Anglides and Alisander's Escape

Anglides and Alisander's Escape is the flight of a widowed mother and her young son from King Mark’s reach after the murder of Prince Boudwin. Its decisive turn is the intervention of Sir Sadok: ordered to recover the fugitives, he instead gives Anglides a way to preserve Alisander and carry his father’s death forward as a demand for vengeance.

Pursuit and Secret Assistance

After killing Prince Boudwin, King Mark did not stop at the murder. Sword in hand, he searched from chamber to chamber for Anglides and her young son, then ordered Sir Sadok to find them, under threat of death. Sadok caught up with Anglides within ten miles and told her to return to the king. Her appeal stressed the losses she had already suffered and asked what could be gained by killing either her or her child.

Sadok answered with a concealed offer rather than obedience to Mark’s command. He asked whether Anglides would leave the country with Alisander, keep him until he came of age, and ensure that he avenged his father. His proposal changed the pursuit into an escape, but bound the child’s survival to a future obligation. Anglides accepted and promised that, if Alisander lived to become a knight, she would give him his father’s doublet and shirt, marked by blood, and charge him to remember the deed throughout his life.

Flight and Refuge at Arundel

Sadok returned to King Mark and falsely reported that he had drowned the child. Mark was glad to believe Alisander dead; the lie protected the boy by concealing the success of the escape. Anglides, meanwhile, rode day and night, resting little and making her way south toward the sea.

By chance she reached Magouns, later called Arundel, in Sussex. The castle’s constable welcomed her as its rightful owner. He was Bellangere, whose wife was closely related to Anglides, and he confirmed that the castle belonged to her by inheritance. The refuge was therefore not merely a place to hide: it was a home to which Anglides had a claim and where her son could be brought up beyond Mark’s immediate reach.

Alisander’s Survival and the Inheritance of Vengeance

Anglides remained at the castle through years and winters until Alisander was grown and strong. The account marks his maturation through exceptional prowess: no one in the country was his equal in strength or in the performance of feats. His survival fulfills the immediate purpose of Sadok’s intervention, while his mother’s promise makes the escape the beginning of a longer story of inherited duty.

The blood-marked garments give that duty a tangible form. Anglides intends them as the evidence and reminder that will accompany Alisander into knighthood, connecting his father’s death to his future identity. The episode thus closes not with the vengeance itself, but with the boy’s preservation and growth: King Mark believes the threat has disappeared, while the son he thinks drowned is being prepared to remember and answer the murder.