The Medieval Murderers: King Arthur's Bones

Meanwhile, Frederick the sacristan had been researching in the library with a vigour that belied his age. He assembled a quiverful of references showing that Arthur had close ties to Glastonbury. In his enthusiasm, he was inclined to lecture the abbot on these – to babble about Caradoc and The Life of Gildas , to tease out riddling verses by obscure Celtic bards, to talk knowingly of William of Malmesbury and his Deeds of the Kings of the English – until the abbot had trouble concealing his weariness with history.

While this was happening, Owen the cellarer attended to his duties. But he was always conscious that, by ordering Glyn to summon ‘help’, he had set in motion a process whose outcome was uncertain and possibly dangerous. It wasn’t that he did not trust the tavern-keeper. Not only was Glyn from Wales but he was well aware – so Owen believed – of the cellarer’s relationship with his wife Margaret. He had never said a word, however, never dropped a hint.

Two days passed from the first unearthing of the cross until the skies cleared and the water in the excavation began to drain away. By the time the hollowed-out space was dry enough for work to start again it was decided to erect a more substantial shelter to protect the area, and so a further twenty-four hours had elapsed. And by that stage a small band of men was arriving on the waterlogged fringes of Glastonbury from across the wide channel that separated England from Wales. They did not stay in the town, fearing to draw attention to themselves, but found lodging in villages and settlements outside. They waited for word from Glyn. And he was waiting for word from Owen.

The abbot detailed extra men to dig in the burial ground, although it was hard to increase the work-rate much because of the cramped space. They did turn up more than a few bones, showing that the spot had indeed been a graveyard, itself buried under fresh earth. These bones were carefully removed and stored in a temporary coffin in the Lady Chapel. But the workmen reached a depth of fourteen feet or more without finding anything that might clearly signify the remains of a dead king. No sign of a ceremonial interment, no elaborate sarcophagus, no finely wrought coffin.

Henry started to regret the letter to King Richard. Was it possible that the cross denoting the presence of Arthur was a fake relic or that the fabled king was buried somewhere else altogether or that – as the legends of the Celts had it – the king would never be found because he had never died in the first place. The abbot remembered his cellarer expressing some such belief.

Then, almost as he’d begun to lose hope, the labourers toiling in the old graveyard seemed to reach their goal. This time there was no buzz of excitement, no crowd of monks and lay brothers hastening towards the enclosed space on the grass. Henry de Sully had instructed Michael, the most reliable of the workmen, to tell no one else but to inform him personally of any discovery. This Michael had done, his seamed, mud-streaked countenance alight with excitement and privilege as he stood on the threshold of de Sully’s quarters. The abbot, acting with his customary calm, summoned only Frederick, Owen and Geoffrey. So it was the same quartet of Benedictines – the sacristan, the cellarer, the abbot and his secretary-chaplain – who gathered about the excavation, now completely shielded from prying eyes not only by the curtained sides of the tent but by the piles of soil surrounding it.

The hole was both wider and deeper, so much deeper that three men standing on each other’s shoulders would scarcely have reached the rim. A long ladder was required to clamber down to the bottom where, amid a slurry of mud and bones and wood fragments, stood a couple of artisans. Their faces pale and sweaty, they looked up expectantly at the monks.

‘There is a log down there, sir,’ said Michael, ‘a tree trunk which has been hollowed out. There are bones in the hollow. They have the form of a body.’

‘That is an old method of interment,’ said Frederick. ‘It is all of a piece with the hidden cross. We are not looking for a grand mausoleum; we are looking for a hidden burial site.’

‘Some of the bones in the tree hollow are very large,’ said Michael. ‘Look.’

With a conjurer’s flourish he produced what appeared to be a shin-bone. He placed it beside his own lower leg for comparison. It was true: the bone was visibly longer – and Michael was not slight.

‘Careful, man! Do not handle it so carelessly.’

This was Owen. He took the bone as reverently as if he were handling the host.

‘There was this too, sir, down among the bones.’

Michael produced a leather pouch, shrunken and dirty, and handed it to the abbot. Henry unwrapped its stiff folds. Inside lay coiled a golden tress of hair, human hair. It was fresh and bright as if it had just been cut off. As when he had first seen the cross, the abbot felt the hammering of his heart. Beside him, Owen stumbled in excitement and would have fallen into the hole had not the wiry sacristan held him back with a restraining hand.

‘A woman’s, I’d say,’ said Michael, who was starting to feel himself on an equal footing with the monks.

‘A queen’s, you mean,’ said Owen breathlessly.

‘Do not be so hasty,’ said the abbot.

Then Frederick said: ‘That is from a royal head. Whose else can it be except…?’

‘Except Queen Guinevere’s,’ said Henry de Sully.

The monks and the workmen conveyed the bones and the precious fragment of hair to the abbot’s Hall. The golden tress was tightly secured again within the pouch lest exposure to the air should cause it to perish. Yet even this find had been outmatched by another discovery in the hollowed-out log: a man’s skull with a great dint to one side. It indicated a sudden, violent death.

The great bones were not sufficient to make a complete man but rather to suggest the possibility of such a giant. Each of the individuals who stared at these remains in the abbot’s parlour was lost for a time in his imagination, seeing a great and final battle in which a warrior-king had been fatally struck down. They put out their hands – even Michael and the other labourers – to touch the skullcap, the jaw-bone, the mighty shin-bone, the fragments of a ribcage, as if some trace of Arthur’s spirit might be transmitted to their own blood and sinew.

Then, in a humble mood, the monks went to the Lady Chapel to pay their devotions. All of them, in addition to their public prayers, sent up silent thanks to God for having blessed Glastonbury with such legendary relics.

When they returned to the abbot’s parlour, the bones and the pouch containing the golden tress had gone.

There was a council of war late that night in the same chamber from which the relics had disappeared. At first it seemed as though the bones and the pouch containing the Guinevere tress had been spirited away by some supernatural means. The door to the abbot’s parlour was locked; he had made sure of that, the last man out of the room as they proceeded to vespers. There was no sign of forced entry and no other access except the windows, which were glazed and fastened from the inside. Besides, the parlour was on the first floor of the Hall.

Fortunately the cross was still secure in the locked chest, but its presence seemed merely to mock the monks with what they had so recently found and lost again.

Theft was rare in the abbey, despite the number of pilgrims and outsiders who frequented the place. It was unheard of in the abbot’s own quarters. So Frederick assured Henry de Sully. In fact the shock of the vanishing of the bones and hair was so dreadful that it caused one of their number – Brother Owen the cellarer – to collapse on the floor as if he was about to have a fit. He was now being cared for in the infirmary.