Everything about Mark Of Cornwall totally explained
Mark of Cornwall (
Latin Marcus,
Cornish Margh,
Welsh March,
Breton Marc'h) was a king of
Kernow (
Cornwall) in the early
6th century. He is most famous for his appearance in
Arthurian legend as the uncle of
Tristan and husband of
Iseult, who engage in a secret affair behind his back.
The legend
Mark sent Tristan as his proxy to fetch his young bride, the Princess Iseult from
Ireland.
Tristan and Iseult fall in love, and, with the help of a magic potion, proceed to have one of the stormiest love affairs in medieval literature. Mark suspects of the affair and eventually, his suspicions are confirmed. In some versions, he sends for Tristan to be hanged, and Iseult to a
leper colony. Tristan escapes the hanging and rescues Mark's bride from her confinement, later to be discovered by Mark. Mark eventually forgives them, with Isolde returning to Mark and Tristan leaving the country.
In the
Prose Tristan, Mark's character deteriorates from a sympathetic
cuckold to a downright villain. He rapes his niece and then murders her when she produces his son, Meraugis, and he murders his brother Baldwin as well. In earlier versions of the story Tristan dies in
Brittany, far away from Mark, but in the
Prose Tristan Mark stabs Tristan while he plays the harp under a tree for Iseult. Though this version of Mark's character was popular in other medieval works, including the
Romance of Palamedes and Sir
Thomas Malory's
Le Morte d'Arthur, modern versions of the Tristan and Iseult legend tend to take their inspiration from the older poetic material, and Mark becomes a
sympathetic character once again. In these legends Mark is usually seen as ruling Cornwall from
Tintagel Castle.
The Drustanus Stone
In
Wrmonoc of Landévennec's
Life of St. Pol de Leon, he refers to a "King Marc whose other name is Quonomorus". An inscription on a 6th century gravestone near the Cornish town of
Fowey memorializes (in
Latin) a certain "Drustanus son of Cunomorus" and it has been conjectured that this is the
Tristan son of Mark (alias Quonomorus) of legend. However, in most versions of the story, Mark is Tristan's uncle. His sister is Tristan's mother,
Blancheflor alias Elizabeth/Isabelle, or, in some later versions, he's related to Tristan's father,
Meliadus. Some identify King Mark with King Cynfawr (the
Welsh form of
Cunomorus) of
Dumnonia. However, it's also thought that Wrmonoc may have made a mistake with his recorded alias. In
Old Welsh records, Mark is recorded as
March ap Meirchion and is variously associated with North
Wales, South Wales or South-West
Scotland. The stone led to Mark's association with
Castle Dore but modern archaeology can find no trace of a settlement there in the post Roman period.
In various media
Mark (called "Marke") is a character in
Wagner's 1859 opera Tristan und Isolde, a role to be played by a
bass.
In the 1970s TV show
Arthur of the Britons, Mark was played by
Brian Blessed, and in the 2006 film
Tristan & Isolde, he was played by
Rufus Sewell.
Further Information
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