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Morgause ( ) is a popular name of a legendary queen and member of King Arthur's family in the Matter of Britain literature, where she is always a queen and usually King Arthur's sibling. However, her name varies between texts and traditions, including Anna, Gwyar, or simply as the Queen of Orkney, as does the issue of her children, other than commonly Gawain. In most cases, she is the wife or widow of King Lot, ruling over a northern realm such as Orkney, Lothian, Scotland, or Norway. She often has sisters, notably Morgan, with whom she is being sometimes conflated into a single character by modern authors.
In medieval chronicles and Arthurian romances based on or inspired by Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, as well as in the Wales tradition, she is typically depicted as the daughter of Igraine, either the daughter or step-daughter of Uther Pendragon, and the full sister or half-sister of Arthur. Occasionally, she may be Uther's sister and Arthur's aunt. Her other children often, but not always, include Mordred.
In a later tradition, originally popularised by French prose cycles, Mordred is the offspring of Arthur's own accidental incest with his estranged half-sister, whom Thomas Malory's seminal Le Morte d'Arthur calls Morgause, queen of Orkney. There, her biological father is Gorlois, her full sisters are Morgan and Elaine, her other lover is Lamorak, and her sons include Agravain, Gareth, and Gaheris, the last of whom murders her.
In Layamon's Brut, a Middle English chronicle based on Geoffrey's Historia, Anna and Lot, king and queen of Scotland, have five unnamed daughters as well as two sons, Gawain and Mordred. Wace's Norman language chronicle Roman de Brut, also based on Geoffrey, names Anna as Gawain's mother and queen of the Scots (even though Lot is not truly a king there, being a regent without any actual governing power due to his disability). However, Wace does not mention her relation to Mordred, uniquely describing him as a brother of Arthur's wife, Guinevere (this strange connection has been variably interpreted, including but not limited to both of them being children of Anna and Lot).
Thomas Grey's Anglo-Norman chronicle Scalacronica mentions Arthur's eldest sister as bestowed by him on Lot. In Alain Bouchart's Breton language Grande Croniques de Bretagne, "Anna or Emine" is Uther's eldest child, who later marries Budic and gives birth to Hoel, while the wife of Lot is Arthur's other, younger sister, whom the author does not name.
In John of Fordun's Scottish chronicle Chronica Gentis Scotorum, Arthur was the bastard son of Uther, making his legitimate daughter Anna and her son by Lot, Mordred, the rightful heirs to the throne. This motif also appears in later Scottish narratives, including Hector Boece's Historia Gentis Scotorum, where Lot is king of the Picts with Anna (later called Cristina) as his queen. Boece, and his translators, too depict her as Uther's rightful heir but turn her into his sister (Arthur's aunt).
Gwyar is indeed used as a female name in some Welsh texts, such as one version of the Hagiography genealogy Bonedd y Saint. It identifies her as the wife of Geraint ab Erbin. Here, she is a daughter of Uther's father Amlawdd Wledig and thus Arthur's aunt.
The fragment known as The Birth of Arthur substitutes Gwyar for Geoffrey's Anna and names her as Gwalchmei's mother.. It also names Budic II ( Ymer Llydaw) of Armorica as her first husband, and their son as Hywel the Great ( Hoel Mawr). Following Budic's death, Gwyar marries Lot ( Lleu ap Cynfarch, Lieu ap Cynvarch), with whom she has three daughters (Gracia, Graeria, Dioneta) and two sons, Gawain ( Gwalchmei) and Mordred ( Medrawd). Here, Gwyar also is only one of Arthur's half-sisters, being a daughter of Igraine ( Eigyr) and Gorlois ( Gwrleis). Furthermore, Gwyar has a sister also named Dioneta, who is sent off for education to the Isle of Avalon ( Avallach), leading to the elder Dioneta's identification with Morgan.
Some Welsh adaptations of Geoffrey's Historia, such as the Brut Tysilio, explicitly identify Gwyar with Anna, even using both names interchangeably for the wife of Lot. Other sources do not follow this substitution, however, indicating that Gwyar and Anna may have originated independently..
In the Old French works of Chrétien de Troyes and his direct continuators, she, Arthur, and Morgan all are biological children of Uther Pendragon and his widow Igraine ( Ygerne). She seems to have at least one more sister besides Morgan. Through her late husband Lot, she is the mother of four of Arthur's Knights of the Round Table: Gawain, Agravain, and the early versions of the characters that would later become best known as Gaheris and Gareth ( Guerrehes and Gaheriet). Mordred, however, does not appear in these texts at all.
In addition to the sons, Clarissant ( Clarissans, the wife of Guiormelant and mother of Aguigenor) and Soredamor are named as her daughters, along with her unnamed third daughter. Chrétien's own and unfinished Perceval, the Story of the Grail, where she is unnamed, features Gawain's family's women living captive in the magical Castle of Wonders ( Château Merveil) until he liberates them. One of her daughters, Soredamor ( Soredamors), is notably the mother of Arthur's knight Cligès, the eponymous hero of Chrétien's earlier work, Cligès.
In Wolfram von Eschenbach's Chrétien-inspired Middle High German romance Parzival, Sangive ( Sangîve), the daughter of Igraine ( Arnive, Arnîve) and Uther Pendragon ( Uterpendragûn), is wed by Arthur to Florant of Itolac, also known as the Turkoite ( Turkoyt; probably meaning a Turkish origin) following her prior marriage to King Lot of Norway. Through Lot, she has three daughters: Cundrie ( Cundrîe; not to be confused with Cundrîe the Sorceress, an entirely different Parzival character by the same name), Itonje ( Itonjê), and Soredamor, and two sons: Gawain ( Gâwân) and Beacurs ( Bêâcurs, Bêâkurs), the new king of Norway. In the story, having been (similarly as in Chrétien's account) freed from the magical Castle of Wonders by Gawain, Itonje marries Gramoflanz and the other daughter is given to Duke Lischois at the same time as when Sangive marries Florant.
Using a modified versions of Wolfram's story and characters in his Meleranz, German poet Der Pleier has Seife ( Seifê; also Saive, Seive) as the wife of King Lot ( Lôt) and the mother of Gawain ( Gâwan, Gawein), Beatus ( Bêâtus, Beacuß), Itoni ( Itonî), and Gundri ( Gundrî). However, he also names one of Arthur's other sisters, Anthonie ( Anthonjê, Antonie), as the mother of Gaharet ( Gahariet; Wolfram's Gaherjet / Gaherjêt the cousin of Gawain, a figure corresponding with Lot's sons Gaheris and Gareth in other romances) by the king of Greenland ( Gritenland, Grîtenland, Grunland). Arthur's third sister is Olimpia ( Olimpîâ), the wife of the king of the Franks.
The earliest known form of a Morgause-style name is Morcades ( Norcadés), given to her by the anonymous author of the First Continuation of Chrétien's Perceval. She appears as Morcades ( Morcadés, Morchades, Orchades) in Les Enfances Gauvain (where her castle is called Bel Repaire), and in Heinrich von dem Türlin's German Diu Crône (where she is humiliated by Keii in the cup test episode).
It is likely that this was originally a place name, as 'Orcades' coincides with the Latin name for Scotland's northern Orkney islands, the lands often described as being ruled by Gawain's parents. Medievalist Roger Sherman Loomis suggested that this toponym was corrupted first into the variants of Morcades (including Morgades) and finally into Morgause due to the influence of the name Morgan,R. S. Loomis, Scotland and the Arthurian Legend. Retrieved 26 January 2010. and that her character was derived from the goddess Deichtine.
This motif originated from the fragmentary poem Merlin attributed to Robert de Boron (and its more complete prose rendering). There, out of Arthur's three half-sisters by the Duke, only Morgan ("the Fay") was named but the one wed to Lot was noted as the eldest among them. Lot's unnamed wife gives birth to four sons, apparently all fathered by him: Gawain, Mordred, and Gareth and Gaheris ( Gareés, Gaheriez).
In the Vulgate Cycle, Arthur's family becomes more complicated since Igraine apparently has not one but two prior husbands before marrying Uther, and as many as five daughters with them. One daughter, Brimesent ( Brinesent, Hermesan, Hermesent) is married to King Urien and becomes the mother of Yvain (and, through her lover Bagdemagus, possibly also of either Yvain the Bastard or Maleagant, if the author did not mean just Yvain). Another one, Blasine, marries King Nentres of Garlot and becomes the mother of Galeschin. One unnamed daughter marries King Caradoc and dies shortly after giving birth to the later king of Scotland, Aguisant (one of many name variants). The fourth, Morgan, does not seem to marry. Finally, the unnamed eldest daughter marries Lot and has five sons: Gawain, his three full brothers that now again include Agravain, and Mordred fathered by Arthur. She is captured by a Saxon king and rescued by the young Gawain. Her name is rendered Belisent in the Middle English verse adaptation Of Arthour and of Merlin in an apparent confusion with the wife of Urien from the French texts.
In the succeeding rewrite known as the Post-Vulgate Cycle, as well as the related Prose Tristan, the mother of Gawain and his four brothers remains a daughter of Gorlois and the wife of Lot (later widowed). Here, she is usually referred to only as "King Lot's wife" or the "Queen of Orkney" ( Orcanie); an exception is the Italian Tristan compilation La Tavola Ritonda, which calls her Albagia d'Organia (i.e. of Orkney). Arthur's family is streamlined as his half-sisters are once again limited to three, and then soon to only two: the Queen of Orkney and Morgan (the latter, following a brief split into Morgain and Morgue, is fused back into a single character of Urien's wife and Yvain's mother).
The conception of Mordred in the Vulgate Merlin ( Estoire de Merlin) takes place when a teenaged Arthur, unaware of his royal heritage, is serving as a squire to his foster brother Kay. During a meeting of the lords of Britain, when King Lot is out hunting, Arthur sneaks into the queen's chamber and pretends to be her husband; she eventually discovers the deception but forgives him the next morning and agrees to keep the incident a secret between the two of them.
A corresponding scene in the Post-Vulgate Merlin Continuation ( Suite du Merlin) has it happen when the Queen of Orkney, along with a vast entourage including her four sons, visit Arthur shortly after his coronation at his court at , where he falls in love with her and quickly fathers Mordred before she returns to her country the very next day. The incest in this version is still not deliberate, or at very least not on Arthur's side.
In the Post-Vulgate Cycle, her husband Lot is slain in battle during his rebellion following the presumed death of the baby Mordred, whom Lot believed to be his son, by Arthur's loyalist King Pellinore. She later has an affair with Pellinore's son Lamorak, leading Gaheris to honor killing his mother when he discovers in bed with Lamorak. Gaheris defends his act as a just punishment for Morgause's "wretched debauchery," but he is Exile from Arthur's court. Gawain and Agravain initially vow to kill Gaheris to avenge their mother's death, but are persuaded not to by Gareth and Bors. Arthur buries her in the main church at Camelot, and inscribes the name of Gaheris on her tomb. Everyone at court grieves her death and condemns the "treacherous and cruel" act, including Gaheris himself in exile.
Her husband King Lot joins the failed rebellions against the newly crowned Arthur that follow in the wake of High King Uther's death and the subsequent discovery and coronation of his heir. Acting as a spy during the war, and under a false pretext of being an envoy, Morgause or Orkney comes to Arthur's court at Carleon. There, she visits the "beardless boy" Arthur (albeit not a virgin, previously just having an affair with Lady Lyonors, which resulted in Arthur's another illegitimate son), ignorant of their familial relationship, in his bedchamber, and they conceive Mordred. Malory takes care to not that Morgause did consent to the act, contrasting with the earlier rape of Igraine by Uther. As in Malory's source, the Suite du Merlin, her motives there are uncertain. Her husband, who has unsuspectingly raised Mordred as his own son, is later slain in battle by King Pellinore. All of her sons depart their father's court to take service at Camelot, where Gawain and Gaheris avenge the death of Lot by killing Pellinore, thereby launching a long blood feud between the two families that contributes to bringing the ruin to Arthur's kingdom.
Nevertheless, Queen Morgause has an affair with Sir Lamorak, a son of her sons' mortal enemy Pellinore and one of Arthur's best knights. Lamorak's love for her is "true", matching that of Lancelot and Guinevere or of Tristan and Isolde. Once, Lancelot finds Lamorak and Meleagant fighting over which queen is more beautiful, Morgause or Guinevere, and promptly challenges Lamorak. Eventually, her son Gaheris discovers her and Lamorak in flagrante together in bed while visiting her castle (the Post-Vulgate's castle Rethename in Arthur's own Logres but very close to Orkney). Enraged, he grabs Morgause by her hair and swiftly beheads her, but spares her unarmed lover (who is left naked in bed covered in her blood and is killed later by four Orkney brothers in an unequal fight). In Malory's telling, however, Lancelot calls the slaying of Morgause "shameful", and calls on Arthur to declare it a crime of treason, but Gawain seems to be angry at Gaheris only for leaving Lamorak alive at the spot. Her death was probably first included in the Post-Vulgate Queste. Malory's account, contained in his Book of Sir Tristram, appears to be based on an unidentified variant of the Prose Tristan. Within the narrative, the episode seems to take place soon after Gareth's knighting, albeit Charles W. Moorman III postulated that the Gareth episode chronologically belongs to the first part of Le Morte.
She is, however, often turned into a composite character as merged with that of Arthur's sorceress sister, the similarly named Morgan, leaving the authors to decide how to handle the issues such as magic and incest. In John Boorman's 1981 film Excalibur, for instance, Morgause's role as the mother of Mordred is transferred to the character of the villainess Morgana (Helen Mirren), further also conflated with the Malorian character of the chief Lady of the Lake, Nynyve (Nimue). Morgana is depicted as Arthur's only sister and Merlin's student seeking revenge for the rape of her mother; she also has an incestous relationship with hers and Arthur's son, Mordred, who eventually murders her (thus assuming the role of Gaheris), following her defeat by Merlin. Another such example is the 2021 film The Green Knight, not featuring Mordred but having a magical character identified as Morgan le Fay (Sarita Choudhury) as Gawain's mother.
Other modern authors may keep the two as separate characters but have Morgause inherit or share Morgan's own traits, sometimes even making Morgause a villainess opposed to Morgan. Nevertheless, as noted by E. R. Huber, "what becomes clear on reading Le Morte d'Arthur and its medieval predecessors is that Morgause was not a villain until the modern period."
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