KING ARTHUR's REMAINS. 139 



Glastonbiuy, and Henry in particular from his noble birth 

 and lordly position, were not likely to be made the tools 

 of any monarch. Henry de Blois at this very time was 

 Abbot of Glastonbury, Bishop of Winchester, and held the 

 office of the Pope's Legate throughout England. He was 

 drawing so near to the close of his earthly pilgrimage, and 

 was in the enjoyment of so many great and distinguished 

 honours, that no motive can be conceived sufficient to 

 induce him to take part in or connive at so great and 

 palpable a fraud. 



I admit the dlfficulty arising from the gigantie and 

 superhuman proportions of the bones which were exhibited 

 by the monks as the remains of King Arthur. Thus 

 Giraldus himself, in speaking of the bones he saw ex- 

 hibited, says : " His leg hone being placed along side the 

 leg of a very tall man reached three fingers' breadth above 

 the knee, as the Abbot shewed us. His skull was also 

 very large and thick, being a hand's breadth wide between 

 the eyes and the eye-brows." The proportions even of the 

 bones exhibited are no doubt greatly exaggerated in this 

 account, and it does not at all follow after all that they 

 were the bones found in the sarcophagus. The lapse of 

 tirae which had passed from the interment to the dis- 

 covery would imply the almost complete decomposition of 

 the bones, and there is no improbability in the surmise 

 that the bones afterwards exhibited Avere not the bones 

 found, but some others selectcd purposely, because of their 

 size, to increase the wonder and enhance the value of the 

 relics. Our rejection of the purely legendary and impos- 

 sible does not involve our rejection of the record, and our 

 acceptance of the leading features of the event does not 

 commit us to the exaggerations of that wonder-loving agc. 



There are difficulties also arising from the inscription on 



