The King Arthur family tree in Malory and in Geoffrey of Monmouth

The King Arthur family tree begins with a king who desired another man’s wife. Uther Pendragon made war on the duke of Tintagil for the sake of the duke’s wife, Igraine, and Merlin promised to bring him to her in the likeness of the duke. That same night the duke rode out of his castle against the king’s host “and so, through his own issue, the duke himself was slain” before Uther reached Tintagil.¹ Uther “begat on her that night Arthur.”¹

Malory never names the duke. Geoffrey of Monmouth calls him Gorlois, duke of Cornwall, and his wife Igerna, “the greatest beauty in all Britain.”³ In both texts the duke dies on the night of the deception, and the king marries the widow soon after. In Malory “they were married in a morning with great mirth and joy.”¹

Merlin gave the child to Sir Ector, whose wife “nourished him with her own pap.”¹ After Arthur was crowned, Merlin took the king by the hand before Igraine, saying, “This is your mother.”¹

In Malory, Igraine had three daughters by the duke, and Uther married each of them to a king. “King Lot of Lothian and of Orkney then wedded Margawse that was Gawaine’s mother,” and King Nentres of Garlot wedded Elaine.¹ The third sister, Morgan le Fay, “was put to school in a nunnery” and learned so much that she became a great clerk of necromancy. She married King Uriens of Gore, the father of Sir Ewaine.¹

On the King Arthur family tree these three are the half sisters of Arthur. The chart draws Morgause and Morgan, whose children carry the story. Morgan and Uriens had a son, Uwaine, a knight of the Round Table.¹

Early in his reign Arthur rode into Carlion, and “thither came to him, King Lot’s wife, of Orkney,” sent to spy on the court and bringing her four sons, Gawaine, Gaheris, Agravine and Gareth.¹ The king desired her, “and he begat upon her Mordred, and she was his sister, on his mother’s side, Igraine.”¹ Neither knew the kinship.

Merlin then told Arthur, “ye have lain by your sister, and on her ye have gotten a child that shall destroy you.”¹ Told that the child would be born on May Day, Arthur had the children born that day sent to him and set adrift in a ship. The ship broke, and “Mordred was cast up, and a good man found him, and nourished him till he was fourteen year old.”¹

This is the line on the King Arthur family tree that crosses between two marriages. Mordred is at once the son of Arthur and his nephew, and a half brother of the sons of Lot.

Lot and Morgause had four sons, Gawain, Agravaine, Gaheris and Gareth, all knights of the Round Table and all nephews of Arthur.¹ They fill the foot of the King Arthur family tree beside Mordred. Their quarrel with Sir Launcelot breaks the fellowship at the end. Launcelot slew Sir Agravaine at the door of the queen’s chamber.² When he rescued Guenever from the fire, Gareth and Gaheris were killed in the press, and a messenger told Gawaine that “Launcelot slew them both.”²

Geoffrey knows only two sons of Lot. He names them Walgan and Modred, sons of Arthur’s sister, and he makes Walgan a youth of twelve when Arthur sends him to serve the pope.³

Arthur married Guenever, the daughter of King Leodegrance of Cameliard.¹ While the king was abroad, Mordred seized the realm, and the two armies met near Salisbury. Arthur “smote Sir Mordred under the shield,” and Mordred, with his death wound, “smote his father Arthur” on the side of the head.² Arthur was carried to the water and said, “I will into the vale of Avilion to heal me of my grievous wound.”² Guenever took the habit at Almesbury.² Malory found no “certainty of his death,” so the chart leaves it open.²

Geoffrey tells the same ending in other terms. His Modred set the crown on his own head, and Queen Guanhumara married him “in violation of her first marriage.”³ When the war turned, she fled to the City of Legions and became a nun. Modred fell in the battle, and Arthur, mortally wounded, was carried to the isle of Avallon and gave the crown to his kinsman Constantine, son of Cador, in the year 542.³