Morgause

In the Matter of Britain, Morgause (/ˈmɔːrɡoʊz, -ɡɑːz/ MOR-gohz, -⁠gahz), also known as Anna, Gwyar, Belisent, or simply as the Queen of Orkney, is a queen and member of King Arthur's family, usually his aunt or sister.

Morgause
Matter of Britain character
Young Gareth appealing to his mother Morgause (Queen Bellicent) to let him go serve King Arthur in Tales from Tennyson, 1902
Based on	Anna and possibly Gwyar, others
In-universe information
Title	Queen of Orkney
Occupation	Princess, queen
Family	Igraine and Gorlois (parents), Arthur, Morgan, Elaine (siblings)
Spouse	Lot
Significant other	Lamorak
Children	Gawain, Agravain, Gaheris, Gareth, Mordred, Clarissant, Soredamor
Relatives	King Arthur's family
Origin	Tintagel Castle

In the early chronicles and romances based on or inspired by Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regnum Britanniae, as well as in the Welsh tradition, she is named as Gawain's mother, the daughter or sister of Uther Pendragon, and either the full or half-sister of King Arthur. She has also been named as the sister of Morgan le Fay, or combined with her with into a single character. In most cases, she is the wife or widow of King Lot, and rules over either Orkney, Lothian, or Scotland. However, her name varies between texts and traditions, as does the issue of her children other than Gawain.

In a later popular tradition, Mordred is the offspring of Arthur's own accidental incest with his estranged half-sister, whom Thomas Malory's seminal Le Morte d'Arthur calls Morgause.^{[Notes 1]} Additionally, he names Knights of the Round Table Agravain, Gareth, and Gaheris as her sons, the last of whom later kills her.

Medieval literature

Character history and counterparts

As Anna

In Geoffrey of Monmouth's early 12th-century Norman-Welsh chronicle Historia Regum Britanniae, she is named Anna, and is depicted as the only daughter of Uther Pendragon and his wife Igraine, thus making her King Arthur's full younger sister. She is named as the wife of King Lot, with whom she is the mother of Gawain and also presumably Mordred (the text describes him as Arthur's nephew without ever mentioning any siblings besides her). However, Geoffrey says very little about her otherwise. Her relationship with Lot is later elaborated on in the romance De Ortu Waluuanii, which describes how a teenaged Lot fell in love with Anna when he was a royal hostage serving as her page at the court of Uther Pendragon.

In the Brut, Anna and Lot, king and queen of Scotland, had five daughters and two sons: Gawain and Mordred.^[2] Norman poet Wace's chronicle Roman de Brut names her Gawain's mother and queen of the Scots, even though Lot is not truly a king there.^[2] However, it does not mention her relation to Mordred (again described as Arthur's nephew).

In John of Fordun's 14th-century Scottish chronicle Chronica Gentis Scotorum, Arthur was the bastard son of Uther, making Anna and her son Mordred the rightful heirs to the throne. This motif also appears in later Scottish narratives, including Hector Boece's Historia Gentis Scotorum. In this version of the story, Lot is king of the Picts with Anna (later called Cristina) as his queen.^[3] Here, she is also depicted as Uther's rightful heir, but as Uther's sister— and Arthur's aunt— instead of his daughter.

In Alain Bouchart's Breton Grande Croniques de Bretagne, "Anna or Emine"^[4] is Uther's eldest child, who marries Budic and gives birth to Hoel (Hywel).

In the French Tradition

The earliest known form of the Morgause name is Orcades (Norcadés), given to her in the First Continuation of Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval. It is likely that her name was originally a place name, as "Orcades" coincides with the Latin name for Scotland's northern Orkney islands, the lands often described as being ruled by Gawain's parents. Medievalist Roger Sherman Loomis suggested that this toponym was corrupted first into the variants of "Morcades" and finally into "Morgause" due to the influence of the name "Morgan,"^[5] and that her character was derived from the goddess Deichtine.^[6] She appears as Morcades (Morchades) in the early 13th-century poem Les Enfants Gauvain and Heinrich von dem Türlin's Diu Crône. A version of her character appears in the Vulgate Cycle named Brimesent (variants include Hermesent). This naming convention is adopted in the Middle English Of Arthour and of Merlin, where she is called Belisent.

In the Post-Vulgate tradition considered to have begun with the Old French poem Merlin by Robert de Boron, she is unnamed and referred to only as "King Lot's wife" or the "Queen of Orkney" (Orcanie). In this tradition, her parents are named as Gorlois of Tintagel, Duke of Cornwall, and his wife Lady Igraine. Her sister is Morgan, and her half-brother is Arthur. Boron additionally described the conception of Mordred in Merlin. The episode takes place when a teenaged Arthur, unaware of his royal heritage, is serving as a squire to his foster brother Sir Kay. During a meeting of the lords of Britain, when King Lot is out hunting, Arthur sneaks into the queen's chamber and pretends to be her husband; she eventually discovers the deception but forgives him the next morning and agrees to keep the incident a secret between the two of them. A corresponding scene in the Merlin Continuation has Mordred's conception happen when the Queen of Orkney, along with a vast entourage including her four sons, visit Arthur's coronation at Carduel [fr].

In the works of Chrétien and those inspired by him, she is the half-sister of Arthur and the mother of Gawain, Agravain, Gaheris, and Gareth; additionally, Clarissant and Soredamor are named as her daughters. Perceval and some related romances describe how she lived hidden away in a castle with her mother Igraine and her daughter Clarissant until her son Gawain liberated them. In the Post-Vulgate Cycle, her son Gaheris kills her when he discovers her having an affair with the son of King Pellinore, the man who killed Lot in battle. Gaheris defends his act as a just punishment for Morgause's "wretched debauchery,"^[7] but he is banished from Arthur's court. Gawain and Agravain initially vow to kill Geheris to avenge their mother's death, but are persuaded not to by Gareth and Bors. Arthur buries her in the main church at Camelot, and inscribes Gaheris' name on her tomb. Everyone at court grieves her death and condemns the "treacherous and cruel" act, including Gaheris himself in exile.^[8]

In the Welsh Tradition

In Welsh tradition, the precursor of Gawain named Gwalchmei ap Gwyar, is the son of Gwyar (meaning "gore"^[9] or "spilled blood/bloodshed"^[10]). Culhwch and Olwen, an early Welsh Arthurian tale considered to predate Geoffrey's Historia, names Gwalchmei and his brother Gwalhafed as the sons of Gwyar. Gwyar is very likely the name of Gwalchmei's mother rather than his father, as matronyms were standard in the Welsh Triads. Matronymic naming conventions were common in early Ireland and sometimes used in Wales, and can be seen in the cases of Math fab Mathonwy and Gwydion fab Dôn.^[11] Gwyar is used as a female name in one version of the Welsh hagiographical genealogy Bonedd y Saint , which identifies her as the daughter of the legendary king Amlawdd Wledig, and thus Arthur's aunt.

Some Welsh adaptations of the Historia such as the Brut Tysilio, explicitly identify Gwyar with Anna, even using both names interchangeably for the wife of Lleu (Lot).^[12] The 14th-century fragment Birth of Arthur substitutes Gwyar for Geoffrey's Anna and names her as Gwalchmei's mother.^[13] It also names Emyr Llydaw (Budic II of Brittany), king of Armorica, as her first husband, and their son as Hoel (Hywel). Her second husband is Lleu, with whom she had three daughters and two sons: Gwalchmei and Medrawd (Mordred). Other sources do not follow this substitution, however, indicating that Gwyar and Anna may have originated independently.^[14]

In the German Tradition

In Wolfram von Eschenbach's romance Parzival, Uther's daughter Sangîve is first wed to a knight named Florant prior to her later marriage to Lot, and is identified as the mother of Gawain and Beacurs. Another German poet, Der Pleier, identifies the wife of King Lot and mother of Gawain as Seifê. However, he also names one of Arthur's other sisters, Anthonje, as the mother of Gaharet by an unnamed king of Gritenland— a figure identified with Gawain's younger brothers Gaheris and Gareth in other romances.

In Le Morte d'Arthur

Thomas Malory's 1485 compilation of Arthurian legends Le Morte d'Arthur, based largely on French prose cycles, Morgause (also Morgawse or Margawse) is one of three daughters born to Duke Gorlois and Lady Igraine. According to Malory, following his French prose cycles, their mother is widowed by, and then remarried to, Arthur's future father, the high king Uther Pendragon. Afterwards, she and her younger sisters, Elaine (called Blasine in Merlin) and Morgan ("le Fay", later the mother of Yvain), now Uther's foster daughters, are married off to allies or vassals of their stepfather. The young Morgause is wed to the Orcadian king Lot and bears him four sons, all of whom later go on to serve Arthur as key members of the Knights of the Round Table. They are Gawain, one of Arthur's greatest and closest companions with a darker side; Agravain, secretly a wretched and twisted traitor; Gaheris, a skilled fighter but troubled man; and finally the youngest Gareth, a gentle and loving good knight to whom Malory dedicates one of his work's eight parts (The Book of Gareth of Orkney).

Morgause's husband King Lot joins the failed rebellions against Arthur that follow in the wake of King Uther's death and the subsequent discovery and coronation of his heir. Acting as a spy during the war, she comes to Carleon, where she visits the boy King Arthur, ignorant of their familial relationship, in his bedchamber, and they conceive Mordred. Her husband, who has unsuspectingly raised Mordred as his own son, is later slain in battle by King Pellinore. All of her sons depart their father's court to take service at Camelot, where Gawain and Gaheris avenge Lot's death by killing Pellinore, thereby launching a long blood feud between the two families that contributes to bringing the ruin to Arthur's kingdom.

Nevertheless, Morgause has an affair with Sir Lamorak, a son of Pellinore and one of Arthur's best knights. Once, Lancelot and Bleoberis even find Lamorak and Meleagant fighting over which queen is more beautiful, Morgause or Guinevere. Eventually, her son Gaheris discovers them in flagrante together in bed while visiting her castle (the Post-Vulgate's castle Rethename in Orkney, near the border with Arthur's own Logres). Enraged, he grabs Morgause by her hair and swiftly beheads her, but spares her unarmed lover (who is left naked in bed covered in her blood and is killed later by four Orkney brothers in an unequal fight). In Malory's telling, however, Lancelot calls the slaying of Morgause "shameful", but Gawain seems to be angry at Gaheris only for leaving Lamorak alive at the spot.^[15] Her death was probably first included in the Post-Vulgate Queste;^[16] Malory used the variant from the Second Version of the Prose Tristan.

Modern fiction

In modern Arthuriana, Morgause is often turned into a composite character as merged with that of Morgan le Fay; in John Boorman's film Excalibur (1981), for instance, Morgause's role as the mother of Mordred is transferred to "Morgana". Other modern authors may keep them as separate characters but have Morgause inherit or share Morgan's own traits, sometimes even making Morgause a villain opposed to Morgan. According to E. R. Huber, "What becomes clear on reading Le Morte d'Arthur and its medieval predecessors is that Morgause was not a villain until the modern period."^[17] Some modern authors such as Alfred Tennyson or Howard Pyle use the name Bellicent.

• Morgause is the title character of T.H. White's novel The Queen of Air and Darkness (1939), the second of four books in his series The Once and Future King. She is a widowed witch queen who hates Arthur due to his father killing her father and raping her mother. Morgause raises her children, known as the Orkney clan, to hate the Pendragons for the death of their father. She seduces Arthur through magic, siring Mordred. As in Malory, she is found in bed with Lamorak, but here it is Agravaine who kills her. Due to Mordred being raised by her alone, he is left damaged and hateful, blaming Arthur for his mother's death.
• In her Merlin novels (1970–1983), Mary Stewart characterizes Morgause unflatteringly as an ambitious and resentful young princess who wants to learn magic from Merlin, but he refuses her. She seduces Arthur in the hope that she can later use it against him.
• A sorceress with authority over dark powers, Morgawse is a central figure in Hawk of May (1980) and its sequel, Kingdom of Summer (1982), the first two novels in Gillian Bradshaw's Down the Long Wind series. In Kingdom of Summer, she and her husband ("King Lot of The Orcades") intrigue with King Maelgwn of Gwynedd, whom she takes as a lover. She is eventually magically defeated but spared by her good son and former apprentice Gwalchmai (Gawain) and soon later slain in revenge for her murder of Lot by their other son Agravain, to the despair of her and Arthur's son Medraut.
• Marion Zimmer Bradley in her influential novel The Mists of Avalon (1983) makes Morgause a villainous sorceress who is younger sister of Igraine and Viviane and aunt of the protagonist Morgaine (Morgan). After her niece gives birth to Mordred, Morgause adopts the newborn and rears him for Morgaine, his birth mother, thus assuming her traditional role of mother to Mordred. She was portrayed by Joan Allen in the novel's film adaptation (2001).
• She appears in The Keltiad series (1984–1998) by American neopagan Patricia Kennealy-Morrison as the evil Marguessan, would-be usurper of the Throne of Scone and an evil twin sister of Morgan.
• Morgause is the main antagonist in The Squire's Tales series (1998–2010) by Gerald Morris. She is portrayed as the latest incarnation of "the enchantress", an evil sorceress who wishes to destroy the kings of men. She plots numerous times to kill King Arthur but is foiled in multiple books, however, she successfully seduces Arthur (who does not realize she is his half-sister) and births Mordred. In the final book she is killed by her son Gaheris, which undoes her evil spells.
• A main antagonist in the BBC television series Merlin (2008–2012), Morgause is portrayed by actress Emilia Fox as a powerful, Lady Macbeth-like sorceress. She is fiercely loyal to her half-sister Morgana, whom she seeks to make queen of Camelot. She ends up as a willing sacrifice for Morgana.

See also

• King Arthur's family

Notes

1. Dr Caitlin R. Green of www.Arthuriana.co.uk notes: "In the later Vulgate Mort Artu, Morguase – Arthur's supposed half-sister – is made to be Medraut [Mordred]'s mother and this incest motif is preserved in the romances based upon the Mort Artu (for example, Malory's Morte Darthur). Both this parentage and the incest motif are, however, clearly inventions of the Mort Artu, despite their modern popularity, and in all unrelated accounts the portrayal of Medraut is solidly Galfridian."^[1]

Further reading

• Thompson, Raymond H. "MORGAUSE OF ORKNEY: QUEEN OF AIR AND DARKNESS." Quondam et Futurus 3, no. 1 (1993): 1–13.