mallory makes it a supreme test of loyalty.
♪ Oh oh oh ♪
Sir Bedivere has been
Arthur's most trusted and loyal knight,
and I think for Bedivere,
this would've been like disposing of the king himself.
He would be bringing an end to the Round Table
and he would be bringing about the end
of the life of his friend and his king.
♪ Oh oh oh ♪
[Simon] "Then Sir Bedivere departed
and went to the sword and lightly took it up.
And so he went unto the waterside
and there he bound the girdle about the hilt
and threw the sword as far into the water as he might.
And there came an arm and a hand above the water
and took it and clutched it
and shook it thrice and brandished,
and then vanished with the sword into the water.
It's now time for Arthur to depart from this world.
(breeze blowing)
Then Sir Bedivere took the king upon his back
and so went with him to the waterside.
And when they were there, even fast by the bank,
hoved a little barge with many fair ladies in it.
'Now put me into that barge,' said the king
and then on they rode from the land
and Sir Bedivere beheld all those ladies go from him.
'Comfort thyself,' said the king,
for I will into the veil of Avalon
to heal me of my grievous wound,
and if thou hear nevermore of me, pray for my soul.'"
(haunting orchestral music)
If I ever need reminding of the power
of literature and myth, it's there in that passage.
No matter how many times I read it,
it never fails to move me and I don't really know why.
It's something to do with Bedivere
carrying King Arthur on his back,
the end of everything,
Arthur's kingdom finished, separated from his family,
the Round Table smashed to pieces.
And yet King Arthur accepts all this
with great dignity and grace.
-(haunting orchestral music) -(thunder rumbling)
I think he understands that his time has come
and then he's borne away on this funereal barge
to the Isle of Avalon,
I suppose, back into the mists of time
out of which he first came.
(haunting orchestral music)
Of course, there's still a little bit of unfinished business
in the shape and form of our unfaithful lovers,
Guinevere and Lancelot.
And Mallory manages to tie up these loose ends
in a very poignant coda at the end of the story.
In repentance for her infidelity,
Guinevere lives the rest of her life as a nun.
It's only after her death that Lancelot too can be redeemed
by bringing her body to Arthur's grave at Glastonbury Abbey,
where the tomb is still marked today.
(soft orchestral music)
Significantly and symbolically,
these three characters are reunited for one final time
and with great ceremony and with great dignity.
Lancelot lays her in the cold earth
next to the body of her husband, King Arthur.
It's a powerful final scene,
Mallory's heartfelt plea for unity
in a country beset by civil war.
It's quite difficult to know what to think and feel
at the end of this journey,
a journey of thousands of years and thousands of miles.
And you end up standing on some modern paving stones
next to what is quite possibly a fictitious grave
for two fictitious people.
And yet the fact that there is a grave here
in this very holy and historical site
is a testament to the importance of Arthur
in the imagination of the British people.
(melodic orchestral music)
It was Mallory's "Morte d'Arthur"
that became the definitive account of the story.
It brought to a close
the golden age of Arthurian literature,
which had begun with the Normans.
(soft orchestral music)
It seems to me that the story of Arthur
is the story of these islands.
Look for King Arthur and what you find
is a character who's been embraced
and then adapted by waves of succeeding cultures,
a man who's been remodeled and recast
to fit the needs of the day.
But somebody who still manages to offer us
a shared sense of common history and common purpose.
So real or imaginary,
in my view, that makes King Arthur
our most enduring and appealing national hero.
(soft orchestral music)
[Announcer] Dan Snow continues his series
of "Norman Walks" tomorrow at 10 here on BBC Four
with a trip to Yorkshire.
There's a little taster of what's in store
coming up in just a second.
And next tonight, romance, battle, morality,
and even a dose of green values
as Simon Armitage explores the landscape
of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight."