Throughout the degenerative existence of the shameful liaison between Lancelot and Guinevere, the harsh realities of love served to bring “seeds of hatred and fear and confusion” (40) into their secret relationship.  As the years passed, what had once been a tender sort of emotion between the two progressed to become a desperately violent passion.  The mistakes of Lancelot gave way to rage from his Guinevere, while Arthur played the part of the innocent victim perfectly (41).  The affair plagued the three participants of the love triangle with unimaginable amounts of jealousy, guilt, and suffering, which led to their eventual self-destruction.

            Firstly, we must examine the downward spiral of Camelot’s Queen.  Since her arrival in the kingdom, she was faced with a difficult choice between her king and her knight.  Although she loved her husband with her mind, she found that Lancelot could awaken her heart to passion.  “‘For he who loves me must have a touch of earth,’” she declares in Tennyson’s poem “Lancelot and Elaine” (42).   Thus, she was caught between loyalties, just as her lover was—a situation that gnawed at her soul for the duration of her life (43).

            Guinevere was also subject to the shaming gossip of her court throughout her reign as queen.  Although her own husband was shielded from the truth, many of the knights of the Round Table were aware of the illicit behavior that was taking placed behind closed doors.  This was a dangerous position for the Queen to be in, since she represented purity and sovereignty in the court (44).  With her fidelity being questioned constantly, and the symbolic virtue of Camelot threatened, Guinevere’s honor had to be protected.  Ironically, she found her champion in Lancelot.  Her knight would engage in combat to maintain her innocence while at the same time, they both knew they were living a lie.  And it was this shameful that denial would lead to the Queen’s sad end (45).

            The disgrace that Guinevere was subject to after the blazing of the scandal haunted her for the remainder of her unhappy life (46).  After Arthur’s final battle, she took shelter in a convent where she hoped to find forgiveness for her vice.  However, this task was not easily accomplished.  The depraved Queen held onto her reputation even within the walls of the nunnery.  Distraught, she contemplated suicide, but decided instead that, “‘I cannot kill my sin.’” (47).  Shamed and doomed, Guinevere of Cameliard dies soon thereafter—a Queen who has been reduced to a mere shadow of the immaculate young princess she once was.

            Secondly, we must explore the self-destruction of Guinevere’s lover, Sir Lancelot.  He was the greatest knight in the world, and was expected to remain spiritually pure for the sake of Christianity.  These commitments alone were enough weight on his shoulders, but more would soon be added.  For Lancelot loved the wife of his best friend—and this simple act would plague his soul with enough guilt to last a lifetime.

            The French knight from the kingdom of Benwick arrived at Camelot seeking a place at the Round Table.  But after meeting the beautiful queen of the golden kingdom, Lancelot knew that he was in trouble.  He was “innocently enraptured” by her beauty and had fallen in love before his mind could argue with his heart (48).  He knew that he must discard his feelings, or at least hide them, to save his own soul.  And so Lancelot left on a series of adventures and quests that kept him far from the court and its tempting queen (49).

            However, all these efforts failed the great knight, and “he found that he could not banish her from his thoughts.” (50).  After giving up his virginity physically to Elaine of Corbin, but spiritually to Guinevere, Lancelot returned to Camelot and gave into his feelings.  Thus began the two and a half decade long affair “that eventually was to bring about the ruin of the Round Table.” (51). 

            In spite of all the love that Lancelot felt for the Queen, he could not help himself from seeing the price he must pay for his uncontrollable emotions.  After years of betraying his God and king, Lancelot’s conscience was a wreck.  As T.H. White describes his inner thoughts, “He loved Arthur and he loved Guenever and he hated himself.” (52).  Clearly, Lancelot placed all of the blame for the dishonor on his own soul—a weight that served to slowly cripple him throughout his life.  The sinful love that he felt for Guinevere plagued his mind throughout his lifetime.  Truly, the only weakness of the greatest knight in the world was the forbidden love that he felt for the Queen of Camelot (53).    

            Within Lancelot’s betrayal of God, the great knight was also spiritually weakened.  As stated before, the loss of his virginity resulted in the loss of his ability to perform Christian miracles.  Lancelot was also denied the right to achieve the Holy Grail, perhaps the one greatest expectation in his life, because of his impurity (54).  In an unexpected slap to his pride, Lancelot’s own son Galahad usurped his father’s position as Grail Knight—finding and achieving the consecrated vessel where his sire had failed.  Because of his sins, Lancelot had failed in his sworn duty as a Christian, and his celibate son had become everything that his father could not.

            In addition to the guilt and disappointment that Lancelot allowed to fester in his mind for years, he also experienced the wrath of his lover’s jealousy.  Although he and the Queen had found solace in each other’s arms during the beginning of their relationship, problems soon began to arise.  After Guinevere found out about Lancelot’s accidental liaison with Elaine of Corbin, she flew into an envious rage.  “‘I curse him for the traitor that he is!’” she shrieks in Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, “‘He may die for all I care.’” (55).  It is obvious that the Queen does not wish to share her lover with anyone.  And so she should not, according to the laws of courtly love, which demands fidelity above all else.  Regardless of the unintentional nature of Lancelot’s affairs, Guinevere responds with a vehemence that drives her lover from her on several heartbreaking occasions.

            With Lancelot plagued with guilt about failing the three people to whom he owed loyalty, according the chivalry, he was left in a nearly helpless situation when the scandal was exposed.  He seemed to realize that he could not hide the truth any longer, and so begin his journey towards his sad end.  Torn between loyalties as his Queen was, Lancelot was so deeply in love with Guinevere that he was willing to do anything to protect her.  He instructed her to flee to his castle in France where he promised to “‘There hold thee with my life against the world.’” (56).

            Yet despite Lancelot’s best efforts following his courageous rescue of the Queen from the stake, his own life ended in tragedy.  After a monstrous battle that he fights against his former comrades of the Round Table, he too retires to a religious house.  And in the walls of his monastery, the greatest knight in the world begs for forgiveness of his sins.  Following the death of his lover, he loses his own will to live and falls into the sweet slumber of death.  After all his expectations and struggles, Lancelot du Lac is mortal and tragic, after all (57).    

            In comparison to the misfortunes of the Queen and greatest knight of Camelot, it may seem as if a sadder tale cannot be told.  But we must not forget the third corner of the love triangle—King Arthur, or “The Perfect Fool”, as he is called by John Matthews (58). Regardless of the gossip that seemed to permeate the very core of Camelot, the proud King refused to believe that an affair was taking place between his wife and his best friend (59).  He was not entirely unaware of what was going on, thanks to some former advice from his friend and mentor, Merlin.  While contemplating marriage with the daughter of King Leodegrance of Cameliard, the sorcerer warned Arthur that his wife would be unfaithful to him.  Yet the young king had ignored the prediction all those many years ago, and he would soon see the effects of his brashness.

            Upon Mordred’s unmasking of the affair, the King of Camelot had no choice but to acknowledge that treachery that had been taking place in his court for decades.  The realization of the situation left the simple-minded and trusting fellow devastated—his wife and his best friend, the two people whom he loved most in the world, had gone behind his back and betrayed him.  The situation was made even worse by the fact that Arthur had never shown anything but love for Guinevere and respect for Lancelot (60).  The tormented monarch somehow found the strength to confront his wife after the exposure of the scandal, but he had no words of forgiveness for her.  “‘Thou hast spoilt the purpose of my life,’” he declares to her sadly in Tennyson’s poem, “Guinevere” (61).  And indeed, the work of Arthur’s life was starting to unravel as his armies were readied for battle against Sir Lancelot (62).     

            Regardless of the extent of his grief, the King of Camelot still had to rule his land.  Sadly, according to his laws, he was required to sentence his wife to death at the stake.  This was perhaps the most difficult decision in Arthur’s life, since he still loved Guinevere after all she had done to betray him (63).  He was forced to choose between justice and emotions, and in the end, the former won out.  Still, his heart disagreed with what he was forced to do.  In T.H. White’s The Once and Future King, only moments before the torch is lit, he asks his nephew Gawain, “‘Ought I to have acquitted her?  I could have set my new law aside.’” (64).  Clearly, Arthur is thrown into turmoil by his inner struggle between what he must do and what he wants to do.  If justice is to be served, the one woman he has ever loved must die.  This inner conflict serves to launch him into a vulnerable, broken state that his insidious son Mordred takes advantage of.

            In his weakened condition, the old King let the situation give way to war.  The terrible reality of his deception gave Arthur nothing left to live for except the quickly fading flame of Camelot.  The two people he trusted most had betrayed him, Mordred was attempting to usurp his throne, and all that he had worked his kingdom up to be had been for naught.  Or, as T.H. White puts it so bluntly, “His wife was a prisoner.  His oldest friend was banished.  His son was trying to kill him…  His Table was dispersed.” (65).  With such bleak circumstances about him, the King was willing to fight an almost suicidal war against the invading forces of Mordred.  This decision would eventually give way to the physical destruction of Camelot, although the moral desolation had already been completed.

            And so “from morning until night the fighting raged, until a hundred thousand noble knights lay dead upon the field.” (66).  In the heat of battle, Arthur and Mordred clashed in a fatal duel that left both dead.  Thus, just as evil was conquered, so did the good die as well.  The heavyhearted population of Camelot continued to place the blame on their “sinful Queen” who had orchestrated the downfall of her husband’s kingdom through her adultery (67).  With the Arthur dead, Guinevere shamed, and Lancelot banished, the golden age that had prevailed for decades soon slipped into darkness.  The King’s dream was shattered, and Camelot’s luster faded in the aftermath (68).