King Mark’s murder of Prince Boudwin turns a victory won in Cornwall’s defense into a family crime. Resenting his brother’s greater popularity and goodwill toward Sir Tristram, Mark arranges a seemingly welcoming family visit, then kills Boudwin and drives his widow, Anglides, and their young son, Alisander le Orphelin, into flight. The deed extends beyond the murder itself: it makes survival and the prospect of vengeance part of the family’s future.

Background: Boudwin’s service

The episode follows an attack on Cornwall by Saracens, who land after the departure of the Sessoynes. Boudwin responds quickly, raising the country in secret and without waiting to summon King Mark. Before daybreak, he has three of his own ships set alight and sent with the wind into the Saracen fleet; the fire destroys the enemy ships. At daybreak, Boudwin and his companions attack, and the narrative reports that they kill forty thousand. His action saves Cornwall, but its success makes his standing with the people a source of danger.

Mark is enraged that Boudwin has won such renown. He particularly resents that his brother is more beloved throughout the country than he is, and that Boudwin loves Sir Tristram, whom Mark himself hates. The account presents these resentments as the immediate grounds for Mark’s decision to kill him. A service that should have strengthened the brothers’ bond instead intensifies their rivalry.

The murder

Mark summons Boudwin, his wife Anglides, and their young son, saying that he wishes to see the child. The invitation conceals a further intention: Mark means to kill the boy as well as his father. He receives the family with apparent courtesy until they have dined, then turns to Boudwin’s recent victory and accuses him of withholding news so that he could take the honor for himself.

Boudwin answers that he acted before Cornwall could be devastated while he waited to send for the king. Mark calls him a liar and accuses him of continually trying to win renown at his expense. He then strikes his brother with a dagger. Boudwin dies without speaking again. The account sets the contrast plainly: his defense of the country has just saved its people, yet the king’s envy makes that service the pretext for a staged welcome and murder.

Anglides and the threatened heir

Anglides witnesses the killing, grieves, and faints. Boudwin is prepared for burial, while she secretly keeps his doublet and shirt. These garments become more than belongings of the dead prince: they preserve a material reminder of the murder for the son Mark has also targeted.

Afterward, Mark searches from room to room for Anglides and Alisander. When he cannot find them, he orders Sir Sadok, under threat of death, to bring them back. Sadok catches up with Anglides within ten miles and tells her to return. Rather than obeying Mark’s command, he offers her a way to leave with her son and keep him until he is old enough to seek vengeance for his father.

Anglides accepts the protection and promises that, if Alisander lives to become a knight, she will give him Boudwin’s doublet and shirt with their bloody marks and charge him to remember his father’s death. Sadok returns to Mark and falsely reports that he has drowned the child; Mark is pleased by the report. His belief that the heir is gone, however, is mistaken.

Escape and significance

Anglides rides day and night southward, resting little and only in a few places, until she reaches Magouns, later called Arundel, in Southsex. The castle constable welcomes her as its rightful owner: the land belongs to her by inheritance, and the constable, Bellangere, says so when he receives her. She remains there for years and winters, until Alisander is grown strong.

The murder thus fails to extinguish the family line or the possibility of retaliation. Mark’s attempt to eliminate both father and son instead leaves a survivor carrying the memory of Boudwin’s death, while the preserved garments give that memory a concrete form. In this episode, political renown, popular affection, and kinship turn against the king: Boudwin’s service makes him beloved, Mark treats that popularity as a threat, and the violence intended to secure Mark’s position creates the conditions for his nephew’s eventual claim to vengeance.