Morgause (/mɔːrˈɡeɪz/) is a popular variant of the figure of the Queen of Orkney, an Arthurian legend character also known by various other names and appearing in different forms of her archetype. She is notably the mother of Gawain and often also of Mordred, both key players in the story of her brother King Arthur and his downfall.
In the early chronicles and romances based on or inspired by Geoffrey of Monmouth, as well as in the Welsh tradition, her figure and role are commonly that of Gawain's mother, and she is either a full or half sister to Arthur. In most cases, she is the wife or widow of King Lot, ruling over either Orkney or Lothian. However, her name varies widely between texts, as does the issue of her children other than Gawain, and Mordred's own parentage is often only presumed rather than stated.
In a later popular tradition, Mordred becomes 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] Married to Lot, she is also mother of the Knights of the Round Table Gawain, Agravain, Gareth, and Gaheris, the last of whom murders her in some late romances including Malory's compilation. Furthermore, she has been turned into a sister of Morgan, with whom she is often conflated into a single character by modern authors.
Medieval literature
Character history and counterparts
The corresponding character in Geoffrey of Monmouth's early-12th-century Norman-Welsh chronicle Historia Regum Britanniae is named Anna, who is depicted as the sole daughter of Uther Pendragon and his wife Igraine, thus making her Arthur's full (younger) sister. She is the wife of King Lot and the mother of Gawain and presumably also Mordred (described only as Arthur's nephew but without mentioning any other of Arthur's sisters). However, Geoffrey says very little about her otherwise. This was later elaborated in the romance De Ortu Waluuanii, telling how the teenage Lot fell in mutual love with the also young Anna while serving as her page when he was a royal hostage at the court of Uther.
In Layamon's English Brut, Anna and Lot, king of Scotland, are said (in Merlin's prophecy) to have seven children in all, but her only male offspring are Gawain and Mordred.[2]Wace's Norman chronicle Roman de Brut calls her queen of the Scots (even as her husband Lot is not truly a king there[2]) and mother of Gawain, but does not mention either hers or Gawain's relation to Mordred (again described only as Arthur's nephew). According to John Fordun's 14th-century Scottish chronicle, Chronica Gentis Scotorum, Anna and consequently her and Lot's son Mordred were the rightful heirs to the throne, as Arthur was merely Uther's bastard son. This motif is followed in the later Scottish chronicle tradition as well. In Hector Boece's Historia Gentis Scotorum, for instance, the wife of the Pictish king Loth is Anna later called Cristina, the "queen of the Picts of great honour and fame,"[3] who here too is depicted as the rightful heir of Uther but as his sister (Arthur's aunt).
A parent of Gawain's Welsh forerunner, Gwalchmei ap Gwyar (in later Welsh Arthurian literature, Gawain is synonymous with the native champion Gwalchmei), is one Gwyar. A very early Welsh Arthurian tale (considered to predate that of Geoffrey), Culhwch and Olwen, also gives Gwalchmai son of Gwyar (fab Gwyar) a brother named Gwalhafed son of Gwyar. Gwyar (meaning "gore"[4] or "spilled blood/bloodshed"[5]) is likely the name of Gwalchmei's mother, rather than his father as is the standard in the Welsh Triads.[6] (Matronyms were sometimes used in Wales, as in the case of Math fab Mathonwy and Gwydion fab Dôn, and were also fairly common in early Ireland.[6]) Gwyar is indeed named as a female in one version of the hagiographical genealogy Bonedd y Saint, which identifies her as a daughter of Amlawdd Wledig, and thus again as Arthur's aunt instead of his sister. The 14th-century fragment Birth of Arthur substitutes Geoffrey's Anna as Gwalchmei's mother.[7] Some Welsh adaptations of the Historia Regum Britanniae ("Welsh Bruts"), such as the Brut Tysilio, also explicitly identify Anna with Gwyar, even using both of these names simultaneously for the wife of Lleu (Lot).[8] Other sources do not follow this substitution, however, indicating that Gwyar and Anna may have originated independently.[9] The Birth of Arthur further gives Anna her first husband, Emyr Llydaw (Budic II of Brittany), king of Armorica, by whom she is the mother of Howel (Hoel),[10] and furthermore gives her three daughters by Lleu in addition to the sons Gwalchmei and Medrawd (Mordred).
Thomas Grey's Anglo-Norman chronicle Scalacronica mentions Arthur's "eldest" (not just elder) sister as bestowed by him on Lot. In Alain Bouchart's Breton Grande Croniques de Bretagne, "Anna or Emine"[11] is Uther's eldest child, who there also marries Budic and births Hoel. In Wolfram von Eschenbach's romance Parzival, Uther's daughter Sangîve is first wed to a knight named Florant prior to her later marriage with Lot. Another German poet, Der Pleier, calls the wife of King Lot and mother of Gawain Seifê. However, he also names one of Arthur's other sisters, Anthonje, as the mother of Gaharet, a figure corresponding to Gawain's younger brothers Gaheris and Gareth in other romances and whose father is an unnamed king of Gritenland. There and in other early works, in addition to Mordred (not always appearing within the texts, especially these dealing with Gawain's youth), Gawain is usually given various sisters. He also has a brother named Beacurs in Parzival.
The earliest known form of a Morgause-type name is Orcades (Norcadés), given to her in the First Continuation of Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval (the former of which was once attributed to Wauchier de Denain and dated c. 1200). In the works by Chrétien and his continuators, she features as the mother of her sons Gawain, Agravain, Gaheris, and Gareth (as listed in Perceval), and her varying daughters include Clarissant and Soredamor. Perceval and some related romances tell how she lived hidden away in a castle with her mother and at least one daughter until her son Gawain achieved the adventure of the castle (see also Castle of Maidens). As Morcades (Morchades, Orchades), she also appears in Les Enfances Gauvain (early 13th century) and again in Heinrich von dem Türlin's Diu Crône (c. 1230). 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 by authors as ruled by Gawain's parents (alternatively, their own realm is named Lothian in the south-west coast of Scotland). 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",[12] and also derived her figure from that of the Welsh mythology's humanised goddess Dechtire.[13]
In the prose romance tradition considered to have begun with the French Merlin by Robert de Boron around 1200 (including the Vulgate Cycle and the two non-French romances mentioned above), she is one of a varying number of Arthur's half-sisters. Their parents are Gorlois of Tintagel, Duke of Cornwall, and his wife Lady Igraine (the later wife of Uther and mother of Arthur). In Robert's original Merlin, she appears unnamed (the only named sister is Morgan) and is referred to only as either "King Lot's wife" or the "Queen of Orkney" (Orcanie). Her version in the vast prose romance Vulgate Cycle from the early 13th century is named Brimesent (with manuscript variant Hermesent), who in turn is called Belisent in the late 13th-century Arthour and Merlin and Albagia in the 15th-century Italian compilation La Tavola Ritonda. In the Post-Vulgate Cycle, she is never given a name and is referred to only as the Queen of Orkney.
In Malory and his sources
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). Gaheris (who in the Post-Vulgate version defends his act as a just punishment of the queen for her "wretched debauchery"[14]) is consequently banished from the court of Arthur (though he reappears later in the narrative, eventually being slain by Lancelot during the rescue of Guinevere).
In the Post-Vulgate story, Gaheris' brothers Gawain and Agravain initially vow to kill him in revenge for their mother's death until they are persuaded by Gareth and Bors to end the bloodshed in the family. Arthur buries the Queen of Orkney in the main church in Camelot, inscribing the name of her killer on it, while everyone grieves for her and condemns the "treacherous and cruel" act of Gaheris, including actually even Gaheris himself in his self-exile.[15] 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.[16] Her death was first included in the Post-Vulgate Queste;[17] Malory used the variant from the Second Version of the Prose Tristan.
The act of Mordred's conception is described variably in the different works of Arthurian romance. In the Vulgate Merlin, the episode takes place earlier, back when a young teenage Arthur was only a mere squire to his foster-brother Kay (prior to the fateful drawing of the sword in the stone) and completely oblivious about his true heritage. 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. Conversely, a flashback scene in the Post-Vulgate Merlin Continuation portrays the Queen of Orkney as entirely aware and willing in her incestuous tryst with her young half-brother.
Modern fiction
Young Gareth appealing to his mother Morgause (Queen Bellicent) to let him go serve King Arthur in Tales from Tennyson, 1902
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."[18] 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) and make Morgause a villainous sorceresses 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).
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.
^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]
