InArthurian legend,Gorlois (Welsh:Gwrlais) ofTintagel was theDuke of Cornwall. He was the first husband ofKing Arthur's motherIgraine and the father of her daughters,Arthur's half-sisters. Her second husband wasUther Pendragon, the High King of Britain and Arthur's father, who marries her after killing him.
The name Gorlois first appears inGeoffrey of Monmouth'sHistoria Regum Britanniae (c. 1136).[1]Culhwch and Olwen calls himRica.[2] TheProseMerlin andOf Arthour and of Merlin call him DukeHoel (Höel[3]) ofTintagel,[4] the latter text describing him asIgraine's second husband but also prior to her marriage with Uther.[5] InPerlesvaus, he appears as KingGoloé (Golaas).[6]William Worcester'sItineraries call himTador.[7]
According toHistoria Regum Britanniae, Gorlois was vassal ofAmbrosius Aurelianus, whose arrival at the Battle ofKaerconan ensured the defeat ofHengist.[8] InWace'sRoman de Brut, when Hengist's son Octa and his cousin Ossa rebel, Gorlois helps Uther defeat them atYork.[9] In theBrut Tysilio, a Welsh version of Geoffrey's work, Gorlois is the father ofCador, Duke ofCornwall, presumably by Igraine.
After he succeeds his brother, Ambrosius, Uther holds a feast for his nobles, and seeing Igraine, falls in love with her. SensingUther Pendragon's interest, Igraine asks her husband to take her back home to Cornwall. He placed her at the more defensibleTintagel Castle, while he prepared to defend his territory from Dimilioc. Incensed at their departing without leave, Uther lays siege to Gorlois' castles to little effect. He consults his friend Ulfin who tells him that the lady can hardly look favorably on someone who makes war on her husband, and suggests the king seek advice fromMerlin in gaining access to Tintagel. Merlin devises an enchantment thatdisguises Uther in the form of Gorlois. In this form he approaches Igraine and they sleep together, conceivingArthur. Unbeknownst to either of them, the real Gorlois has been killed that very night in battle against Uther's troops.[8] Eventually Igraine is persuaded to marry Uther. (InThomas Hughes' 1587 playThe Misfortunes of Arthur, Gorlois' ghost condemns Arthur for his father's treachery.)
Thomas Malory'sLe Morte d'Arthur, following the later tradition ofMerlin and French prose cycles, features Gorlois as the father ofMorgan le Fay,Morgause, andElaine,[8] who are roughly corresponding with Brimesent, Belisent and Blasine in Gorlois' "Hoel" variant.[5] After Gorlois' death, his three daughters are married off to vassals of Uther: Elaine to KingNentres of Garlot, Morgause toKing Lot ofOrkney, and (after she has received an education in a convent) Morgan to KingUrien. Arthur is spared any knowledge of his half-sisters after he is whisked away by Merlin to be raised bySir Ector.
The 11th/12th century Welsh textCulhwch and Olwen lists "Gormant son of Rica (Arthur's brother on his mother's side, his father the chief elder of Cornwall)".[10] This passage is a parallel of later stories of Gorlois and Igraine. ScholarsRachel Bromwich and D. Simon Evans note the similarity between theGor- element in Gormant and Gorlois' names, which could reflect a known practice in somelate antiquity andearly medieval European dynasties to share a nameprefix. There is a possibility that Rica could be equated withRicatus (or Recgisi), a name found on an 11th century Cornish cross.[2] ThePeniarthtriads give the same title—Arthur's chief elder atCelliwig, Cornwall—toCaradoc, which could also equate him with Rica.[11]
The 13th centuryProseMerlin calls Ygerne's husband Hoel, Duke of Tintagell, withYdiers as king of Cornwall. Hoel and Ygerne have five daughters together, who marryKing Lot,King Ventres,King Urien, and King Briadas.[12]
Richard Carew'sSurvey of Cornwall (1602) places Gorlois as husband of Igerna and duke of Cornwall in 500 AD, who is succeeded by Earl Cador by 526 AD.[13] TheBook of Baglan (1600–1607) calls him Gurleis, Goulisor, or Gwrleis, duke or prince of Cornwall, and husband of Eigyr; he is the father of Cador, and son of Sortogus, a direct male-line descendant ofMaxentius,Dyfnwal Moelmud,Camber andBrutus of Troy.[14]
William Worcester travelled to Cornwall in 1478, and recorded in hisItineraries that "Tador Duke of Cornwall, husband of the mother of Arthur was slain" atCastle an Dinas. This is generally interpreted as a conflation of Gorlois with Cador, and as an alternative place of Gorlois' death, differing from theHistoria Regum Britanniae's account that he died at Dimilioc.[7]
Henry Jenner considered Gorlois to be a real fifth or sixth-century figure, either a petty chief and vassal ofthe Royal House of Dumnonia, or of the line of the original chiefs of the Dumnonii if the kings of Dumnonia were the leaders of theBritons displaced by the Saxons. He suggested that Bosworlas (inSt Just) andTreworlas were place names taken from Gorlois,[15] and notes that Bosworlas ('the Dwelling of Gorlois') is very close toBosigran ('the Dwelling of Igerna').[7]
| Legendary titles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Unknown Last known title holder: Dionotusas king | Duke of Cornwall | Succeeded by |