King Arthur Legends - The Cast

Polsue quotes at length from William Hals' "History of Cornwall" written in late 1600s to ealy 1700s, In his chapter on Tintagel Polsue includes Hals' account of the birth of Arthur and a brief history of his reign. Hals (as quoted by Polsue) includes the following note of some sources - "There was extant in the Welsh tongue , in bards's verses , 1170 , temp . Hen . II . , a song which said that the body of King Arthur was buried at the Isle of Avallan , near Glastonbury , between two pyra mids . Whereupon King Henry ordered search to be made after his corpse , as that most classical and authentic author Giraldus Cambrensis , who was an eye witness thereof saith , who relates , that after the pioneers had sunk about seven foot deep , they lighted upon a stone in form of a cross , to the back part thereof was fastened a rude leaden cross , something broad , withſthose letters inscribed : “ Hic jacet sepultis inclitus Rex Arturius in Insula Avalonia . ” Two feet beneath this cross they then also found two coffins made of hollow oak , wherein were the bones and skeletons of King Arthur and of Genevour , his wife , the hair of the said lady being then whole and of fresh colour , as Fabian saith , but as soon as touched it fell to powder . This history , for substance is gathered out of Galfridus and other chronologers ; John Trevisa's book of the Acts of King Arthur , temp . Henry IV .; John Lidgate , a monk of S. Edmondsbury , who wrote a tract of King Arthur's Round Table , anno Dom . 1470 ; William Caxton , the author of that Chronicle called Fructus Temporum , who also wrote the history of King Arthur , 1484 ; Nicholas Upton , Canon of the Cathe dral Church of Wells , 1440 ; and others . King Arthur's three admirals at sea , as appears from the book of Thriades in British , were Gerint ab Erbyn , a nobleman of Cornwall , for then Cornwall and Devon were one county or province , slain at Lhongporth , now London , by the Saxons , anno Dom . 540 ; March ab Meircyon , and Gwenwynwyn ab Nau ."