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In the realms of historical detective work, one area that seems to require no further publications is the search for King Arthur. Even for those who have read enough to be able to distinguish between the mass of medievals myth and propaganda and the slim collection of realistic Dark Age references, probably feel that they have heard all of the arguments. I thought the same. Well if the above passage sums up your feelings on the matter, then Holy KIngdom is for you.

By throwing away the popular threads and ideas that hinder a search for Arthur, the medieval romances, Lancelot and Camelot, Morganna and the Holy Grail, the authors have re-assembled the basic pieces into a convincing, and ultimately, possible version of events. Once that is thrown away, all the Hollywood frippery that has crept into the subconsious, they were able to start the search again, unbiased by later invention.

Using previously untapped medieval Welsh texts, The Llandaff Charters, the authors have traced historical people and places that form one layer of the Arthur story. The first figure that provides part of the story is a sixth century king of Glamorgan. Following their detective work back they reveal an earlier Arthur, a Romano-British king of Warwickshire who also contributed to the story. The exploits of these two local heroes was later rolled into one to form the basis of a larger than life Arthur who grew in deed and prowess as the centuries moved forward.

The threads of their search and the arguments put forward, seem to hold water and the conclusions drawn are very plausible indeed. Arthur is such an elusive character who has grown so much after the event, that it makes perfect senes that he is an amalgam of more than one person from more than one time. The quest undertaken in the book contains a lot of information, but is presented in a way that it is fairly easy to keep up with. The sources are fairly available for those that want to do their own research, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is easily obtained and the Llandaff Charters are available on the authors own web site.

Through a range of disciplines, Linguistics, Geography, History and Archaeology, the authors dispel widely held connections to the Arthur story, such as Glastonbury and Cadbury and replace them with more plausable threads. Could Camelot have been the remains of the Roman fort of Isca, was the round table a geological feature, are the various places associated with the Arthur story more likely to be natural meeting places , than man made. I`ll let you draw your own conclusions but a lot of what is presented here follows more logical arguments than a lot of the current theories that have become almost taken as fact by the world at large.

Between the two kings that they identify as being the basis of the once and future king, lie most of the basic facts that have constituted the myth as we see it today. Forget Lancelot, Guineviere, grails and round tables, although you can keep Excaliber, holy lakes and hill forts, provided you lose all that Hollywood spin.

For anyone wishing to get down to the grass roots of this elusive Dark Age king, then this book will help a believable and historically fitting leader (or leaders) to emerge from between the medieval court romances and the modern propaganda.

Learn more about this author, Dave Franklin.
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