King Nentres

King Nentres is the ruler of Garlot and one of the kings whose changing relationship with King Arthur links family alliances to the politics of rule. He appears first as a participant in Arthur’s courtly gatherings, then as a member of the eleven-king coalition formed against Arthur; the contrast makes his presence part of the story’s movement from public ceremony to rebellion.

Identity and Family Alliances

At King Uther Pendragon’s request, King Nentres married Elaine, one of Igraine’s sisters. The marriage belongs to a wider pattern of unions arranged around Uther’s household: King Lot married Margawse, while Morgan le Fay was placed in a nunnery for her education before later marrying King Uriens. Nentres is thus introduced not in isolation but within the web of marriages through which the narrative connects rulers and their families.

At Arthur’s Pentecost Feast

King Nentres attended King Arthur’s Pentecost feast with seven hundred knights, a substantial retinue among the delegations gathered there. King Arthur welcomed the visiting rulers and sent them gifts, taking their arrival as an expression of goodwill. Nentres and the other kings instead rejected the presents and made clear that they considered Arthur’s youth and disputed birth an affront to their own standing. The feast’s hospitality therefore exposed a political division beneath its formal courtesies.

The Coalition Against Arthur

After the rebuff at Carlion, the hostile kings widened their alliance, swearing not to abandon one another until King Arthur had been destroyed. Nentres joined this oath and pledged to bring five thousand mounted men. The assembled force was described as fifty thousand mounted men and ten thousand on foot. The eleven kings then moved against Arthur’s position at Bedegraine, leaving only a small force at the siege of the castle as they advanced. Nentres’s role is recorded as part of this collective undertaking: the account specifies his pledge and the scale of the coalition, but does not separately describe an individual exploit by him in the fighting.

Narrative Significance

Nentres’s appearances set two forms of political connection against each other. His marriage to Elaine reflects the dynastic ties encouraged under Uther; his oath with the other kings shows how royal alliances could become a front against Arthur’s rule. At the feast, he belongs to the company Arthur hopes to honor; in the later campaign, he is among the rulers who oppose him. The text gives Nentres a defined place in these collective acts while leaving his personal motives and later fate unstated.