Lancelot Kills Agravaine and the Other Knights is the decisive break between Lancelot’s secret relationship with Queen Guenever and the public authority of King Arthur’s court. Discovered in the queen’s chamber by Agravaine and Mordred with twelve armed knights, Lancelot makes one attempt to have the charge heard before the king; when the group rejects that offer and presses the attack, he kills Agravaine and the twelve knights, wounds Mordred, and leaves. The confrontation turns an accusation into open violence and makes the threatened collapse of the lovers’ private world a political crisis.

Discovery and the threat

Lancelot has gone to the queen’s chamber carrying his sword beneath his arm and wearing his mantle. Agravaine and Mordred arrive with twelve knights of the Round Table, all armed, and publicly denounce him as a traitor. Their cries are loud enough for the court to hear: the discovery is not contained within the chamber, but announced as an accusation before the wider household.

Guenever understands the danger at once. She has no armour, shield, sword, or spear to give Lancelot, and believes that he cannot withstand so many armed knights. She fears that he will be killed and that she herself will be burned. Her response makes the immediate stakes plain: survival, punishment, and the end of the relationship are bound together in the scene.

Lancelot asks whether there is armour in the chamber, then laments that he may be killed for lack of it. Before the attack begins, he embraces and kisses Guenever, asks her to pray for his soul if he dies, and urges her to go with Sir Bors and the other members of his kin, who he believes will protect and support her. Guenever replies that she will not live beyond his death, but will accept her own death meekly for Christ’s sake. Their exchange turns the impending fight into a separation: each speaks as though the other may soon be lost.

The attempt to answer the charge

At the door, Lancelot does not attack immediately. He wraps his mantle around his arm and asks the knights to stop their shouting and let him open the door. When they claim that they will preserve his life until he comes before King Arthur, he opens it only far enough for one man to enter at a time. The narrow opening briefly gives him control over the confrontation, but also makes clear that the armed party has come to take him by force.

Sir Colgrevance of Gore enters first and strikes at Lancelot. Lancelot kills him, draws him inside, and, with Guenever and her ladies helping, puts on Colgrevance’s armour. Now better protected, he addresses Agravaine and Mordred directly. He offers to appear before the assembled court the next day and answer as a knight, promising to prove by arms that he came to the queen for no wrongful purpose. His proposal recognizes the accusation as one that could be publicly tried; he seeks a hearing before the king rather than accepting a private assault as judgment.

Agravaine and Mordred reject the offer. They say that, with King Arthur’s authority, they may either spare Lancelot or kill him, and insist that they will take him regardless. Lancelot asks whether no other grace is possible. Their refusal closes the route to an immediate hearing and forces the encounter back into the chamber as a fight.

The killing and escape

Lancelot opens the door fully and attacks the armed group. He kills Agravaine at the outset and soon kills the other twelve knights. He wounds Mordred, who escapes. These are the central, distinct results of the fight: the accusers are largely killed, their surviving leader carries the news out of the chamber, and Lancelot remains alive but has used lethal force against fellow knights of the Round Table.

After the fighting, Lancelot returns to Guenever. He tells her that their love has come to an end because King Arthur will now be his enemy. He offers to take her away and protect her from further danger, but Guenever advises him not to do so yet: since he has already caused so much harm, she thinks it is better for him to hold back unless he sees that she is to be put to death the following day. Lancelot agrees to wait, promises that he will rescue her while he lives, and leaves her for his lodging. Before parting, they kiss and exchange rings, gestures that preserve their attachment even as the scene announces its rupture.

Consequences and narrative significance

The clash changes the status of the affair. Until discovery, Lancelot and Guenever’s relationship has been presented as a private bond; now Lancelot’s attempt to defend himself has left dead knights, a wounded survivor, and a direct breach with King Arthur. Lancelot himself names the consequence: Arthur will be his foe. The fight therefore does not settle the charge of treason through a hearing; it makes the accusation a force within the court and turns the lovers’ danger into a conflict over loyalty and royal authority.

The episode also places chivalric procedure beside the limits of force. Lancelot offers to answer publicly before the king, but the armed party refuses that course, while he responds to the assault with lethal violence. His effort to claim a knight’s hearing and his escape by killing his opponents remain inseparable. The result is neither reconciliation nor a verdict: the queen stays behind, Lancelot withdraws to his lodging, and the exchange of rings marks a bond that survives the scene even as the court’s political order closes against him.