Arthur Penn's Off-Limits Charge

Who Was Arthur?

Of all the kings in the old stories, Arthur is the one everyone thinks they know.

The sword in the stone. The Round Table. Camelot. How badly it ended.

But fewer people remember how badly it started…

Uther Pendragon was the king of Britain, and he fell for a woman who wasn’t his.

Ygraine was married to the Duke of Cornwall, so Uther went to war with the duke.

Rather than waiting for his army’s victory, Uther made a deal with Merlin: disguise me as her husband, get me through the gates of Tintagel, and if a child is born of that night’s lust, he’s yours.

Merlin did it. Uther walked into Ygraine’s bedchambers looking every inch her husband.

And by morning, the duke and his army were dead.

Nine months later, Merlin came back to collect on Uther’s bargain.

Arthur wasn’t raised by his father. He was carried out of the castle as a newborn and handed to a plain country knight, whose household raised him as one of their own and never told him whose son he was. Everything the legend admires in Arthur, he learned in somebody else’s house.

Then a sword appeared in a stone in a London churchyard, bearing these words:

Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil

is rightwise king born of all England.

All the best knights in Britain tried and failed.

Arthur was a squire at the time, sent to fetch a sword for his foster brother.

He found the sword in the stone and pulled it out without knowing what it meant.

Later he’d carry Excalibur, the sword from the Lady of the Lake, but the one from the stone came first.

What he did with the crown is why King Arthur’s story has endured. He gathered the best fighters in the land and sat them at a round table, where there was no head, and no one outranked anyone else. From there, they set out to protect people who couldn’t protect themselves and seek the Grail.

Then it all fell apart.

Arthur married Guinevere against Merlin’s advice.

His best knight and closest friend, Lancelot, fell in love with her, and she with him.

The affair shattered the Round Table and led to war.

While Arthur was gone, treachery destroyed what was left of Camelot.

So he abandoned his pursuit of Lancelot and returned home for a final battle.

Arthur and the man who’d seized his crown struck each other down.

Before he died, Arthur had Excalibur returned to the Lady of the Lake. Once the sword was safely away, four queens arrived by barge and carried him to the Isle of Avalon, where they claimed he would be healed.

Carved on his tomb in Glastonbury is

Hic iacet Arthurus, rex quondam, rexque futurus

It translates to “Here lies Arthur, the once-and-future king.”

What does “once-and-future” mean? While some stories say he died, many claim he’s waiting until he’s needed again.

This story starts with mythology, borrows heavily from it, and finally lets Arthur keep his best friend, his queen, and his life.