The dissolution of the Round Table

The dissolution of the Round Table marks the end of the fellowship that had given Arthur’s realm its public order and shared purpose. The book closes with the company dispersed: some members withdraw to their own lands, four knights travel to the Holy Land, and the narrative declares that the fellowship is broken for ever.

A Fellowship Founded on Rule and Service

The Round Table begins as more than a gathering of warriors. After Uther Pendragon’s death leaves the realm in jeopardy, Arthur is recognized as king when he alone draws the sword from the stone; the people accept this as God’s will, and Arthur forgives those who had delayed him. He is crowned and sworn to rule with true justice, while restoring lands taken from their owners during the unsettled succession. The fellowship’s political foundation is therefore tied to the king’s authority and to a promise that power will repair wrongs rather than merely command allegiance. Arthur’s company is also bound by stated obligations. After the adventures of the white hart, the brachet, and the lady carried away by a knight, Arthur orders his knights not to commit outrage or murder, to flee treason, to show mercy to those who ask it, and to aid ladies and gentlewomen. The Round Table knights swear to these terms, and renew their oath each year at Pentecost. The fellowship’s later dissolution thus breaks a body whose identity had been defined not only by combat but by recurring pledges of conduct.

The Fellowship at Its Height

The book presents the company in moments of collective strength. At Bedegraine Castle, the three kings find a well-provided fellowship and are glad to join it. Later, after a long war, Arthur holds a royal feast with allied kings, princes, and noble knights of the Round Table. The gathering gives visible form to a political order built through hospitality, alliances, and shared service. That order also faces challenges beyond the fellowship’s internal bonds. When twelve aged ambassadors from Rome demand tribute on behalf of Emperor Lucius, Arthur protects them from young knights who want to attack them, ensures that they are lodged and treated well, and answers their demand through his own authority. He rejects Roman overlordship and declares his intention to claim the empire. The episode shows a king able to restrain his followers even while preparing for war: collective strength depends on discipline as well as arms.

Collapse and Dispersal

The late narrative makes the fellowship’s political fragility explicit when Mordred presumes to take the crown of England and seeks to marry the queen, his uncle’s wife. The challenge is not simply a new contest for territory; it is a seizure of the kingship around which the company had been organized. With Arthur’s return and the death of Gawaine, the final conflict brings the old order to its end. After Launcelot’s death, his body is kept on a loft for fifteen days and then buried with great devotion. Those who have gathered around him remain with the Bishop of Canterbury at the hermitage for more than a month. Constantine, Cador’s son, is then chosen king of England and rules the realm. The transition restores a ruler, but it does not restore the Round Table as a functioning fellowship.

What Remains of the Round Table

Several knights do not stay with Constantine. He would have had them at his court, but they return to their own countries. The account names Bors, Ector de Maris, Gahalantine, Galihud, Galihodin, Blamor, Bleoberis, Williars le Valiant, and Clarrus of Cleremont among those who depart. It adds that they lived in their countries as holy men, making their withdrawal a final change in the company’s character as well as its location. The book distinguishes between accounts of the survivors’ fate. Some English books, it says, claim that the knights never left England after Launcelot’s death, but it treats that version as a favour of the makers. The French book is described as authoritative and says that Bors, Ector de Maris, Blamor, and Bleoberis went to the Holy Land after settling their lands, carrying out Launcelot’s command. There they fought the Turks and died on Good Friday. The ending thus gives the fellowship no single new home: its surviving members are scattered, and some meet their deaths far from England. The closing account states that when the Round Table knights were whole together there were 140. Its final measure of the fellowship is not a replacement institution but the fact of its having been broken for ever. The company’s earlier vows of justice, mercy, and service remain the standard against which its extinction can be read; the narrative ends by showing those who once formed a common order separated into different lives, countries, and deaths.