King Arthur's family

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Arthur in William Henry Margetson's illustration for Legends of King Arthur and His Knights (1914)

King Arthur's family grew throughout the centuries with King Arthur's legend. The earliest Welsh Arthurian tradition portrays Arthur as having an extensive family network, including his parents Uther Pendragon and Eigyr (Igraine), his wife Gwenhwyfar (Guinevere), his nephew Gwalchmei (Gawain), a brother, and several sons. His maternal lineage is also detailed, linking him to relatives such as his grandfather, the legendary king Amlawdd Wledig. This complex familial structure was both simplified and expanded in shared traditions of British, French, and other medieval European chronicles and romances, which introduced new characters: Arthur's half-sisters, including Morgan, their children, including Mordred, and others. Arthur's lineage was later claimed by various rulers, in particular the House of Tudor and Scottish clans, reflecting the enduring legacy of his familial ties in medieval and early modern genealogies.

Medieval Welsh tradition

Uther Pendragon by W. H. Margetson (1914)

In Welsh Arthurian pre-Galfridian tradition, meaning from before the time of Geoffrey of Monmouth's 12th-century Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain), Welsh sources indicate that Uther Pendragon was Arthur's father, and that he had a brother (Madog) and a nephew (Eliwlod). Arthur also appears to have been assigned a sister in this material – Gwalchmei son of Gwyar is named as his nephew in Culhwch and Olwen, son of his sister and cousin (it does not specify if Gwyar is his father or Arthur's otherwise unknown sister). The Vita Iltuti and the Brut Dingestow combine to suggest that Arthur's own mother was named Eigyr. Culhwch and Olwen also names Arthur's half-brother as Gormant, son of Arthur's mother and Ricca, the chief elder of Cornwall. This parallel of later stories of Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall.

The genealogies from the 13th-century Mostyn MS. 117 assert that Arthur is the son of Uthyr, the son of Custennin, the son of Cynfawr, the son of Tudwal, the son of Morfawr, the son of Eudaf, the son of Cadwr, the son of Cynan, the son of Caradoc, the son of Bran, and the son of Llŷr. Regarding Arthur's own family, his wife is consistently stated to be Gwenhwyfar, usually the daughter of King Ogrfan Gawr (variation: 'Gogrfan Gawr', "[G]Ogrfan the Giant"), and sister to Gwenhwyfach. Culhwch and Bonedd yr Arwyr also indicate that Arthur had some sort of relationship with Eleirch, daughter of Iaen, with which he produced a son named Kyduan (Cydfan). Kyduan was not the only child of Arthur according to Welsh Arthurian tradition – he is also ascribed sons called Amr (Amhar), Gwydre, Llacheu and Duran. (See the Offspring section for further information about Arthur's children.)

In addition to this immediate family, Arthur was said to have had a great variety of distant relatives, including maternal aunts, uncles, and cousins, as well as a grandfather named Anlawd (or Amlawdd) Wledig ("Prince Anlawd"). Anlawd is the common link between Arthur and many of these figures. Thus, the relationship of first cousins that is implied or stated between Arthur, Culhwch, Illtud, and Goreu fab Custennin depends upon all of their mothers being daughters of Anlawd. Anlawd ultimately appears to be a genealogical construct designed to allow such inter-relationships between characters to be postulated by medieval Welsh authors. Arthur's maternal uncles in Culhwch and Olwen, including Llygatrud Emys, Gwrbothu Hen, Gweir Gwrhyt Ennwir and Gweir Baladir Hir, similarly appear to derive from this relationship.

Common medieval literature

Guinevere by W. H. Margetson (1914)

Relatively few members of Arthur's family in the Welsh materials are carried over to the works of Geoffrey of Monmouth and chronicle writers who based their accounts on him. Arthur's grandfather Anlawd Wledic and his maternal uncles, aunts, and cousins do not appear there, and nor do his paternal relatives or any of his sons. Only the core family seems to have made the transition in Geoffrey's influential version: Arthur's wife Gwenhwyfar (who became Guinevere), his father Uthyr (Uther), his mother Eigyr (Igerna), and his nephew Gwalchmei (Gawain). Uther was given a new family, including two brothers and their father. The place of Gwalchmei's mother Gwyar was taken by Anna, the wife of Loth, in Geoffrey's account, whilst Modredus (Mordred) was made into her second son (a status he did not have as Medraut in the Welsh material).

Morgan le Fay by W. H. Margetson (1914)

In the chivalric romance branch of such common tradition, Arthur gains a sister or half-sister named Morgan, first identified as his relative by Chrétien de Troyes' Yvain. Arthur's other sister or half-sister, known by several names including Morgause, a daughter of Gorlois and Igerna (Igraine), replaced Anna in the romances as mother of Gawain and Mordred. She and Morgan may be also joined by a third half-sister, today best known as Elaine. Drawing on earlier sources, Richard Carew mentions another sister from Igraine and Uther, named Amy. The overall number of Arthur's sisters or half-sisters varies between the different romances, ranging from as few as one or two to as many as five (in which case one of them may die early). Their names and roles also vary, as do their husbands (most commonly the British kings Lot, Urien and Nentres, the last one of them being largely interchangeable with the other two).Template:Efn Through the sisters, Arthur is given further nephews (most commonly Gawain, Agravain, Gaheris and Gareth by Morgause; Galeschin by Elaine; and Yvain by either Morgan or the fourth sister), who all become members of the Round Table. Romances by authors such as Chrétien and Wolfram von Eschenbach mention or feature Arthur's nieces and occasionally additional nephews (for example, Lancelot is son of Arthur's unnamed sister in Ulrich von Zatzikhoven's Lanzelet, but nowhere else).

Arthur's son named Loholt was introduced in Chrétien de Troyes's Erec and Enide, possibly based on Llacheu. The historical Romano-British leader Ambrosius Aurelianus is turned into Uther's brother in Geoffrey's tradition, which derives Arthur's lineage from the self-proclaimed Western Roman Emperor Constantine II of Britain, who is presented in this version of the legend as Arthur's grandfather. The chronicle Brut Tysilio also makes Gorlois the father of Cador, who is thus Arthur's half-brother through Igraine; Cador's son Constantine succeeds Arthur as the high king of Britain in Geoffrey's Historia. One important figure of no actual blood relation to Arthur is Ector, who is featured as a secret foster-father of Arthur in much of the romance tradition, along with Ector's son Kay as the young Arthur's foster-brother.

Offspring

Although Arthur is given sons in both early and late Arthurian tales, he is rarely granted significant further generations of descendants. This is at least partly because of the usually premature deaths of Arthur's sons. In some cases, including in Le Morte d'Arthur, their failure to produce a legitimate heir contributes to the fall of Arthur.

In the early Welsh tradition, Mordred (Medraut) was merely a nephew of Arthur, who had three different sons; however, their stories are largely lost. Amr is the first to be mentioned in Arthurian literature, appearing in the 9th-century Historia Brittonum:

Why Arthur chose or was forced to kill his son is never made clear. The only other reference to Amr comes in the post-Galfridian Welsh romance Geraint, where "Amhar son of Arthur" is one of Arthur's four chamberlains, along with Bedwyr's son Amhren.Template:Rp

Gwydre is similarly unlucky, being slaughtered by the giant boar Twrch Trwyth in Culhwch and Olwen, along with two of Arthur's maternal uncles. No other references to either Gwydre or Arthur's uncles survive.Template:Rp

Another son, known only from a possibly 15th-century Welsh text, is said to have died on the field of Camlann:

Sanddef [Bryd Angel] drive the crow

off the face of Duran [son of Arthur].

Dearly and belovedly his mother raised him.

Arthur [sang it]

More is known about Arthur's son Llacheu. He is one of the "Three Well-Endowed Men of the Island of Britain", according to Triad 4, and he fights alongside Cei in the early Arthurian poem Pa gur yv y porthaur?. Like his father is in Y Gododdin, Llacheu appears in the 12th-century and later Welsh poetry as a standard of heroic comparison, and he also seems to have been similarly a figure of local topographic folklore too. Taken together, it is generally agreed that all these references indicate that Llacheu was a figure of considerable importance in the early Arthurian cycle. Nonetheless, Llacheu too dies, with the speaker in the pre-Galfridian poem Ymddiddan Gwayddno Garanhir ac Gwyn fab Nudd remembering that he had "been where Llacheu was slain / the son of Arthur, awful in songs / when ravens croaked over blood." The romance character based on him, Loholt (or Lohot), also dies young.

Mordred is a major exception to this tradition of Arthur's sons dying childless. Mordred, like Amr, is killed by Arthur – at Camlann – according to Geoffrey of Monmouth and the post-Galfridian tradition but; unlike the others, he is ascribed two sons, both of whom rose against Arthur's successor and cousin Constantine III with the help of the Saxons. However, in Geoffrey's Historia (where the motifs of Arthur's killing of Mordred and Mordred's sons first appear), Mordred was not Arthur's son. His relationship with Arthur was reinterpreted in the Vulgate Cycle, as he was made the result of an unwitting incest between Arthur and his sister. This tale is preserved in the later romances, with the motif of Arthur knowing by Merlin that Mordred would grow up to kill him; and so by the time of the Post-Vulgate Cycle Arthur has devised a plot, Herod-like, to rid of all children born on the same day as Mordred in order to try to save himself from this fate. The Post-Vulgate version also features another of Arthur's illegitimate sons, Arthur the Less, who survives for as long as Mordred but remains fiercely loyal to Arthur.

Other literature has expanded Arthur's immediate family further. His daughter Archfedd is found in only one Welsh source, the 13th-century Bonedd y Saint. A daughter named Hild[e] is mentioned in the 13th-century Icelandic Þiðreks saga (Thidrekssaga), while the Möttuls saga from around the same period features a son of Arthur by the name Aristes. The eponymous Samson the Fair from another Norse story, Samsons saga fagra, is Arthur's son who has a sister named Grega. Rauf de Boun's 1309 Petit Brut lists Arthur's son Adeluf III as a king of Britain, also mentioning Arthur's other children Morgan le Noir (Morgan the Black) and Patrike le Rous (Patrick the Red) by an unnamed Fairy Queen. Later on, a number of early modern works have occasionally given Arthur more of different sons and daughters.Template:Efn

Bloodline claims

A Supposed direct lineage from King Arthur has been professed by some English monarchs, especially those of Welsh descent, among them the 15th-century King Henry VII (through Cadwaladr ap Cadwallon), who even named his first-born son after Arthur, and the 16th-century Queen Elizabeth I. In the Scottish Highlands, the descent from King Arthur remains included in rival genealogies of both Clan Arthur (MacArthur) and Clan Campbell, whose traditions involve Arthur's son variably known as Merbis, Merevie, Smerbe, Smerevie or Smereviemore (according to the Campbells, from his second marriage to a French princess named Elizabeth). In Iberia, medieval and early modern genealogies attributed Queen Baddo, wife of the 6th-century Visigothic King Reccared I, as a daughter of King Arthur.

Bibliography

• Bromwich, R. Trioedd Ynys Prydein: the Welsh Triads (Cardiff: University of Wales, 1978).
• Bromwich, R. and Simon Evans, D. Culhwch and Olwen. An Edition and Study of the Oldest Arthurian Tale (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1992).
• Bryant, N. The High Book of the Grail: A translation of the 13th-century romance of Perlesvaus (Brewer, 1996).
• Coe, J. B. and Young, S. The Celtic Sources for the Arthurian Legend (Llanerch, 1995).
• Green, T. "The Historicity and Historicisation of Arthur", Arthurian Resources.
• Green, T. "Tom Thumb and Jack the Giant Killer: Two Arthurian Fairytales?" in Folklore 118.2 (August, 2007), pp. 123–40.
• Green, T. Concepts of Arthur (Stroud: Tempus, 2007) Template:ISBN.
• Higham, N. J. King Arthur, Myth-Making and History (London: Routledge, 2002).
• Jones, T. and Jones, G. The Mabinogion (London: Dent, 1949).
• Lacy, N. J. Lancelot-Grail: The Old French Arthurian Vulgate and Post-Vulgate in Translation (New York: Garland, 1992–96), 5 volumes.
• Padel, O. J. Arthur in Medieval Welsh Literature (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2000) Template:ISBN.
• Roberts, B. F. "Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Regum Britanniae and Brut Y Brenhinedd" in R. Bromwich, A.O.H. Jarman and B.F. Roberts (edd.) The Arthur of the Welsh (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1991), pp. 98–116.
• Rowland, J. Early Welsh Saga Poetry: a Study and Edition of the Englynion (Cambridge, 1990).
• Sims-Williams, P. "The Early Welsh Arthurian Poems" in R. Bromwich, A.O.H. Jarman and B.F. Roberts (edd.) The Arthur of the Welsh (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1991), pp. 33–71.
• Tichelaar, Tyler R., King Arthur's Children: A Study in Fiction and Tradition (Reflections of Camelot) (Modern History Press, 2011).

External links

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