The Battle Between Arthur and Accolon is a trial by combat secretly engineered by Morgan le Fay to kill her brother, King Arthur, and advance Accolon as a rival ruler. Its decisive reversal comes when Arthur, fighting with a false sword against his own Excalibur, is rescued by the Lady of the Lake; victory exposes the conspiracy and brings Accolon’s ambition, Morgan’s betrayal, and Arthur’s vulnerability into the open.

Causes and Deception

The plot takes shape around an existing judicial contest. Arthur has agreed to fight for Sir Damas, whose brother Sir Ontzlake is injured and cannot take the field. Accolon, who is staying with Ontzlake, volunteers to fight in his place. His apparent offer to serve another knight conceals the larger design: Morgan le Fay has sent him Excalibur and its scabbard so that he can kill Arthur in combat.

Accolon awakens beside a deep well, close to falling in. A silver pipe sends water upward into a marble basin, and he recognizes the place as part of the enchantment that has brought him there. A dwarf arrives from Morgan with instructions for the coming fight, including her demand that Accolon show no mercy. The message makes clear that this is not an ordinary trial by combat: Morgan has supplied the weapon and directed the intended killing in advance.

The deception is reciprocal but not equal. As the combat approaches, a damsel sent by Morgan gives Arthur a sword and scabbard that resemble his own, claiming they are a gift from his sister. Arthur accepts the supposed token of affection, not knowing that the weapons are counterfeit and fragile. Accolon, by contrast, knows Morgan’s purpose and holds Arthur’s genuine sword. The combat begins with one knight unaware that the terms have been rigged and the other equipped for the assassination.

The Combat and Reversal

After Arthur hears mass, the two knights meet in a field before local spectators and twelve chosen men charged with overseeing the encounter. They charge on horseback and are both thrown down, then continue on foot. Arthur’s borrowed weapon fails to wound as his own sword ordinarily would, while Accolon’s blows draw blood. The mismatch gradually reveals itself through the course of the fight: Arthur recognizes that his weapon is not the true Excalibur, while the spectators see him endure despite his disadvantage.

The Lady of the Lake, who had earlier imprisoned Merlin beneath a stone, comes to the field because she knows Morgan’s plan and wishes to save Arthur. When Arthur’s sword breaks at the crosspiece, Accolon urges him to surrender. Arthur refuses, insisting that he has pledged to fight to the utmost and would rather die with honour than live in shame. He continues to defend himself without a working sword, keeping his ground even as the encounter seems to turn decisively against him.

At the Lady of the Lake’s enchantment, Excalibur falls from Accolon’s hand. Arthur retrieves it, recognizes his own weapon, and removes the scabbard from Accolon before casting it away. The reversal restores the balance that Morgan’s deception had destroyed. Arthur then overcomes Accolon, but the defeated knight does not simply yield: he says he had promised to fight to the end and will not surrender by speaking the words. His conduct preserves a narrow sense of fidelity to his pledge even as the battle has revealed his participation in treason.

Confession and Consequences

Arthur initially does not know his opponent’s identity. After Accolon names the court he belongs to, Arthur reveals that he is the king. Accolon then confesses that Excalibur had been in his keeping for much of a year and that Morgan sent it to him the previous day for the purpose of killing her brother. He says Morgan loved him and intended, if Arthur were removed and King Uriens killed, to make Accolon king and herself queen. The fight therefore uncovers not only the immediate plot but its political destination: Morgan meant to transform a murder into a change of rule.

Arthur distinguishes Accolon’s admission from innocence. He grants that Accolon did not recognize him during the combat, and says this mitigates his blame; nevertheless, Accolon had agreed to take Arthur’s life. Arthur also expresses particular grievance at Morgan’s betrayal, explaining that he had honoured and trusted her more than his other kin, and even more than his wife. The conspiracy is thus a personal breach of trust as well as an assault on kingship.

The spectators kneel and ask Arthur for mercy. He grants it, then uses his authority to settle the dispute between Damas and Ontzlake and address the prisoners Damas has kept. Damas must surrender the manor to Ontzlake under terms requiring an annual palfrey, release the twenty imprisoned knights with equipment acceptable to them, and cease distressing knights who ride on their adventures. Ontzlake, praised for his conduct, is invited to join Arthur’s court. The battle’s resolution consequently reaches beyond its two combatants: Arthur turns the occasion into a judgment on local power, captivity, and service.

Arthur and Accolon are both wounded, and Arthur seeks a place to rest at an abbey three miles away. Accolon dies there four days later from the blood he has lost, while Arthur recovers. Arthur sends Accolon’s body to Camelot on a horse-bier accompanied by six knights, with a message for Morgan that he is returning her a present and has recovered Excalibur and its scabbard. The ending makes the returned sword material proof that her attempt failed, even as the loss of Accolon gives the conspiracy a fatal consequence.

Narrative Significance

The scene turns a familiar institution of knightly justice into a vehicle for concealed political violence. Arthur’s combat is ostensibly a formal contest fought on behalf of Ontzlake, but Morgan’s advance distribution of the weapons makes it an arranged assassination. The public witnesses first see a knight endure against an apparent advantage; the audience learns why only when the sword changes hands and Accolon confesses. The structure makes recognition itself part of the outcome: the contest ends not merely with a victor, but with the identity of the conspiracy and the intended succession disclosed.

The episode also tests the difference between outward authority and the means that sustain it. Arthur is king, yet for much of the fight he is deprived of the weapon that signifies and serves his power. His refusal to surrender preserves his honour while leaving him physically vulnerable; the Lady of the Lake’s intervention restores the instrument that the plot has stolen. The final recovery of Excalibur settles the contest, but it does not restore the lost trust between Arthur and Morgan. The king’s victory exposes a fracture within his own family and court, and leaves the threat of further reckoning with his sister in view.