WEBVTT - The Real King Arthur 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:05.920 One quick and very exciting note before we begin today's episode. 0:00:06.080 --> 0:00:10.800 I have a brand new podcast. It's called Hoax and I, 0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:14.320 with my co host Lizzie Logan, will focus on a 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:19.720 lesser known or famous poax from history or relatively modern history, 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:25.080 discussing the question of why people believe things that aren't true, Unfortunately, 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:28.840 a question that seems all too relevant today. The very 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:33.280 first episode about the Cuttingly Fairies was released yesterday. It 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:36.080 should be in the Noble Blood feed. I hope that 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:38.960 you like it, that you want to listen to the podcast. 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:43.640 If you do, please subscribe, leave a review or rating. 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:49.080 It absolutely helps. Doing podcasts about history is my absolute 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:52.559 favorite thing in the world, and your support means the 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:55.400 absolute world. It means I get to do what I 0:00:55.520 --> 0:00:58.440 love to do. And don't worry. This podcast is not 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:01.880 in any way a replacement for Noble Blood. Both are 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:05.080 continuing on for as long as people want to listen. 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:09.280 Hoax will drop every other Monday, and I hope you 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:12.720 love it. And now into this episode, which you might 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:16.880 be able to pick up, has a slight hoax theme. 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:23.959 Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:31.120 and Mild from Aaron Manky listener discretion advised. In nineteen 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:36.000 ninety eight, an archaeologist digging at Tintagel Castle had this 0:01:36.120 --> 0:01:40.240 sort of moment which I imagine makes people want to 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:45.720 become archaeologists in the first place. Tintagel Castle, on the 0:01:45.760 --> 0:01:50.040 coast of Cornwall is famous today mainly for being the 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:52.520 ancestral home of King Arthur. 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:58.880 Well according to popular myth, there's actually no archaeological evidence 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:02.840 that King Arthur or or his family was ever associated 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:08.760 with Tintagil. In fact, there's no actual archaeological evidence that 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:13.600 King Arthur was real, but maybe all of that was 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:18.520 about to change. In nineteen ninety eight, the archaeological team 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:23.160 from Glasgow was digging on the castle's eastern terraces when 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:29.080 someone uncovered a piece of Cornish slate. The archaeologists pulled 0:02:29.080 --> 0:02:32.080 it away from the craggy earth and saw on the 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:38.119 slate carved letters. The archaeologists saw an A, an R. 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:42.200 We can only imagine the excitement he must have felt 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:47.000 when he saw the third letter A T. The Latin 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:51.680 inscription on the stone, dated from the sixth century, is faint, 0:02:52.080 --> 0:02:55.880 but it's thought to read something that translates to art. 0:02:56.120 --> 0:03:02.079 No descendant of Paternus Colis made this. It's not exactly 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:06.280 a smoking gun, but the fact that a Latin carving 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:10.920 with a name similar to Arthur dated from the historical 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:15.800 period during which the mythological king might have lived was 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:21.040 enough to cause excitement in the media. Doctor Jeffrey Wainwright, 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:25.360 the chief archaeologist at the English Heritage was happy to 0:03:25.440 --> 0:03:30.160 play into that excitement. Quote, Tintagel has presented us with 0:03:30.360 --> 0:03:34.000 evidence of a prince of Cornwall in the Dark Ages, 0:03:34.480 --> 0:03:38.320 living in a high status domestic settlement at the time 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:42.520 Arthur lived. It has given us the name of a person, 0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:47.560 Artneau Artna was here. That is his name on a 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:51.240 piece of stone. It is a massive coincidence. At the 0:03:51.400 --> 0:03:55.360 very least, this is where myth meets history. It's the 0:03:55.520 --> 0:04:01.080 find of a lifetime end quote. The connection, in my view, 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:05.760 is extremely flimsy. But you can't blame doctor Wainwright for 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:09.480 trying to get the public excited about what would otherwise 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:14.880 be a fairly dull project about faint Latin inscriptions in 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:21.360 sixth century stones. King Arthur is a marquee name, someone 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:24.919 who like King Henry the Eighth, or Anne Boleyn or 0:04:25.000 --> 0:04:30.560 Elizabeth I or Shakespeare seems to get people interested in history. 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:35.640 King Arthur is arguably one of the most famous historical 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:40.560 figures in the world, but there's almost no evidence he 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:45.920 ever existed at all. So who is King Arthur? And 0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:51.080 how did someone who maybe never existed become so famous 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:56.280 and so sought after. It's a story not about stones 0:04:56.360 --> 0:05:01.080 from the five hundreds, but a story about story about 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:05.840 how sometimes a mystery that lets the audience play detective 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:10.279 makes for a better version of history than the real thing. 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:20.720 I'm Danish Schwartz and this is noble blood. If King 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:25.640 Arthur did really exist, most consensus estimates that he would 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:30.520 have lived around the fifth or sixth century, a period 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:34.880 after the Romans left Britain, during which the island was 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:40.919 in institutional and economic collapse. Rome withdrew from Britain in 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:44.719 four hundred and ten AD while they were under siege 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:48.320 from the Visigoths back home, and what was left on 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:54.640 the island was, in a word, chaos. Former Roman institutions 0:05:54.680 --> 0:06:00.320 were left abandoned and collapsing. Local economies were crumbling, and 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:05.799 the people in fragmented fiefdoms were tormented by plague, drought, 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:11.359 and invading Saxons. Mark Morris, the historian and author of 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:15.359 the twenty twenty one book The Anglo Saxons, A History 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:19.039 of the Beginnings of England four hundred to ten sixty six, 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:24.040 puts it very succinctly, quote it was a miserable time 0:06:24.120 --> 0:06:28.359 to be alive. End quote. So why do people think 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:32.400 King Arthur would have existed during this period? Well, there 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:38.520 are a few vaguely suggestive sources. The oldest possible reference 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:43.400 to a historical Arthur comes from a book called Historia 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:48.480 Britonum or History of the Britons, written by a monk 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:53.240 named Nennius around eight hundred and twenty eight, although it 0:06:53.279 --> 0:06:58.919 only survives in copies from the eleventh century on. Before 0:06:58.960 --> 0:07:03.280 we even begin, it's worth paying attention to the tenuousness 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:07.320 of that source. It's a text from the eleventh century, 0:07:07.680 --> 0:07:10.520 which is actually a copy of a book from two 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:14.960 centuries before that, which is talking about a period several 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:21.120 hundred years before that. Historia Britonum contains a section including 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:26.720 a battle list twelve battles in which someone named Arthur 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:32.080 led troops. This Arthur isn't actually called a king, but 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:36.920 rather a dux belorum or military leader, a general. The 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:40.840 battle list ends with the Battle of Baden, where Nennius 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:46.240 claims that Arthur killed nine hundred and sixty men, a 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:51.440 resounding and impressive victory. If you're interested in proof that 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:55.560 that battle actually happened, there's some pretty good evidence you 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:59.880 can cite. There's some archaeological evidence that Anglo Saxon my 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:04.360 gration reversed around that time, which is consistent with a 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:08.400 massive victory of the British. After all, who wouldn't turn 0:08:08.440 --> 0:08:11.440 around when faced with a general who could kill nearly 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:17.080 one hundred other soldiers himself. There's also another extremely early source, 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:20.760 a text written in the sixth century called on the 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:26.520 Ruin and Conquest of Britain by Guildess, which mentions Baden, 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:30.880 and that's huge. That battle would have been within living 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:36.280 memory of when Gildas was writing his book, except Guildess 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:41.880 doesn't actually mention Arthur. It's possible maybe that Arthur figure 0:08:42.080 --> 0:08:46.040 was just too obvious to need to be mentioned, or 0:08:46.240 --> 0:08:51.360 maybe Ninius in the ninth century got his battles mixed 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:55.520 up and that heroic general Arthur fought in a different 0:08:55.800 --> 0:09:00.720 later battle. But there's also no Arthur mentioned in the 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:04.800 Anglo Saxon Chronicle, which would have covered the period he 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:08.679 was alive. Nor is there an Arthur in the seven 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:13.360 hundred and thirty one Ecclesiastical History of the English People, 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:18.440 which also mentioned the battle at Baden Guildis does mention 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:24.080 someone named Ambrosius Arelenius, which excites some people because I 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:27.880 suppose it starts with the letter A. But that seems 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:30.600 like the type of thing that only matters if you're 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:34.440 already determined to find evidence for a real king Arthur. 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:39.480 Even Nenius's book, which does mention Arthur, the source that's 0:09:39.640 --> 0:09:42.679 most helpful if you're someone clinging to the idea that 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:47.720 someone named Arthur exists, gets a little, let's say, less 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:53.720 than factual. There's another section of Nenius's Historia Brittnam that 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:57.960 claims that Arthur had a dog named Cabal who was 0:09:58.080 --> 0:10:01.320 chasing a bore, and while the dog was running, his 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:06.520 pawprint became permanently embedded in stone, and people would try 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:09.480 to steal the stone, Neneas says, but then the very 0:10:09.559 --> 0:10:11.920 next day it would be right back where it was. 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:17.280 Nenius also tells us that Arthur's son was buried in 0:10:17.320 --> 0:10:20.439 a tomb that's never the same length if you measure 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:24.160 it more than once quote, And men come to measure 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:27.120 the grave and find it sometimes six feet in length, 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:32.440 sometimes nine, sometimes twelve, sometimes fifteen. And whatever length you 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:35.880 might measure in at one time, a second time you 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:38.360 will not find it to have the same length. And 0:10:38.440 --> 0:10:41.840 I myself have put this to the test end quote. 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:47.040 And so even back then, the oldest source we have 0:10:47.200 --> 0:10:51.880 mentioning a candidate who could ostensibly be our King Arthur. 0:10:52.400 --> 0:10:55.719 He's not a king, first of all, and second of all, 0:10:55.760 --> 0:11:02.320 he's already a figure of popular mythology. There's another source 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:06.960 people often bring up, the Analyst Cambria or welsh Annals, 0:11:07.000 --> 0:11:10.880 originated in the tenth century, but which survives as a 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:16.160 copy from two centuries after that. The welsh Annals also 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:19.840 mention Arthur and the Battle of Baden, but the text 0:11:19.960 --> 0:11:24.280 went through so many revisions over the centuries it's impossible 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:28.200 to know what the original text was, or whether it 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:33.200 was ever a corroboration of the Historia Brittonum, or whether 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:37.199 it was just using the Historia Brittonum as a source. 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:43.720 And so the King Arthur of our popular imagination exists 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:47.920 really only in the margins of historical sources, and it 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:53.640 requires plenty of squinting. Certainly, a very very long time 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:58.680 ago people had an idea of someone called Arthur, whether 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:02.760 he was real or not. There's a Welsh poem called 0:12:02.800 --> 0:12:07.719 Egododeine from between the seventh and eleventh centuries, and it 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:12.400 mentioned some random warrior and then adds he was no Arthur, 0:12:12.880 --> 0:12:15.720 the way someone today might say he was no George 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:20.160 Clooney or whatever. Of course, once again we're faced with 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:23.400 the question of whether it's possible the author of that 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:28.000 poem had just read the Historia Brittonam and took note 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:32.880 of this guy who allegedly killed nine hundred men. He 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:36.640 might be referring to Arthur as a man who was 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:40.520 understood to be a figure of myth already and not 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:46.840 of history. That's really kind of all we have. Countless 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:50.360 books and articles have been written about the quote unquote 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:54.560 real King Arthur, and the idea that there might be 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:59.880 some hidden clues we've overlooked sends historians and amateurs alike 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:05.600 into Da Vinci code esque tizzies every few decades, only 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:10.920 for nothing really worthwhile to come up. The archaeologist Noel 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:16.320 Miles once Riley made the declaration that no figure on 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:20.720 the borderline of history and mythology has wasted more of 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:25.840 the historian's time. On the evidence, it does seem astonishing 0:13:26.280 --> 0:13:31.079 that an occasionally referenced general somehow became one of the 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:36.280 most celebrated figures in all of British mythology. So how 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:43.520 did Arthur dux Belorum become a king? We have a 0:13:43.559 --> 0:13:47.920 Welsh cleric named Jeffrey of Monmouth to thank for the 0:13:48.120 --> 0:13:53.520 King Arthur, who has captivated our imagination for centuries. Three 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:57.800 hundred years after Nennius wrote his battleist that included a 0:13:57.880 --> 0:14:02.640 battle leader named Arthur, Jeoffrey of Monmouth decided on a 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:09.199 slight rebrand. In his eleven thirty six Historia Regnum Brittania, 0:14:09.720 --> 0:14:14.600 he wrote about King Arthur, the monarch who defeated the Saxons. 0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:19.560 This is the first version of Arthur that has elements 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:24.040 of the story that remain in our mythology today, sort 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:29.400 of the biggest hits of Arthurian legend Guenevere, Excalibur Merlin. 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:33.880 In Jeffrey's version of the story, King Arthur's father was 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:38.960 Uther Pendragon, and Arthur was conceived at Tintagel Castle and 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:42.680 then ultimately died while battling Mordred, and he was laid 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:46.920 to rest in Avalon. The larger cast of side characters 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:50.800 aren't there, but the general shape should be familiar to 0:14:50.880 --> 0:14:55.760 anyone who went through a King Arthur phase. But Jeffrey 0:14:55.960 --> 0:15:00.880 didn't even really purport to historical accuracy, or at least 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:05.840 not all that convincingly. Remember, he's writing in the twelfth 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:10.160 century about something that allegedly was taking place in the 0:15:10.200 --> 0:15:14.920 sixth century. Jeffrey claimed he was basing the Arthur story 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:19.760 on a quote very ancient book, but inconveniently for us, 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:24.120 he doesn't actually mention what that book might be. Even 0:15:24.360 --> 0:15:29.080 at that time, Jeffrey's contemporaries were aware that he was 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:33.760 writing a work of if not entirely fiction, then almost 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:39.200 entirely fiction. William of Newburgh, a twelfth century historian, wrote 0:15:39.240 --> 0:15:42.840 of Jeffrey, quote, it is quite clear that everything this 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:47.280 man wrote about Arthur was made up, partly by himself 0:15:47.320 --> 0:15:51.680 and partly by others, either from an inordinate love of lying, 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:57.920 or for the sake of pleasing the Britons. The legend 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:02.160 of Arthur was forming in real time, a folk story 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:07.000 that was giving Britain its own identity. Jeffrey's book did 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:11.880 please the Britons. It was a sensation. The most popular 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:15.640 text in the Middle Ages after the Bible. The idea 0:16:15.760 --> 0:16:21.440 of Arthur was exciting a matter of national pride. In 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:25.840 twelve thirty three, the Earl of Cornwall made what objectively 0:16:26.240 --> 0:16:31.280 seems like a terrible trade three prime estates in exchange 0:16:31.360 --> 0:16:37.160 for Tintagel. Tintagel was remote and served no real defensive 0:16:37.320 --> 0:16:40.600 or strategic function, but it did have one thing going 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:44.040 for it. It was romantic in the sense that it 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:48.280 was already associated with the man who was swiftly becoming 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:53.640 a mascot for Britannia herself. The next big leap in 0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:56.480 the story of King Arthur as he became a legend, 0:16:57.080 --> 0:17:01.160 was a leap across the English Channel. The twelfth century 0:17:01.160 --> 0:17:05.320 French poet Schretien de Troy added his own spin on 0:17:05.400 --> 0:17:09.600 the Arthur lore, and, like a game of improv adding 0:17:09.680 --> 0:17:13.879 in new elements, he came up with Lancelot, the Holy 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:17.600 Grail and Camelot, And from this point in the Arthur 0:17:17.720 --> 0:17:23.720 legend it becomes interwoven with Welsh mythology and Romantic traditions, 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:28.720 and so our version of King Arthur is born not 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:36.080 from sixth century history, but from twelfth century literature. But 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:39.399 there were a lot of stories circling around nine hundred 0:17:39.480 --> 0:17:43.360 years ago, and the vast majority of them aren't household names. 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:48.320 Why has this legend of Arthur stood the test of time. 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:53.480 The answer is something that every good female pop star understands. 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:58.280 When it comes to longevity, you've got to rebrand yourself. 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:04.320 Arthur stories are incredibly malleable. They can fit like liquid 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:09.200 into containers of any shape. Over the centuries, Arthur evolved 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:15.960 into whatever the current moment needed. According to historian Nicholas Hyam, 0:18:16.480 --> 0:18:20.239 back when Nenius was writing about the great general who 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:25.320 killed nine hundred Saxons in battle, Britain needed quote, a 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:30.760 god beloved warrior to rally behind. One important detail of 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:35.199 Neneus's historia is that Arthur went into battle with an 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:40.320 image of the Virgin Mary on his shield. According to Hyam, quote, 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:44.280 Arthur was winning battles with the support of Jesus Christ 0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:50.400 and Mary against the Saxons. The Saxons were presented as barbaric, dishonest, 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:57.440 and latecomers to Christianity. By the time Jeffrey of Monmouth 0:18:57.560 --> 0:19:01.359 was writing his version, he was doing some pr for 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:07.520 the Welsh, who were seen by some as Celtic speaking savages. Jeffreys. 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:13.160 Arthur has his roots in the western craggy castle of Tintagel, 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:18.080 and elements of his story are derived fairly linearly from 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:22.880 Welsh and Irish folklore. Hard to think of the Welsh 0:19:22.960 --> 0:19:27.760 as savages when British history is oriented around a noble, 0:19:28.240 --> 0:19:34.160 valiant Celtic king, But Arthur wouldn't belong to the Welsh forever. 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:39.880 In eleven ninety one, monks at Glastonbury made a shocking 0:19:39.960 --> 0:19:44.840 announcement they had found skeletons which they claimed were the 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:50.840 remains of King Arthur and Queen Guenevere. What a lucky happenstance, 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:55.840 of course, it's just a happy byproduct that that discovery 0:19:56.119 --> 0:20:00.320 would mean plenty of visitors and pilgrims coming to the abbe. 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:04.680 One of those pilgrims was King Edward the First. He 0:20:04.960 --> 0:20:09.440 visited the Glastonbury Graves in twelve seventy eight and actually 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:14.760 disinterred the remains. When observer wrote at the time, there 0:20:14.760 --> 0:20:18.320 in two caskets were found, the bones of the said 0:20:18.440 --> 0:20:23.280 King of wondrous size and those of Guenevere of marvelous beauty. 0:20:24.240 --> 0:20:27.720 I personally would love to know how beautiful a skeleton 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:31.440 can be, but I'll take their word for it. Edward 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:36.080 reinterred those skeletons after wrapping them in silk and giving 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:40.760 them the Royal seal. But his little pilgrimage wasn't just 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:46.280 to honor a fellow monarch. His loudly and publicly proclaiming 0:20:46.440 --> 0:20:50.040 that he saw the remains of King Arthur served an 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:57.480 important political purpose. Edward was saying, King Arthur is definitely dead. 0:20:57.960 --> 0:21:02.560 So any Welsh enemy King Edward had who had any 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:07.120 great notion that this heroic king might be immortal or whatever, 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:10.320 return from the grave to challenge Edward for the throne. 0:21:10.880 --> 0:21:16.880 While they were sadly misguided. A few centuries later, other 0:21:17.080 --> 0:21:21.880 English monarchs would also use Arthur for their own pr purposes. 0:21:22.680 --> 0:21:26.720 As I've probably alluded to on this show, before, the 0:21:26.920 --> 0:21:31.800 Tudor claim to the throne of England was fairly tenuous. 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:36.719 King Henry the seventh was really doing everything he could 0:21:36.840 --> 0:21:40.520 after the Wars of the Roses to try to establish 0:21:40.640 --> 0:21:44.840 himself as legitimate, and one way he did that was 0:21:44.880 --> 0:21:48.720 by claiming that on his Welsh side, he was a 0:21:48.840 --> 0:21:53.919 direct descendant of King Arthur. Henry the Seventh further bolstered 0:21:53.920 --> 0:21:59.920 that connection by naming his first son Prince Arthur. Although tragic, 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:03.639 Arthur died young and cleared the way for his younger 0:22:03.680 --> 0:22:08.480 brother Henry to become King Henry the Eighth, and even 0:22:08.760 --> 0:22:13.920 later in the Victorian era, Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote Idols 0:22:14.000 --> 0:22:19.720 of the King, repopularizing Arthur and framing Arthur's story not 0:22:20.040 --> 0:22:23.680 as one of a Welsh battle saga, but as a 0:22:23.880 --> 0:22:28.679 romance and a love triangle. It's no accident that Arthur 0:22:28.880 --> 0:22:33.199 re emerged during a period when the Industrial Revolution was 0:22:33.240 --> 0:22:37.280 adding a sense of uncertainty and chaos to the country. 0:22:38.119 --> 0:22:43.080 Arthur became a comforting figure of power and stability, and 0:22:43.400 --> 0:22:47.520 new elements of the Arthur story, notably of Guenevere as 0:22:47.560 --> 0:22:53.760 an adulterer, were introduced to reinforce notions of Victorian morality. 0:22:54.400 --> 0:22:58.640 Even today, the myth of King Arthur is pretty profitable, 0:22:59.080 --> 0:23:02.920 despite the fact that Arthur isn't real, and even if 0:23:02.920 --> 0:23:07.479 he was never actually lived At Tintagel Castle, the place 0:23:07.560 --> 0:23:11.960 receives three thousand visitors a day in the summer, most 0:23:12.000 --> 0:23:16.719 of whom probably imagine they're seeing the real Camelot, a 0:23:16.760 --> 0:23:22.200 fantasy not dispelled by the fact that English heritage, which controls. 0:23:22.280 --> 0:23:27.439 The site plays into that lower with Arthurian decor and carvings, 0:23:28.119 --> 0:23:35.280 Tintagel does have an incredible archaeological history. During the Arthurian period, 0:23:35.720 --> 0:23:39.920 the settlement was home to Celtic people who were writing 0:23:40.000 --> 0:23:46.560 on slabs, forging metal, and organizing relatively sophisticated systems of agriculture. 0:23:47.359 --> 0:23:52.000 It's easy to imagine, plausible even that at some point 0:23:52.480 --> 0:23:56.480 that group of people had a leader, and that leader 0:23:56.760 --> 0:24:01.480 was a valiant warrior, and when the Saxon Horde tried 0:24:01.520 --> 0:24:05.280 to cross the narrow Rocky strait to the castle, that 0:24:05.440 --> 0:24:09.480 leader might have been able to defend his people. Maybe 0:24:09.520 --> 0:24:13.960 that man was named Arthur or something like it, and 0:24:14.080 --> 0:24:19.600 the story of his noble victory embedded itself in Welsh folklore, 0:24:20.000 --> 0:24:25.640 eventually becoming embroidered until he was a king with noble, 0:24:25.840 --> 0:24:30.600 pious knight who carried a sword called Excalibur. When you 0:24:30.720 --> 0:24:38.440 tell a story like that, it almost sounds plausible. That's 0:24:38.480 --> 0:24:42.000 the history of King Arthur as we know it today. 0:24:42.400 --> 0:24:46.040 But keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear 0:24:46.240 --> 0:24:50.159 about how another aspect of Arthur's story came into the 0:24:50.200 --> 0:25:01.919 popular imagination. If you are familiar with the myth of 0:25:02.040 --> 0:25:06.360 King Arthur. You probably know that he became king because 0:25:06.400 --> 0:25:09.200 he was able to pull a sword from the stone. 0:25:09.760 --> 0:25:13.040 Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil 0:25:13.200 --> 0:25:16.760 is right wise king born of all England. You know 0:25:16.840 --> 0:25:20.280 the drill. All of these nobles fail, and then lowly 0:25:20.480 --> 0:25:23.640 Arthur is able to do it. That part of the story, 0:25:23.960 --> 0:25:27.080 and in fact, lots of the most popular elements of 0:25:27.119 --> 0:25:32.080 the Arthur legend today come from a fifteenth century text 0:25:32.440 --> 0:25:37.480 called Lemoort d Arthur by Thomas Mallory. But the identity 0:25:37.920 --> 0:25:42.280 of who Thomas Mallory actually was is a question that 0:25:42.359 --> 0:25:47.280 has been the subject of speculation and debate among historians. 0:25:47.920 --> 0:25:50.880 Not as much debate as who King Arthur was, but 0:25:51.200 --> 0:25:55.399 you know debate. The most prominent answer is that he 0:25:55.640 --> 0:26:00.320 was Thomas Mallory of Noubled Revel in Warwickshire. And that's 0:26:00.320 --> 0:26:04.080 the case. He was sort of an anti Arthur. That 0:26:04.400 --> 0:26:08.360 Thomas Mallory was a thief and a criminal and actually 0:26:08.600 --> 0:26:11.800 would have published Lemoor to Arthur while he was in 0:26:11.880 --> 0:26:17.200 prison for robbery and rape. That is a very downer 0:26:17.280 --> 0:26:19.840 of an epilogue. And so I'll leave you with something 0:26:19.920 --> 0:26:23.680 a little happier. We had an addition to the Noble 0:26:23.800 --> 0:26:28.520 Blood family last November on Thanksgiving Day, a little boy 0:26:28.800 --> 0:26:33.080 named Arthur, and as his chubby cheeks and giggle and 0:26:33.240 --> 0:26:36.000 the fact that I can't stop taking pictures of him 0:26:36.040 --> 0:26:50.800 can attest, he is entirely and definitely real. Noble Blood 0:26:50.920 --> 0:26:54.600 is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from 0:26:54.680 --> 0:26:58.720 Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted by me Dana Schwartz, 0:26:59.119 --> 0:27:04.080 with additional and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannahswick, Courtney Sender, 0:27:04.320 --> 0:27:08.040 Amy Hit and Julia Milaney. The show is edited and 0:27:08.240 --> 0:27:14.000 produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producerrima il Kaali and 0:27:14.119 --> 0:27:18.600 executive producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For 0:27:18.720 --> 0:27:24.120 more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:27:24.400 --> 0:27:28.280 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.