Sir Borre, Son of King Arthur
Sir Borre appears in the Arthurian legends as a Knight of the Round Table and as the son of King Arthur. Nonetheless, he only has a very minor role. What do we know about him? Furthermore, can he be associated with a better attested figure from elsewhere in the Arthurian legends?
Who Was Sir Borre?
Sir Borre was the son of King Arthur and one of the Knights of the Round Table. He appears in just a single source, Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, written in about 1470.
In this source, Borre appears just after the Battle of Bedegraine. This was the final battle in the civil war between Arthur and the eleven British kings who rebelled against his rulership very early in his reign. After defeating them at this climactic battle, various rulers came to Arthur at the Castle of Bedegraine to submit to him and pay homage to him. As Malory explained:
“There came a damosel that was an earl’s daughter: his name was Sanam, and her name was Lionors, a passing fair damosel; and so she came thither for to do homage, as other lords did after the great battle. And King Arthur set his love greatly upon her, and so did she upon him, and the king had ado with her, and gat on her a child: his name was Borre, that was after a good knight, and of the Table Round.”
According to this, Borre was the son of Arthur and Lionors. He was apparently born very early in Arthur’s reign, just after he had established dominance over the other kings of Britain. As such, he was seemingly Arthur’s firstborn.
Identical to Sir Bohart le Cure Hardy
Much later in Le Morte d’Arthur, in a list of various knights, we find the following character:
“Sir Bohart le Cure Hardy that was King Arthur’s son.”
This character is generally accepted as being the same as Borre, since their names are fairly similar and Borre is specifically said to have become one of the Knights of the Round Table. Furthermore, Malory does not describe Arthur as fathering any other sons, so it is logical to conclude that they are one and the same.
Here, Malory gives Bohart, or Borre, the epithet ‘le Cure Hardy’. This means ‘the Strong Heart’. This, again, supports the identification of Bohart with Borre, since Malory had earlier said that Borre became a ‘good knight’.
Borre’s Mother
As we saw earlier, Borre’s mother was a woman named Lionors by Malory. She was the daughter of an earl named Sanam.
Although Borre does not appear by that name in any earlier source, his mother and grandfather do appear. In the Livre d’Artus of the Vulgate Cycle, dating to the thirteenth century, we find a story reminiscent of that recorded by Malory. Arthur meets a young damsel named Lisanor, the daughter of an earl named Sevain. They become lovers and have a child. This occurs early in Arthur’s reign, before he has met Queen Guinevere.
It is widely accepted that the character of Lisanor is another version of the character Lionors, and Lisanor’s father Earl Sevain corresponds to Lionors’ father Earl Saman. This would mean that, although Borre does not appear by that name any earlier than Malory, he does actually make an appearance in earlier sources.
However, this leads us to a very interesting controversy, perhaps the single most fascinating issue concerning Sir Borre.
The True Identity of Sir Borre
Many online sources claim that Borre is actually a late manifestation of a son of Arthur’s better known as Llacheu or Loholt. He generally appears as Llacheu in Welsh sources and Loholt (or some other variation of this name) in the non-Welsh Arthurian tales.
The reason for this conclusion is based on the aforementioned information concerning Lisanor and Lionors. As we saw, it is evident that the two women are supposed to be the same, meaning that the child they bear should presumably be the same as well.
In the earlier account, from the Livre d’Artus, the child of Arthur and Lisanor is not left unnamed. In fact, their child is Loholt. Given the correspondence between the two narratives, this has led to the generally accepted conclusion that Borre is simply Malory’s name for Loholt.
Reasons to Doubt This Identification
However, not all scholars agree. One such scholar was Roger Sherman Loomis, one of the foremost authorities on the Arthurian legend in the twentieth century. Today, his conclusions regarding Borre have been highlighted once again by Tyler R. Tichelaar in King Arthur’s Children: A Study in Fiction and Tradition.
As Tichelaar pointed out, why could the same woman not have been the mother of more than one of Arthur’s sons? Furthermore, characters get swapped around all the time in the Arthurian legends. In the words of Tichelaar:
“Some chroniclers could have been confused and made her Llacheu’s mother, when his mother was actually Guinevere.”
Evidence that Llacheu’s mother was not originally Lisanor is clear from simply looking at the earlier sources. These definitely show Llacheu to have been the son of Arthur and Guinevere. Examples include Lanzelet and Perlesvaus.
Another issue is the fact that Llacheu was said to have been a youth when he died, yet his death is placed right near the end of Arthur’s reign. In fact, the weight of evidence strongly indicates that he died at about the time of the Battle of Camlann.
For instance, Lanzelet heavily implies that Arthur and Loholt (that is, Llacheu) both went to the Otherworld together. Welsh tradition places Llacheu’s death at the Battle of Longborth, which is most plausibly understood as the immediate prelude to the Battle of Camlann.
If Llacheu died right near the end of Arthur’s reign, and yet he was a youth when this happened, then he cannot have been born near the beginning of Arthur’s reign. In fact, he cannot have been born long before the Battle of Badon, which was the last of the battles against the Saxons and occurred some twenty-one years before the Battle of Camlann, according to the Annales Cambriae.
Therefore, from the moment we see the stories about Loholt being born of Arthur and Lisanor early in his reign, it is obvious that this tradition cannot be accurate. Given the numerous examples of characters being mixed around (such as Arthur’s sister Anna being made the wife of Lot by Geoffrey of Monmouth, in contrast to Welsh tradition assigning this role to Arthur’s sister Gwyar), it may well be that this tradition was originally about a different son.
Borre’s True Identity
In view of the aforementioned evidence, we are confronted with the distinct possibility that Malory’s reference to the child born to Arthur and Lionors as being named Borre preserves an earlier tradition which was mistakenly applied to Loholt in the earlier surviving tales.
For both linguistic and chronological reasons, it is far more likely to identify Borre as a version of Gwydre. This was the conclusion of Roger Sherman Loomis, and it is also presented by Tyler R Tichelaar.
Gwydre appears as Arthur’s son in Culhwch and Olwen. This is a Welsh story written around the year 1100. It is one of the earliest prose stories about King Arthur. A major part of this tale is a hunt for a monstrous boar which is ravaging the southern half of Wales.
During the hunt for this boar, named Twrch Trwyth, Arthur’s son Gwydre dies in the fighting. This is all that is known about Gwydre. He does not appear in any further sources, Welsh or otherwise.
However, there is good reason for identifying Malory’s Borre as a late version of this early Arthurian character.
Borre’s Name and Gwydre’s Name
The most obvious connection is the fact that Borre’s name is far more similar to that of Gwydre than it is to Llacheu’s name. It bears no similarities whatsoever to ‘Llacheu’, nor to ‘Loholt’. However, there is a good argument to be made that it could be a form of ‘Gwydre’.
Loomis argued that Borre may be a corruption of ‘Gorre’, which he considered to be an evolution of ‘Gwri’. This was the name of a character who appears in the Mabinogi, a collection of medieval Welsh legends, whom Loomis viewed as the possible origin of Gwydre. However, it is equally plausible to make a case for deriving the name directly from Arthur’s son Gwydre.
The Change from the G into a B
Firstly, we should note that there are examples of the letter ‘B’ and the letter ‘G’ being mistaken for each other. For example, Lancelot’s father is named Ban of Benwick in many versions of the Arthurian legends. However, the Lanzelet spells his kingdom as ‘Genewis’, which is clearly a form of the same name but with a ‘G’ in the place of the ‘B’.
This might be attributable to a mere scribal error. However, another possibility is that it is due to the fact that a Welsh name beginning with ‘Gw’ was sometimes written without the ‘G’ in Latin records. We see this, for instance, in the case of ‘Withur’, a Latin form of the Welsh ‘Gwythyr’.
The letter ‘U’ was often used in the place of a ‘W’. Furthermore, this same letter was also frequently used in the place of a ‘V’, from which the Welsh ‘Gw’ came. Hence, we can imagine that Gwydre’s name may well have found itself written as something like ‘Uydre’ or ‘Uitre’ in some records. Notably, to the Welsh, the letter ‘V’ or ‘U’ was also sometimes used to represent a ‘B’ (seen, for example, in the Jesus College MS 20 for the name ‘Brychan’).
Therefore, this may have led to ‘Gwydre’ having his name being written with a ‘B’ at the beginning. Whether it was through these means, or through a simple scribal corruption due to the confusion between the letters ‘G’ and ‘B’ directly, there is precedent for these two letters being confused.
Other Forms of the Name ‘Gwydre’
Once we accept that the name ‘Gwydre’ could have been corrupted to have a ‘B’ at the beginning, it is easy to see how this could have evolved further into ‘Borre’. Essentially, this could have been achieve merely through the loss of the ‘d’, which would not be remarkable. There are plenty of examples of consonant clusters being reduced in the medieval records.
However, it is also worth considering the other forms which the name ‘Gwydre’ could take. It is an unusual name, but there is at least one other figure in medieval Welsh records who appears with this name. He was a prince of Powys in the tenth century. However, in other records, that same figure appears as ‘Gwrydr’, while in yet others, he appears as ‘Gwrhydyr’.
It is entirely possible that Arthur’s son Gwydre also had his name appear in forms similar to these. As it is, he only appears in a single record, so there is only one attested spelling for his name. Therefore, the evidence from the tenth-century Gwydre is very helpful.
Recall that ‘Borre’ is not the only form of this character’s name used by Malory. The other form is ‘Bohart’. Even aside from the issue of Gwydre, the fact that this character also appears as ‘Bohart’ strongly suggests that ‘Borre’ is a short version of this longer name.
From this form, we can clearly see the connection between this character’s name and ‘Gwrydr’ and ‘Gwrhydyr’. Aside from the difference between the first letter, which we have already examined, the only major difference is the fact that ‘Bohart’ seems to have lost the final syllable, the ‘yr’ sound.
Chronological Considerations
In addition to the linguistic argument, there is also the chronological context to consider. As we have seen, the evidence regarding Llacheu clearly shows that he cannot have been born early in Arthur’s life. He was likely born shortly before the Battle of Badon. This does not fit what Malory wrote about Borre.
On the other hand, the chronological evidence regarding Gwydre is an excellent fit for Borre. Although King Arthur’s son Gwydre only appears in a single Welsh text, it is a very insightful appearance.
The story of Culhwch and Olwen appears to be set just after the Battle of Badon. Osla Gyllellfawr appears as one of Arthur’s allies, and he seems to die during the boar hunt. Elsewhere in Welsh tradition, he appears as Arthur’s enemy at the Battle of Badon, which shows that Culhwch and Olwen must be set after that battle.
Yet, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae, the first full account of Arthur’s career, has Arthur going to Ireland for a battle almost immediately after the Battle of Badon, and then this is soon followed by twelve years of peace, after which Arthur is entirely preoccupied with events on the continent, followed immediately by the Battle of Camlann.
Thus, since Culhwch and Olwen involves a major devastation of part of Arthur’s kingdom, along with the king engaging on a military expedition to Ireland, it is evidently set in that period immediately following the Battle of Badon, as described by Geoffrey of Monmouth.
Consider the fact that Arthur’s son Gwydre was already an adult at this time, old enough to fight and die in battle, as he does in Culhwch and Olwen. This shows that he must have been born early in the reign of Arthur. Hence, he matches the information about Borre’s birth in Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur.
Therefore, all things considered, it is very likely that Borre is a late manifestation of the character of Gwydre, one of King Arthur’s sons in Welsh legend.
Was Borre Illegitimate?
In many modern sources, Borre is described as King Arthur’s ‘illegitimate son’. What is the basis for this idea, and does it really stand up to scrutiny?
As we saw earlier, Malory presents Borre as being conceived through the union of Arthur and Lionors when the latter came to pay homage to the king. He does not offer any detail as to how exactly this happened. It is true that he does not mention a marriage. However, he does not offer any detail at all about Borre’s birth, so it may simply be that Malory was not interested in this aspect of Arthur’s family.
Earlier versions – the ones which call the child ‘Loholt’, evidently inaccurately – give more detail as to how Arthur and Lionors (or Lisanor, as she is called in these earlier versions) conceived the child. The Story of Merlin, from the Vulgate Cycle, explains that Arthur had Merlin’s help in being alone with her, although how exactly Merlin achieved this for them is left unexplained.
In any case, Merlin somehow uses his magic to get the two youths alone together, and they lay together all night. After this, all that is said is that Arthur took leave of the young lady when it got to be mid-Lent.
However, this does not necessarily mean that Arthur and Lisanor never saw each other again. Nor does it mean that Arthur simply abandoned her. In fact, The Story of Merlin tells us at this point that Arthur travelled with forty knights to the kingdom of Carmelide. He was going there for a specific purpose, rather than simply returning to his home.
Thus, when it says that Arthur left the young woman at mid-Lent, there is no reason to assume that this means that he ceased having anything to do with her.
Illegitimacy in Arthurian Britain
Interestingly, what occurred between Arthur and Lisanor is quite similar to what occurred between Uther and Igerna, the parents of Arthur. Uther got Merlin to use his magic to enable him to sneak into Igerna’s bedchamber, disguised as her husband Gorlois. Their intercourse that night resulted in the conception of Arthur.
Yet despite this, Arthur is never portrayed as illegitimate, nor does this result in any issues for him as the rightful successor of Uther (aside from some late versions of the Arthurian legend from Scotland which are biased towards favouring Mordred as a more legitimate heir).
On the other hand, Rhun the son of Maelgwn Gwynedd, a younger contemporary of Arthur, appears to have had his legitimacy questioned on the basis of being conceived through the union of Maelgwn and Gwallwen. This was because Gwallwen was merely Maelgwn’s lover rather than having any official relationship with him.
Perhaps, at least among some, the question of legitimacy was not determined by whether the child was conceived out of wedlock, but by whether they were born out of wedlock. This would account for the seeming discrepancy between Arthur’s apparent legitimacy and Rhun’s apparent illegitimacy.
Therefore, the question of whether King Arthur’s son Borre was illegitimate or not likely depends on whether Arthur and Lisanor ever entered into an official union or not.
King Arthur’s Concubines
Something which is worth bearing in mind is that a collection of Welsh legendary material known as the Welsh Triads tells us that Arthur did not just have wives (at least three over the course of his reign). He also had concubines.
The pertinent word often appears as ‘mistresses’ in online versions of the Welsh Triads, but Rachel Bromwich’s authoritative edition of the Welsh Triads translates the word as ‘concubines’. This does not refer to a mere lover, but someone in an official union with the king, viewed as a type of secondary wife.
Therefore, it is entirely possible that Lisanor, or Lionors, became one of these concubines. Evidence that this may have been the intent of the writers is the fact that Arthur stayed with Lisanor for some time, not just for a single night. As we saw, it was only at ‘mid-Lent’ when Arthur left her. The fact that he stayed with her for some time suggests that the two youths may have entered into some kind of official relationship, such as her being made an actual concubine.
Whether Malory intended this or not is difficult to say. While he does not mention any such arrangement, he simply storms right through this aspect of Arthur’s life, giving no information either way.
Gwrhytir, the Original Borre
Regardless of what Malory or the earlier writers may have intended, what can we say about Borre’s legitimacy from the point of view of him as a historical figure? After all, as we have seen, he can very likely be identified with King Arthur’s son Gwydre from earlier Welsh legend. This means, despite Borre only appearing very late with that name, he is actually attested much earlier in Arthurian lore.
With this being the case, there is a good chance that he was a historical figure. As it happens, he may well be identifiable as a historical figure who appears in the twelfth-century Book of Llandaff, a record of land grants going back to the Arthurian period.
One of the kings mentioned in this record is a figure known as Athrwys son of Meurig. He also appears in many genealogical records concerning the dynasty that ruled over this area in Arthur’s time. Due to the time and place in which he lived, as well as the similarity of his name with that of Arthur’s (sometimes spelt ‘Arturis’, ‘Arthurus’, or other variations), many researchers have argued that he was the historical King Arthur.
With that possibility in mind, it may well be significant that in a land grant attributed to Athrwys’ son Morgan, there is a reference to an heir named Gwrhytir. This is another spelling of the name ‘Gurhydyr’, which as we saw earlier, appears to be another form of ‘Gwydre’.
Gwrhytir appears to have been dead when this land grant was made, since it is given by Morgan ‘for his soul’. It is also unclear whether he was Morgan’s heir or Athrwys’ heir. However, if this figure can be identified as Gwydre the son of King Arthur, then this would confirm that Gwydre was considered to be the heir of Arthur and was thus not viewed as illegitimate.
With Borre being a later manifestation of this same character, this would likewise mean that the original, historical Borre was not illegitimate.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Sir Borre appears in Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, where is he presented as the son of King Arthur. He can be identified as Bohart le Cure Hardy, or ‘the Strong Heart’. His mother was Lionors, earlier spelt ‘Lisanor’. Although he is often considered to be Malory’s version of Loholt (the earlier Welsh Llacheu), it is far more plausible that he is an evolution of the character Gwydre, the son of King Arthur from Welsh legend.
Sources
Bartrum, Peter, A Welsh Classical Dictionary, 1993
Sims-Williams, Patrick, The Book of Llandaf as a Historical Source, 2019
Bromwich, Rachel, Trioedd Ynys Prydein: The Triads of the Isle of Britain – Fourth Edition, 2014
Howells, Caleb, King Arthur: The Man Who Conquered Europe, 2019
Wilson, Alan and Blackett, Baram, Arthur: King of Glamorgan and Gwent, 1981
Tichelaar, Tyler R, King Arthur's Children: A Study in Fiction and Tradition, 2010
Lacy, Norris J, Lancelot-Grail: The Story of Merlin, 2010