In Andrew Breeze’s latest book looking at the historical Arthur he makes note that in the earliest discussions of Arthur he is not called a king.
Even though the North British hero Arthur (d. 537) is in medieval romance styled a king, he is not so termed in the earliest documents relating to him. The ninth-century Historia Brittonum states merely that he fought cum regibus Brittonum (“alongside kings of the Britons”), but was himself merely dux bellorum. What this means has been long disputed. It has been taken to represent a senior rank in the Roman army, with Arthur as a commander of cavalry forces fighting up and down Britain. Closer analysis shows this as a fantasy. Comparison with medieval Welsh texts indicates that dux bellorum instead corresponds to Welsh penteulu (“captain of the bodyguard, chief of the royal host”). As commander of the king’s bodyguard, the penteulu was the most important of the twenty-four officers of the court. He had a position of supreme trust, invariably being the ruler’s own son or nephew or another man of rank. Setting out his income and status (which included the right to praise by the official poet of the bodyguard), medieval Welsh legal and other sources are thus the most reliable sources of information on what the Arthur of history was and was not.
This is not the first time that doubt has been shed on whether or not Arthur was a king, or just a war-leader of some kind. This is been proposed time and time again, and has become popular enough to be repeated in many fictional portrayals of Arthurian Britain. I do think this requires ignoring pre-Galfridian evidence, such as his role in Culhwch and Olwen (which teeters on the border between pre and post-Galfridian), and the obvious kingly role in Kadeir Teyrnon, where Arthur is called a Guledig (a shadowy term that is seen only given to Kings or Emperors generally, which I think probably denotes an ‘over-king’) as well as Preiddeu Annwfn, which while it does not specify that Arthur is a king he is certainly acting and being treated in a ‘kingly’ role. This does not in my opinion preclude our historical Arthur from acting as Penteulu for another king however.
Many of my readers will be familiar with my theories on the historical King Arthur, and the composite nature of the later legendary Arthur. This is a figure that I believe wraps multiple historical personas together to create a fiction with deep roots in truth. Parts of this composite range from Riothamus, a Breton king who fought with the Romans against the Goths, to Magnus Maximus, a usurper emperor of Rome, all the way to more obscure figures such as Arthwys ap Mar. It is Arthwys ap Mar that I believe is the central kernel of truth that the rest is built upon. I make it clear in much of my writing that I do not believe that Arthwys accounts of ALL of Arthurian legend, but because of the additive nature of Arthuriana I would find it suspicious if one particular figure fit the bill too well. Breeze’s notion of Arthur as Penteulu would seemingly dismiss any kingly candidate for Arthur, thus making our King of Ebrauc ineligible. I don’t necessarily think this is the case however.
Owain of Rheged seems to fit the bill for both Penteulu for his father Urien, and king in his own right after Urien’s assassination.
Saturday morning there was great conflict
From the sun’s rising to when it went down.
Fflamddwyn marched forward in four battalions
To lay waste the lands of Goddeu and Rheged.
From Argoed to Arfynydd the muster was summoned;
Not one delaying so much as a day.
Fflamddwyn bellowed, blustering away,
‘Are the hostages here? Are they ready for taking?’
And Owain answered – scourge of the Eastlands –
‘No, they are not! They’re not here for the taking!
And the hounds of Coel’s litter would be hard-pressed indeed
Before they’d hand over one man as a hostage!’
—Taliesin, The Battle of Argoed Llwyfain
When Owain slaughtered Fflamddwyn,
He might have done it in his sleep.
Sleep holds the wide horde of Lloegr’s hosts,
Their dead eyes stare into the light.
—Taliesin, Marwnad Owain
These poems certainly seem to give Owain some authority other than just a kings son, not only speaking first before battle to answer Fflamddwyn directly, but also being responsible for slaughtering his hosts. The poem known as Gweith Gwen Ystrat reinforces this role by hinting that Urien may be of fairly advanced age.
Going down to the ford, I saw bloodstained men
Laying their swords at the grey-haired king’s feet.
—Taliesin
The most likely Chronology places Urien’s birth around 515-520, making him around 50-65 during his campaigns noted by Taliesin. Owain would have been in the prime of his life, and would be a prime choice for a king’s Penteulu or equivalent. Under later law, the Penteulu was afforded the privilege of bardic praise, seen above as given to Owain by Taliesin. Owain we know then goes on to rule Rheged before his death. So what does this have to do with Urien’s elder cousin Arthwys?
I have often drawn attention to an odd portion of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s much-maligned and problematic De gestis Britonum or Historia Regum Britanniae. Within this garbled work of history and fiction there is a string of kings that echoes the pedigrees of the Old North. This I have previously dubbed the ‘Arthgallo Narrative’, Within this narrative you see a string of kings which is expected looking at the northern pedigrees, Mar (Morvidus) Arthwys (Arthgallo) Eliffer (Elidurus) and Peredur and Gwrgi (Peredurus and Engenius). There is one interpolation here however, and that sits with Garbanian, or as Geoffrey calls him Gorbonianus, between Morvidus and Arthgallo. Garbanian is held as the ancestor of Morcant Bulc, and a son of Coel Hen, in the pedigrees, and sits in the same generation as Arthwys’ grandfather. I have speculated that this may recount not the kings of Ebrauc, but instead the high-kings of the Coeling kingdoms of the North, however, Peredur and Gwrgi’s inclusion here is dubious, as Urien is obviously acting in that role during the twin kings of Ebrauc’s floruit1 in the later half of the 6th century.
This leads me to the conclusion that this is a fragment from a regnal list of Ebrauc itself, showing direct father-son transfer of power, except for Garbanian. It is unlikely that Garbanian’s interpolation is a mistake, as it seems quite deliberate, and it is also unlikely that it represents a missing generation, as it shifts all of the late 6th century figures out too far to be chronologically acceptable. The conclusion here is that Garbanian, potentially acting as high-king for a short time, may have ruled Ebrauc while Arthwys was young. This poises Arthwys to act as Garbanian’s Penteulu, fighting ‘cum regibus Brittonum’. Under Garbanian as king Arthwys may have operated as the head of his warband, fighting his campaign from Nennius as Garbanian’s Penteulu, and settling in as king in his own right after the campaign was fought, restored to his proper dynastic place as king of Ebrauc. There is a small hint to this within the earlier mentioned Arthgallo narrative, which depicts Arthgallo and Elidurus as brothers, not father and son (likely Geoffrey filling in the gaps with info he doesn’t have) with Elidurus restoring his brother to kingship after exile and wandering (possibly taken from originally fighting his Nennian campaign). This gives us the possibility of Arthwys/Arthur acting both as Dux Bellorum/Penteulu in the late 5th century during his first campaign in his late teens and early twenties, and then King in the early 6th century until his death at Camlann, around the age of 67. While this is speculation, it is interesting that there is a fairly credible scenario where Arthwys would have acted early in his career not as a king, but as a Dux Bellorum/Penteulu.
This was likely the root cause of a schism between the formerly united Coeling kingdoms, eventually leading to the battle of Arfderydd, and Catraeth.