Lancelot Leaves Arthur’s Court marks the break between Lancelot and King Arthur’s fellowship: after Sir Gawaine rejects his offer of reconciliation over the deaths of Sir Gareth and Sir Gaheris, Lancelot is ordered to leave, and he sails from Britain with a hundred loyal knights. His departure is at once a personal banishment and a political fracture. The court loses a knight who says he had helped quiet rebellions, while the Round Table’s division leaves the realm exposed to the trouble he fears Sir Mordred will bring.

Causes and Terms of the Departure

The immediate confrontation turns on the deaths of Sir Gareth and Sir Gaheris. Lancelot denies that he killed either brother intentionally, explaining that they were unarmed on the day they died. He offers to travel barefoot and in his shirt from Sandwich to Carlisle, founding a religious house at every ten-mile interval and providing each with a full community and sufficient means of support. He presents this lifelong undertaking as a holier response than war, but Sir Gawaine refuses to forgive him, especially for Sir Gareth’s death. He says that if King Arthur reconciles with Lancelot, he himself will withdraw his service from the king.

A papal command temporarily constrains the dispute. Sir Gawaine explains that the pope has directed King Arthur to take back Queen Guenever and make peace with Lancelot for the present; Lancelot is therefore to be allowed safe passage. That agreement does not restore his place at court. Sir Gawaine limits his stay in the land to fifteen days and threatens to fight him after he has departed if they meet again. The settlement is thus a reprieve, not a reconciliation: royal consent and papal authority hold open a route out, while Gawaine keeps the grievance alive.

Farewell at Court

Lancelot leaves amid a court divided between grief and hostility. He tells King Arthur that he regrets being banished from the realm he loved and where he had gained much of his honour. He recalls the instability of fortune, comparing his fall from high standing with the reversals of celebrated figures in old chronicles. His account is not simply a lament for lost status: he also says that the Round Table’s honour had grown through him and his kin, a claim that makes the cost of his exclusion visible to those assembled.

Before leaving, Lancelot addresses Queen Guenever in the hearing of the king and the court. He asks her to pray for him and to send word if false accusations or danger beset her; if a knight’s combat can deliver her, he promises to come to her aid. He kisses her, then brings her to King Arthur and publicly challenges anyone present to say that she is untrue to the king. The gesture both affirms his loyalty to her and underscores the conflict that has made his position untenable. His public farewell does not settle the accusation or the political rupture; it leaves those tensions exposed before the whole court.

From Joyous Gard to Exile

As Lancelot rides out of Carlisle, those gathered—kings and nobles, knights, ladies, and gentlewomen—weep at his departure, with Sir Gawaine the stated exception. Lancelot returns to Joyous Gard, but thereafter calls it the Dolorous Gard, giving his former stronghold a name that carries the sorrow of exile. There he asks his fellowship what they intend to do. They answer together that they will follow his choice, whether he remains in the country or leaves it. They say that, having shared his distress, they will share his fortunes elsewhere, and that many of them would no longer be welcome at court for having taken his side.

Lancelot offers to divide his livelihood and lands freely among the knights, keeping only what is sufficient for his own person. He promises that his estates will sustain them as they had sustained knights before. Their response makes the departure more than the loss of one courtier: the fellowship says that peace will give way to strife and debate because the Round Table is broken. They credit the fellowship’s nobility with having upheld King Arthur and kept his realm at rest, and they attribute much of that strength to Lancelot.

The Crossing and Its Political Consequences

Lancelot doubts that the stability of the realm rested on him alone, but says that he had done his duty and had quieted rebellions. He fears that Sir Mordred, whom he describes as envious and intent on causing trouble, will soon disturb the kingdom. The narrative makes that warning a forward-looking consequence of the departure: the cohesion that Lancelot believes he helped preserve is already failing, and his removal leaves the court more vulnerable to conflict.

A hundred knights leave with Lancelot, having vowed not to forsake him in adversity or prosperity. They settle their expenses, sail from Cardiff, and cross to Benwick, a place also called Bayonne or Beaume in the account. Lancelot’s exile does not make him powerless. He and his kin are lords over lands in France, which he secures by furnishing and strengthening towns and castles. He then convenes a parliament and distributes crowns and titles among his followers: Sir Lionel becomes king of France, Sir Bors receives the lands of King Claudas, and Sir Ector de Maris becomes king of Benwick and of Guienne, as well as prince over them. Lancelot also advances other companions to ducal and comital rank. The departure therefore transfers his fellowship from Arthur’s court into a separate political order, while the Round Table’s fracture signals the coming instability of the kingdom he has left.