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But when it was discovered that Arthur was still alive and on his way home he was still successful at persuading most of the English to take his side against Arthur, by promising them more peace and joy.
As Arthur and Mordred (each flanked by an honour guard of fourteen) met to bargain on the field between their hosts, an adder bit a knight on the foot, and as he drew his sword to kill it the worst was assumed and soon the Battle of Salisbury (Arthur's eleventh and last) had accidentally started.
By evening the field was strewn with a hundred thousand dead and very few living other than Arthur, the badly injured brothers Lucan and Bedivere, and Mordred, but at last Arthur had his recreant son in his sights, and taking his spear from Lucan he went to kill him.
By now looters had appeared on the darkening battlefield, but when the two brothers tried to move the dying Arthur to safety Lucan's guts fell out and he died.
Realising that his own end was near, Arthur commanded Bedivere to throw Excalibur into a nearby lake, but out of regard for the unique value of the sword, twice Bedivere hid it and lied, but could only say that he had seen it sink and so Arthur was not fooled. Driven by Arthur's curses at last Bedivere did as he was told and thus could report back how he had seen a hand rise from the water, catch it, shake it thrice, brandish it, then pull it down.
Then he carried Arthur to that same water side, where he was brought aboard a mysterious barge. On it were three queens, Queen Morgan le Fay, the Queen of Northgalis and the Queen of the Wastelands, and also many damosels including Nimue, and all in black hoods.
In spite of their ancient, bitter rivalry, Morgan rested Arthur's head in her lap and said
As the shrieking women bore him away across the waters, Arthur told Bedivere that he was being taken to the Vale of Avelion to be healed, and bid him farewell.
Just in case it was, Bedivere moved in with him to fast and pray over it.
Next he dropped in at Glastonbury (another thirty miles) where he heard the full story off Bedivere and he became a monk himself, joined within the year by Bors and seven of his knights who had got bored at Dover and come looking for him. (But not Lionel, who had died in a skirmish in London on the search, or Ector who was still looking for his brother elsewhere.)
Six years after that he had a vision and he and the rest of the ageing knights rode feebly for two days to Almesbury to collect Guenever's corpse (she died half an hour before they arrived), which they brought back to Glastonbury and buried next to the suspected Arthur. Then Launcelot pined away from grief and guilt and was dead six weeks later, so they took his body to Joyous Gard for burial where his brother Ector turned up just in time after having wandered Britain for seven years looking for him.
Sir Constantine, son of Sir Cador of Cornwall, was made the new king of England, and ruled well. He sent the old hermit back to Canterbury to be Bishop again, and Bedivere went with him and stayed a hermit.
King Constantine also asked Ector, Bors and the other French knights to stay with him, but they returned to their lands in France and became monks, except for Ector, Bors, Blamore and Bloeberis, who headed East to fight the Turks in the Holy Land,
But Malory does report that "... some men say in many parts of England that King Arthur is not dead, but... that he shall come again, and he shall win the holy cross." And that over his tomb are written the words
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