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Mordred
Sir Mordred, son of Margawse, sister of King Arthur, and Arthur, her brother, while she was the wife of Lot, king of Orkney. The sons of Lot himself and his wife were Gawain, Agravain, Gaheris, and Gareth, all knights of the Round Table.
Out of hatred to Sir Launcelot, Mordred and Agravain accuse him to the king of too great familiarity with Queen Guenever, and induce the king to spend a day in hunting. During his absence, the queen sends for Sir Launcelot to her private chamber, and Mordred and Agravain, with twelve other knights, putting the worst construction on the interview, clamorously assail the chamber, and call on Sir Launcelot to come out. This he does, and kills Agravain with the twelve knights, but Mordred makes his escape and tells the king, who orders the queen to be burnt alive.
She is brought to the stake, but is rescued by Sir Launcelot, who carries her off to Joyous Guard, near Carlisle, which the king besieges. While lying before the castle, King Arthur receives a bull from the pope, commanding him to take back his queen. This he does, but as he refuses to be reconciled to Sir Launcelot, the knight betakes himself to Benwick, in Brittany. The king lays siege to Benwick, and during his absence leaves Mordred regent. Mordred usurps the crown, and tries, but in vain, to induce the queen to marry him. When the king hears thereof, he raises the siege of Benwick, and returns to England.
He defeats Mordred at Dover, and at Barondown, but at Salisbury (Camlan) Mordred is slain fighting with the king, and Arthur receives his death-wound. The queen then retires to a convent at Almesbury, is visited by Sir Launcelot, declines to marry him, and dies. Le Morte d'Arthur By Sir Thomas Malory.
In the Annales Cambriae he is called Medraut and fell in the year 537.
The wife of Lot is called “Anne” by Geoffrey, of Monmouth (History of the Kings of Britain); and “Bellicent” by Tennyson, in Gareth and Lynette. This tale is so very different from those of Geoffrey of Monmouth, and Tennyson, that all three are given. (See Modred.)
"Upon the more personal incidents connected with Arthur, Geoffrey openly professes to keep silence, possibly regarding them as not falling within the province of his history, but we are told shortly how Mordred took advantage of Arthur's absence on the Continent to seize the throne, marry Guanhamara (Guinevere), and ally himself with the Saxons, only to be defeated at that fatal battle called by Geoffrey "Cambula", in which Mordred, Arthur, and Walgan--the "Sir Gawain" of Malory and the Gwalchmei of the earlier legends--all met their dooms." Celtic Myth and Legend Poetry and Romance by Charles Squire. Chapter XXIV. The Decline and Fall of the Gods
"Turning from deities of darkness to deities of light, we find the sky-god figuring largely in the Morte Darthur. The Lludd of the earlier mythology is Malory's King Loth, or Lot, of Orkney, through an intrigue with whose wife Arthur becomes the father of Sir Mordred. Lot's wife was the mother also of Sir Gawain, whose birth Malory does not, however, attribute to Arthur, though such must have been the original form of the myth."
"Sir Gawain, of the Arthurian legend, is the Gwalchmei of the Welsh stories, the successor of the still earlier Lieu Llaw Gyffes, just as Sir Mordred--the Welsh Medrawt--corresponds to Lieu's brother Dylan. As Sir Mordred retains the dark character of Medrawt, so Sir Gawain, even in Malory, shows the attributes of a solar deity." Celtic Myth and Legend Poetry and Romance by Charles Squire. Chapter XXIII. The Gods as King Arthur's Knights
