The Christian, chivalric, society of medieval Camelot was a community with certain beliefs about the sin of infidelity towards one’s spouse.  Throughout the Arthurian legends, extra-marital affairs often end in tragedy for the doomed lovers.  The relationship of Isolde and Tristram, a queen and knight of the Round Table like Guinevere and Lancelot, met their tragic ends at the hands of Isolde’s jealous husband, King Mark.  King Arthur’s own half-sister, Morgause, was murdered by her sons as they entered into a rage when they found her in bed with a young lover.  Furthermore, other texts speak of a man who chopped off his own wife’s head after suspecting her of infidelity.

            Clearly, unfaithfulness within a marriage was frowned upon within the society of Camelot.  Therefore, the situation of Lancelot and Guinevere came equipped with its own increased level of danger.  Tennyson brings up the point that their high profiles magnified the shame they would inevitably be subject to in his poem “Guinevere.”  The Queen, in her paranoia of being caught, brings up the point that if Lancelot were caught in her chambers, “‘the smouldering scandal” will “‘break and blaze before the people and our lord the King.’” (31).  Guinevere was perhaps the most aware of the doomed fate that awaited she and her lover if they were discovered.  In a conversation with Elaine of Corbin, the Queen warns the girl to keep the increasingly notorious affair a secret, claiming that it will be Lancelot’s death if she does not (32).

            These perilous circumstances eventually develop into a situation easily preyed upon by evil.  Firstly, Arthur’s power-hungry half-sister Morgause seduced the king in his younger years in order to father his bastard child, Mordred.  Using his illegitimate son as a treacherous weapon, she aimed to use this claim to the throne as her path to power (33).  When Mordred was old enough, his mother sent him and his half-brothers to Camelot in order to stir trouble against the King.  When they arrived, they came upon a predicament that was ripe for a catastrophic scandal.

            Thus, Arthur’s one fatal mistake comes back to destroy him by using his own weapons, so to speak.  His bastard son Mordred plots to create a scandal out of the already well-known affair, and then take the throne for himself in the midst of all the outrage his troublemaking has created (34).  In his book Le Morte d’Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory places the majority of the blame for the orchestrated infamy upon Mordred and his half-brother, Agravaine, calling them “two knights with malice in their hearts” that “plotted the downfall of Sir Launcelot and Queen Gwynevere” (35).  In essence, Mordred, “lured by the crimes and frailties of the court” (36), aimed to destroy the fabric of Camelot from the interior.  On one fateful night decades after their impassioned affair began, Lancelot and Guinevere were discovered together in the Queen’s chambers, and the tapestry of the golden kingdom began to unravel.

As the gossip of the affair between King Arthur’s wife and greatest knight grew louder throughout the years, it was already developing into a scandal on its own.  The final kick that Mordred gave it began to send Camelot into its final hours.  Pressured by his lawful reputation, Arthur had no choice but to put Guinevere on trial for her adultery (37).  Fueled by years of courtly rumors, the British population rallied to the guilt of the Queen, claiming that their kingdom was a golden place “‘before the coming of the sinful Queen.’” (38).  In a fateful turn of events, she was found guilty and condemned to burn at the stake.  With the execution date set, it seemed as if things would finally return to normal.

However, the scandal did not terminate at this fateful point.  Instead, it was prolonged when Lancelot bravely entered the square and rescued his lover from her fiery fate.  With the affair blatantly confirmed to the public, nothing was left to doubt.  The shamed Queen assessed her own situation sadly: “‘And mine will ever be a name of scorn.’” (39).  With the foundations of sovereignty turned upside down by this scandal, King Arthur was challenged to take his revenge, Guinevere was challenged to maintain her pride, and Lancelot was challenged to confront his fate.  And in time, the clock of the once-golden kingdom of Camelot began to tick towards its doomed conclusion.