his staff into the ground, and it miraculously took root as the Glastonbury Thorn. Finally, it seems likely that Edward I was also instrumental in the construction of the great Round Table at Winchester, which I will discuss shortly.
Edward I’s grandson Edward III (1327—77) was one of England’s most successful monarchs, and like his grandfather he was an admirer of all things Arthurian, making regular visits to Arthur’s shrine at Glastonbury. He founded Britain’s most famous order of chivalry, the Order of the Garter, on his return from his famous victory over the French at Crécy in 1348. Four years previously he had hoped to ‘revive’ the Order of the Round Table at a huge tournament at Windsor, but had to cancel this plan because of the expense. The Order of the Garter made a very acceptable substitute, as Nicholas Higham has pointed out: ‘The new institution was an “Arthurian” type of secular order, albeit under a new name, established at Windsor, which was popularly believed to have been founded by Arthur.’39
Edward IV, whose claim to the English throne was hotly disputed during the Wars of the Roses, actually succeeded to the crown twice (1461—70 and 1471—83). If anyone required legitimation it was he. He bolstered his regal pretensions by showing that he was related to the Welsh kings (which he was), and through them, via Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia, to Arthur, the rightful King of Britain. It was during Edward’s reign that Malory finished his Morte d’Arthur.
Henry Tudor defeated Richard III (1483—85) at the Battle of Bosworth, and ruled as Henry VII (1485—1509). To legitimise his shaky claim to the throne, he asserted that his new Tudor dynasty united the previously warring houses of York and Lancaster, and also claimed legitimacy through his connection to Arthur and the real heroic king figure of seventh-century Wales, Cadwaladr (Anglicised as Cadwallader). Henry would have been aware of prophecies that predicted that both heroic figures would one day return to right ancient wrongs. In the second year of his reign he sought to strengthen his perceived ties to Arthur by sending his pregnant wife, Elizabeth of York, to Winchester, which was popularly believed to have been the site of Arthur’s court. At Winchester she gave birth to Arthur, Prince of Wales. Sadly Arthur succumbed to consumption and died, aged fifteen, in 1502; he was elder brother to the future Henry VIII.
After this initial recourse to Arthur (which did not involve a serious attempt to prove that the Tudor dynasty really was descended from the mythical king), Henry VII does not appear to have made significant use of the legend later in his reign. Similarly his son Henry VIII generally stayed clear of Arthur, except when it came to the crisis of his divorce from Catherine of Aragon.40 In order to establish his own, and his country’s, independence from the Roman Catholic Church he resorted to Geoffrey’s Historia as an account of English history that was free from direct foreign influence (apart from Brutus). He also had his own image, labelled as King Arthur, painted on Edward I’s renowned Round Table at Winchester. A recent study of this portrait and the tabletop on which it was painted has thrown unexpected new light on Henry’s view of himself, his court—and Arthur.
The Great Hall of Winchester Castle was built by King Henry III between 1222 and 1235; it is arguably the finest medieval aisled hall surviving in England. The vast painted tabletop resembles nothing so much as an immense dartboard of 5.5 metres diameter, with the portrait of King Arthur at the top (at the twelve o’clock position) and the places of his Knights of the Round Table indicated by wedge-shaped named segments. Today it hangs high on the hall’s eastern gable-end wall, but originally it would have stood on the ground.
The Round Table was taken down from its position on the wall for the first time in over a hundred years on Friday, 27 August 1976. The reasons for removing it were to inspect its condition, carry out any necessary restoration and to check that the brackets which secured it to the wall were in sound condition. It also gave archaeologists, art historians and other specialists a chance to date the tabletop and its painting, and more importantly to form a consensus on why and how it had been constructed. The results of their work were edited together by the team leader, Professor Martin Biddle, into a substantial but fascinating volume of academic research.41
Tree-ring dates suggest that the Round Table was constructed in the second half of the thirteenth century, between 1250 and 1280, as the centrepiece for a great feast and tournament that took place at Winchester Castle in 1290.42 It was probably made in the town from English oak by the highly skilled carpenters who were one of England’s great assets in the medieval period. Visit the spire of Salisbury Cathedral, the roof of Westminster Hall or the great lantern at Ely if you want to see examples of their work, which was unrivalled anywhere in Europe.43 The purpose of the tournament was to celebrate, in Martin Biddle’s words, ‘the culmination of King Edward I’s plans for the future of his dynasty and of the English crown’. The construction of the Round Table and the holding of the tournament also had the effect of transferring, in popular imagination, Arthur’s fabled capital from Caerleon in Wales to Winchester in southern England. In other words, it was a major public relations coup.
It may seem improbable, but the impact of a round table on medieval sensibilities would have been considerable. Tables are important pieces of furniture. Around them take place meals and other social gatherings, and the shape of the table itself reflects the organisation and hierarchy of the gathering. Today many family dining tables are round or oval. This does not just reflect the fact that the shape is more compact and better suited to smaller modern houses; it also says something about the way modern family life is structured. In Victorian times, for example, long rectangular tables were the norm in middleclass households. This reflected the importance of the Master and Mistress of the house, who would have sat—or rather presided—at either end. Along the sides sat the children, poor relations and others. In medieval times dining arrangements in great houses were even more formal. The Lord and his immediate family would have eaten at a separate high table, probably raised on a dais at one end of the hall. Tenants, servants and others would have dined in the main body of the hall. The high table would have been separated from, but clearly visible to, all those present. To make the display even clearer, the Lord’s family and retinue would probably all have sat along one side of the high table, facing out over the hall for everyone to see. The Winchester Round Table broke all these rules, and it must have had a shocking effect on the people who saw it: in the late Middle Ages a round table was not merely an offence against protocol, it challenged the rigidly hierarchical system in which the understanding of political reality was enshrined.44
Sixty years after the tournament Edward III had the legs removed and the tabletop hung high on the wall, for everyone to see and wonder at. I believe that the effect of this removal from the ground to a more remote spot, high on the wall, was deliberate. Yes, it was more visible, but it was also removed, like an altar in church, visible but separate, and—I can think of no other word—Holy. Although it was still unpainted, there is some evidence that it may have been covered by a rich hanging or cloth.
The painting of the Round Table took place in the sixteenth century, in the reign of Henry VIII. Apart from some later touching up, to everyone’s surprise X-ray photos showed there to have been just one layer of paint. In other words, the design had not been built up over the century and a half or so between the time of Edward III and Henry. There were two known events attended by Henry at Winchester which could have led to the creation of the painting. The first was a visit he made in 1516; the second was a more grand state occasion, when the King came to Winchester with the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in 1522. In a fascinating exercise in detailed art history, Pamela Tudor-Craig charted the history of Henry’s beard.45 This study was able to link the Round Table’s portrait of Henry as King Arthur to the period of his second, of three, beards, characterised as ‘square, relatively
