Eleanor of Castile

So when Carnarvon is being built, we've mentioned the references to the Theodosian walls of Constantinople in the coloured bands of stone at Carnarvon.

But there's also, I mean, this is quite well known, Edward I sends his wife, Eleanor of Castile, to give birth to their youngest and last son, the future Edward II, Edward of Carnarvon, in the castle when it's basically still a building site.

And there's real political symbolism in doing that because the idea is that this Prince of the House of Plantagenet is going to be a Prince of Wales, despite being from the English royal family.

There's a kind of co-opting of myth and legend that happens physically as the castle is being built.

Every question that's asked about what chivalry is, what chivalry means, what honour means, what an oath means, how you serve a promise and how that tests the morality of a man.

All of that is set up in a castle.

and then as the adventure plays out and Gawain goes off and then so much of the action takes place in the second castle he meets that mysterious knight and has set the tests and the game of the promise between himself and the knight of the castle the knight's going out hunting and Gawain's lounging around a bed being kissed by the knight's wife and all of these tests then pursued in the castle and then Gawain goes out to the chapel and encounters the green knight and I won't ruin it for anyone who doesn't know Sir Gawain the green knight although I do highly recommend it And then he comes back and the story then plays in reverse.

He's invited to go to the knight's castle.

This is a statement by Edward saying, my castle represents Rome.

And he sends his wife, Eleanor of Castile, into Wales twice.

In fact, once to Rutherland Castle and again to Carnarvon Castle to give birth to two of their children.

His daughter, Elizabeth, is born in Rutherland.

So I switched over to, oh, I know what I'm reading.

I just started a book called Eleanor.

It's about Eleanor of Castile, Queen Eleanor of Castile, like in the 1200s.

And she died and her husband was very sad.

And he went on a funeral procession through England with her body in the casket and stopped along the way.

That's awesome.

Jackson, I feel like, needs to read more.

Yeah, and he wants to read Eleanor after I'm finished with it, I think.

And shortly after Arthur has come to power, Lot, not realizing who Arthur is and what the relationship is between Arthur and Morgause, sends Morgause to go and spy on him at Arthur's court.

Uh, and to quote Malory, "All this time, King Arthur knew not King Lot's wife was his sister." And basically, if you read that in a medieval folk tale, you know what's, [laughs] you know what's coming.

And so inevitably, this being the kind of story it is, Arthur ends up sleeping with Morgause, and just as inevitably, she ends up pregnant.

And again, I'm not sure that this is the kind of detail that tended to feature in the children's accounts of the Arthurian legends that I read.

But if it's massive for the monks of Glastonbury, it is also massive for the English monarchy because the kings of England can now appropriate Arthur and the stories that are told about him for their own purposes.

And the king who really recognizes the potential for this is Edward I. Um, so the Hammer of the Scots, but also the guy who conquers Wales.

And in 1278, on Easter Monday, Edward I and his wife, Eleanor of Castile, they come to Glastonbury, and they preside over the formal reinterment of, um, Arthur and his queen, Guinevere, whose bones had been found, you know, inverted commas, "by the monks," um, lying beside the bones of this colossal guy who the monks are saying is Arthur.

Arthur and Guinevere are laid to rest in a great black marble tomb that's been constructed before the high altar of the, um, abbey in Glastonbury.