Mordred’s usurpation and attempt to marry Queen Guenever transform a fabricated report of King Arthur’s death into a struggle over England’s crown, the queen’s autonomy, and the loyalties of the realm. Mordred makes a Parliament choose him king and has himself crowned at Canterbury; Guenever, faced with his proposed marriage, feigns agreement long enough to reach London and take refuge in the Tower. The episode ends not in reconciliation but in a kingdom divided: Mordred gathers an army at Dover to oppose Arthur’s return, and most of England supports the usurper.

The Claim to the Crown

Mordred assumes rule while Arthur is away and circulates letters falsely claiming that Arthur has been killed in battle with Sir Launcelot. Using this invented news to make his advance appear legitimate, he summons a Parliament and has the assembled lords choose him king. He is crowned at Canterbury, where he holds a feast for fifteen days, before moving to Winchester. The succession is presented not as a lawful transfer but as a seizure enabled by deception and by the political gathering Mordred controls.

The contrast with Arthur’s accession sharpens the usurpation’s significance. When Uther Pendragon, on his deathbed, publicly blesses Arthur and names him as successor, the realm nevertheless enters a prolonged crisis: powerful lords strengthen themselves, and many hope to become king. Arthur’s later authority is confirmed when he alone draws the sword from the stone before the lords and commons; the people acclaim him, and he swears to rule with justice. Mordred, by contrast, secures a crown through false news and a Parliament’s vote. The episode places a formal act of election beside the concealment that makes it possible, exposing how political procedure can be turned to the service of a false claim.

Guenever’s Escape and Resistance

At Winchester, Mordred takes Queen Guenever and openly declares that he will marry her, although she is his uncle’s wife and, as the bishop of Canterbury stresses, his father’s wife. Guenever is distressed, but conceals her resistance: she speaks courteously, appears to consent, and asks leave to go to London to obtain what is needed for the wedding. Mordred trusts her performance and lets her go. Her apparent compliance is a calculated means of escape, not acceptance of the marriage.

Once in London, Guenever takes the Tower and quickly fills it with provisions and men. Her refuge becomes a defended position from which she can refuse Mordred’s demand. When he learns that she has outmaneuvered him, he lays siege to the Tower, orders repeated assaults, and uses engines and guns against it. None of this persuades Guenever to place herself in his hands again. The episode thus gives her resistance a material and political form: she secures a stronghold, prepares to hold it, and denies the would-be king the marriage through which he seeks to consolidate his power.

The Bishop’s Rebuke and Mordred’s Defiance

The bishop of Canterbury directly challenges Mordred’s intended marriage as an offence against both God and knighthood. He invokes the kinship at stake—Arthur is Mordred’s uncle, and Mordred is Arthur’s son—and warns that a man cannot properly marry his father’s wife. When Mordred refuses to abandon the plan, the bishop threatens to curse him with the established ecclesiastical rites. Mordred answers with defiance and threatens the bishop in turn; the bishop carries out the curse and flees when Mordred seeks him.

The bishop’s flight does not end his opposition. He goes near Glastonbury, lives there in poverty and prayer as a hermit priest, and understands that a destructive war is approaching. His departure gives the conflict a religious as well as political dimension: an ecclesiastical authority publicly condemns Mordred’s conduct, while Mordred treats that judgment as an obstacle to be resisted by force. Guenever, meanwhile, continues to reject the marriage, communicating through letters and messengers that she would rather die than marry him.

A Realm Divided

Mordred’s claim gathers support beyond the immediate circle of the court. When Arthur’s return becomes known, Mordred issues writs to the barony, and many people rally to him. The account attributes this shift partly to a public view of Arthur’s rule as bringing only war and strife, while Mordred is associated with joy and bliss. It also notes that people whom Arthur had raised from poverty and endowed with lands fail to speak well of him. The narrative condemns this fickleness, portraying the population as more pleased by Mordred than by the king who had sustained the fellowship of knights and distributed lands to those deprived of them.

That commentary makes the usurpation more than a contest between two claimants. Arthur’s earlier rule had depended on alliances, service, the restoration of wrongfully taken lands, and a sworn code for the Round Table; even so, gratitude and loyalty prove unstable when opinion turns against him. Mordred exploits that instability, and the text says that most of England holds with him. He then moves with a great host to Dover, where he expects Arthur to land and intends to drive him from his lands. The manoeuvre carries the attempted marriage and the false succession into open conflict: Guenever holds out in the Tower, the bishop has withdrawn, and the realm’s divided allegiance prepares the ground for the final war.