William the Breton, in his
poem on Philip Augustus, completed about 1216, relates in detail, but
without date, how John took Arthur out alone with him by night in a
boat on the Seine, plunged a sword into his body, rowed along for
three miles with the corpse, and then threw it overboard. Neither of
these writers gives any authority for his story. The earliest
authority of precisely ascertained date to which we can trace the
assertion that Arthur was murdered was a document put forth by a
personage whose word, on any subject whatever, is as worthless as the
word of John himself--King Philip Augustus of France. In 1216--about
the time when his Breton historiographer's poem was completed--Philip
affected to regard it as a notorious fact that John had, either in
person or by another's hand, murdered his nephew. But Philip at the
same time went on to assert that John had been summoned to trial
before the supreme court of France, and by it condemned to forfeiture
of all his dominions, on that same charge of murder; and this latter
assertion is almost certainly false. Seven months after the date
assigned by the Margan annalist to Arthur's death--in October,
1203--Philip owned himself ignorant whether the Duke of Brittany were
alive or not.
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