Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel

Since George Lyman Kittredge, a professor at Harvard, published the first significant investigation into Malory's identity in 1894, the primary candidate for authorship has been Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel in Warwickshire.^[7][8] Kittredge discovered a record of this Malory's service under Richard de Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick in William Dugdale's Antiquities of Warwickshire (1656), stating of Sir Thomas:

In K. H.5 time, was of the retinue to Ric. Beauchamp, E. Warw. At the seige of Caleys, and served there with one lance and two archers, receiving for his lance and 1 archer xx. Li per an. And their dyet; and for the other archer, x marks and no dyet.

In modern English:

In King Henry V's time, [Malory] was of the retinue to Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick at the siege of Calais, and served there with one lance and two archers, receiving for his lance and first archer 20 pounds per year and their diet; and for the other archer, 10 marks and no diet.

Dugdale's history also revealed that this Malory had served as a Member of Parliament, and recorded the date of his death, the location of his tomb, and many other details of his life and family. As Dugdale lived in Warwickshire and apparently had access to Malory's home and direct descendants during a time when Le Morte remained very popular and was still being printed, scholars have noted that any mention of his authoring Le Morte is conspicuously absent in Dugdale's record. To date, however, this candidate for authorship remains the only Thomas Malory known to be living at the time of writing who was clearly recorded as having been a knight.

Kittredge accepted the details of Dugdale's history at face value: specifically, that he was commissioned to serve at Calais under Henry V; a campaign which took place in 1414–15. Under this view, Malory would have been a junior officer in Henry V's famous Battle of Agincourt – a member of what William Shakespeare cemented in popular memory as the Band of Brothers in the famous St. Crispin's Day Speech. However, subsequent scholars^[9] have questioned this interpretation, suggesting that Dugdale's record was erroneous and that Malory instead served under Henry VI, at an action in Calais in 1436 – a brief mobilization which was disbanded without combat and which Dugdale, in their view, erroneously called a siege. P.J.C. Field suggests that the first public record of this Malory in 1439 is an indication of when he reached the date of his majority (at the age of 21).^[10]

Scholars consider the question of this timeline to be important in determining authorship, as the original timeline would place Malory's birth in the early to mid 1390s. He would therefore have been at least 75 when Le Morte was completed, as he must have been at least in his late teens or early 20s at the time of his commission: his peers of the same rank in Dugdale's record were in their mid- to late-twenties. According to the alternate timeline, his birth would have been around 1415-1418 and his age would have been a much more reasonable 55 to 58 years when Le Morte was completed.

William Matthews emphasizes the importance of Malory's age thus: "There is considerable evidence that the medieval view was that by sixty a man was bean fodder and forage, ready for nothing but death's pit... it might be best to find out how old the Warwickshire knight really was in 1469."^[11] Researching the question, Matthews made an original discovery: Sir William Dugdale's surviving 15th century notes and papers in the Bodleian Library on the Agincourt campaign contain a lengthy military roster (apparently in Dugdale's own hand) with the following detail:

Thomas Mallory est retenuz a j lance et ij archers pr sa launce ouve j archer xx li par an et bouche de court et pour lautre archer x marcs saunz bouche de court.

Because this original French note perfectly matches the English translation in Dugdale's published work, and because a number of the other knights listed on the same commission roster are known to have died long before 1436, Matthews concludes that these commissions cannot refer to the 1436 campaign; and therefore Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel must have been commissioned into Henry V's Agincourt campaign around 1414 or 1415, confirming Kittredge's original timeline and making this Malory in his mid-70s to early 80s at the time the book was completed. Matthews asserts, "seventy-five is no age at all to be writing Le Morte Darthur in prison."

Linton comes to Dugdale's defense, disputing the need for an alternative timeline. She notes that scholars have accepted Dugdale's account of this Malory without question, except for the matter of his age. She agrees with other scholars that Dugdale knew the Malorys of Newbold Revel and suggests that he would have certainly made the connection between this Malory and Le Morte if there were any connection to be made.^[12]

Much more detail was added to Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel's biography by Edward Hicks in 1928, revealing that this Thomas Malory had been imprisoned as a thief, bandit, kidnapper, attempted murderer, and rapist; which hardly seemed in keeping with the high chivalric standards of his book.^[13] Helen Cooper referred to his life as one that "reads more like an account of exemplary thuggery than chivalry". Shortly before his death, C.S. Lewis stated that this issue was a grave one for readers of Le Morte D'arthur.^[5]

E.K. Chambers emphasizes the importance of the problem by quoting the author himself:

"What?" seyde Sir Launcelot, "is he a theff and a knyht? and a ravyssher of women? He doth shame unto the Order of Knyghthode, and contrary unto his oth. Hit is pyte that he lyveth."

In Modern English:

"What?" said Sir Lancelot, "is he a thief and a knight, and a rapist of women? He does shame to the Order of Knighthood, contrary to his oath. It is a pity that he lives."

Chambers comments, "Surely the Sir Thomas of Monks Kirby [the parish in which Malory of Newbold Revel lived] could not have written this without a twinge."^[14]

Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel was born to Sir John Malory of Winwick, Northamptonshire, who had served as a Justice of the Peace in Warwickshire and as a Member of Parliament, and Lady Phillipa Malory, heiress of Newbold. He was knighted before 8 October 1441, became a professional soldier, and served under Henry de Beauchamp, 1st Duke of Warwick. While it is not recorded how he became distinguished, he acted as an elector in Northamptonshire. However, in 1443 he and accomplice Eustace Barnaby were accused of attacking, kidnapping, and stealing 40 pounds' worth of goods from Thomas Smythe, though nothing came of this charge. He married a woman named Elizabeth Walsh,^[15] with whom he had at least one son, named Robert,^[3] and possibly one or two other children.^[16] Despite the criminal charges against him, he seems to have remained in good standing with his peers^[3] because in that same year, Malory was elected by the men of Warwickshire to Parliament to serve as a knight of the shire for the rest of 1443, and was appointed to a royal commission charged with the distribution of money to impoverished towns in Warwickshire. In 1449–50, he was returned as member of Parliament for Great Bedwyn, a seat controlled by the Duke of Buckingham.^[17]

Malory's status changed abruptly in 1451 when he was accused of ambushing Humphrey Stafford, 1st Duke of Buckingham, a prominent Lancastrian in the Wars of the Roses, along with 26 other men sometime in 1450. The accusation was never proved. Later in 1451, he was accused of extorting 100 shillings from Margaret King and William Hales of Monks Kirby, and then of committing the same crime against John Mylner for 20 shillings.^[3] He was also accused of breaking into the house of Hugh Smyth of Monks Kirby in 1450, stealing 40 pounds' worth of goods and raping Smyth's wife, and with attacking her again in Coventry eight weeks later. At this period, a charge of rape could also apply to some acts of consensual sex and some nonsexual crimes; several scholars have suggested that the accusation did not refer to rape as it is now defined. However, Field's analysis of the specific Latin terminology of the charges concludes that they were intended to refer to actual rapes.^[18]

On 15 March 1451, Malory and 19 others were ordered to be arrested. Nothing came of this and, in the following months, Malory and his cohorts were charged with a series of crimes, especially violent robberies. At one point, he was arrested and imprisoned in Maxstoke Castle, but he escaped, swam the moat, and returned to Newbold Revel.^[3] Nellie Slayton Aurner points out that most of these crimes seem to have been targeted at the property and followers of the Duke of Buckingham; and that as Malory was a supporter of the family of Buckingham's former rival, the Duke of Warwick, there may have been a political motive behind either Malory's attacks or Buckingham and others bringing charges against him. Aurner suggests that Malory's enemies tried to slander him, giving evidence that the Duke of Buckingham was Malory's long-time enemy.^[19]

Malory finally came to trial on 23 August 1451, in Nuneaton, a town in the heartland of Buckingham's power and a place where Malory found little favour as a supporter of the Beauchamps.^[16] Those accused included Malory and several others; there were numerous charges. Malory was convicted and sent to the Marshalsea Prison in London, where he remained for a year. He demanded a retrial with a jury of men from his own county. Although this never took place, he was released. By March 1452, he was back in the Marshalsea, from which he escaped two months later, possibly by bribing the guards and gaolers. After a month, he was back in prison yet again, and this time he was held until the following May, when he was released on bail of 200 pounds, paid by a number of his fellow magnates from Warwickshire.^[3][16] Malory later ended up in custody in Colchester, accused of still more crimes, involving robbery and the stealing of horses. Once again, he escaped and once again was apprehended and returned to Marshalsea Prison.^[3]

From Malory's first criminal charge in 1443 through his eighth charge in 1451 after several escapes from captivity, little was done to contain his actions. In 1451, a royal arrest order was issued, followed by increasing fines on the lords overseeing his imprisonment in case of his escape, culminating in a maximum fine of 2000 lbs set by the King's Bench in June of 1455. As Malory aged through several subsequent imprisonments, fines for his escape decreased to 1000 lbs and then 450 lbs in January and October of 1457, and then 100 lbs if not captured when he was somehow at large again despite no formal release in 1458.^[20] Malory was released as part of a general pardon at the accession of King Edward IV in 1461.

After 1461, few records survive which scholars agree refer to Malory of Newbold Revel. In 1468-1470, King Edward IV issued four more general pardons which specifically excluded a Thomas Malory.^[21] The first of these names Malory a knight; and applied to participants in a campaign in Northumberland in the North of England by members of the Lancastrian faction. Field interprets these pardon-exclusions to refer to Malory of Newbold Revel, suggesting that Malory changed his allegiance from York to Lancaster, and that he was involved in a conspiracy with Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick to overthrow King Edward.^[22] Matthews, having shown that Malory of Newbold Revel was likely in his seventies by the time of the Northumberland campaign and living much further to the South, interprets this record as referring to a different candidate for authorship.^[23]

No record survives of Malory of Newbold Revel (or any other Thomas Malory) being in prison at the time Le Morte was completed. As Field describes, "Repeated scholarly searches of legal records have found no trace of arrest, charge, trial, or verdict"^[22] that would place any Thomas Malory in prison at the time documented by the author in the Winchester manuscript. Field suggests that Malory's political rivals "simply put him in prison without formal charge" and that he could have been released from prison in October 1470, at the collapse of the Yorkist regime and the temporary return to the throne of Henry VI.

In 1462, Malory settled his estate on his son Robert and, in 1466 or 1467, Robert fathered a son named Nicholas, Malory's grandson and ultimate heir. Malory died on 14 March 1471 and was buried in Christ Church Greyfriars, near Newgate Prison. His interment there suggests that his misdeeds had been forgiven and that he possessed some wealth.^[3] However, it was certified at the granting of probate that he owned little wealth of his own, having settled his estate on his son in 1462.^[16] Malory's grandson Nicholas eventually inherited his lands and was appointed High Sheriff of Warwickshire in 1502.^[3]

Dugdale, writing in the early to mid-17th century, recorded that the following inscription had been engraved on Malory's tomb: "HIC JACET DOMINUS THOMAS MALLERE, VALENS MILES OB 14 MAR 1470 DE PAROCHIA DE MONKENKIRBY IN COM WARICINI,"^[3] meaning: "Here lies Lord Thomas Mallere, Valiant Soldier. Died 14 March 1470 [new calendar 1471], in the parish of Monkenkirby in the county of Warwick."^[3] The tomb itself had been lost when Greyfriars was destroyed in 1538 under King Henry VIII in the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

Linton, in her defense of Dugdale's account, notes that he never offered a connection between the Newbold Revel Malory and Le Morte, even though the book was well known in Dugdale's time.^[24]

Thomas Malory of Papworth St. Agnes

Shortly after Kittredge's original article on Malory of Newbold Revel, a second candidate was presented in an 1897 article in Athenaeum^[25] by A.T. Martin, who proposed that the author was Thomas Malory of Papworth St Agnes on the Huntingdonshire-Cambridgeshire border. Martin's argument was based on a will made at Papworth on 16 September 1469 and proved at Lambeth Palace on 27 October the same year. This identification was taken seriously for some time by editors of Malory, including Alfred W. Pollard, the noted bibliographer, who included it in his edition of Malory published in 1903.^[26]

This Thomas Malory was born on 6 December 1425 at Moreton Corbet Castle, Shropshire, the eldest son of Sir William Mallory, member of Parliament for Cambridgeshire, who had married Margaret, the widow of Robert Corbet of Moreton Corbet.^[27] Thomas inherited his father's estates in 1425 and was placed in the wardship of the King, initially as a minor, but later (for reasons unknown) remaining there until within four months of his death in 1469.

Richard R. Griffin later provided further support for this candidate in The Authorship Question Reconsidered. Published after Matthews's book promoting the Hutton Conyers candidate (as described below), Griffin makes several arguments; most notably that the Papworth candidate's dialect would match that of Le Morte more closely than either of the other candidates. As detailed below, a leading dialect expert identified the language of Le Morte as being most characteristic of Lincolnshire. Griffith points out that while the current candidate lived in Shropshire as a child and on the Cambridgeshire-Huntingdonshire border in adulthood, both his father and grandfather were from Lincolnshire; and that neither of the other two major candidates had any known connection to Lincolnshire.^[28]

Little else is known of this Malory, apart from one peculiar incident discovered by William Matthews. A collection of Chancery proceedings includes a petition brought against Malory by Richard Kyd, parson of Papworth, claiming that Malory ambushed him on a November evening and took him from Papworth to Huntingdon, and then to Bedford and on to Northampton, all the while threatening his life and demanding that he either forfeit his church to Malory or give him 100 pounds. The outcome of this case is unknown, but it seems to indicate that this Malory was something other than an ordinary country gentleman.^[3] However, while this candidate's father and several other close family members were knights, no clear evidence survives showing that this Malory was ever actually knighted.^[29]

Thomas Malory of Hutton Conyers

The third contender emerged in the mid-20th century: Thomas Malory of Hutton Conyers and Studley Royal in Yorkshire. This claim was put forward in 1966 in The Ill-Framed Knight: A Skeptical Inquiry into the Identity of Sir Thomas Malory by William Matthews,^[30] a British professor who taught at UCLA (and also transcribed the diary of Samuel Pepys). This contender is also championed by Linton.^[1]

Matthews makes many arguments for this candidate, with his main focus on linguistic clues both in the Winchester manuscript and the Caxton edition of Le Morte d'Arthur; including distinctive dialectal and stylistic elements such as alliteration that are characteristic of northerly writing. His claim drew scholarly attention including a review co-written by eminent medievalist E. F. Jacob and the famed linguist Angus McIntosh. Neither reviewer accepted Matthews’s claims entirely. Jacob agrees that the dialect of Le Morte is not that of Warwickshire, deferring to McIntosh for a more detailed dialectal analysis while noting that Matthews makes a good case for reopening the question of Malory’s identity. Linton, however, disputes several of McIntosh's arguments, presenting a data driven analysis of the dialect in the Morte.^[31] Besides this analysis, she dismisses some of McIntosh's arguments as trivial, noting quibbles between what dialect is northern and what is northerly, for example.^[32]

McIntosh’s dialectal analysis states that: “To put the matter simply, the original Le Morte Darthur contained various forms which are too northerly for the everyday language of Newbold Revel”. While McIntosh does not specifically support Matthews' claim of an origin in the Hutton Conyers area of Yorkshire, he ultimately concludes that the language would have been "most at home" in Lincolnshire but is characteristic of roughly anywhere north of a line from Chester to the Wash (see inset map). He suggests that Malory “simply had access to, and was deeply steeped in, far more northerly romance material" than the specific texts which he is thought to have used.^[6]

Two central elements of Matthews's argument for the Hutton Conyers candidate include his evidence of the advanced age of the Newbold Revel candidate at the time of writing, described in that section above; and Matthews' analysis of the exclusion of a Thomas Malarie, knight from a general pardon issued in 1468. The question of the identity of the Malory listed in this document is widely regarded as critical to the final identification of the author. In Field's words: "the Sir Thomas Malory who was exempted from pardon must have been the author of the Morte. No other conclusion is possible."^[33] While Field's conclusion is widely accepted, Linton suggests he has attributed it to the wrong Malory, arguing that Malory of Hutton Conyers, a close associate of Neville, is the likely knight exempted from that pardon.^[34]

The pardon applied to a group of Lancastrians in a military campaign in the winter of 1462 in the Northern county of Northumberland near the Scottish border. Matthews shows that Thomas Malory of Hutton Conyers was closely related to the Humphrey Neville, knight listed just before him in the short list of those excluded. Matthews also points out that this Northern campaign was geographically much closer to Hutton Conyers in Yorkshire than to Newbold Revel, and concludes that the document referred to the Thomas Malory of Hutton Conyers - not to Malory of Newbold Revel, who was a Yorkist and would have been something in excess of 70 years old; far too old to have taken part in this Northern military campaign. Matthews therefore promotes this document as strong evidence that Malory of Hutton Conyers was indeed a knight after all and the author of the Morte.^[35] Linton offers additional evidence to illustrate the close connection between Humphrey Neville and Thomas Malory of Hutton Conyers.^[36]

Matthews's interpretation was not universally accepted, primarily because he could not find evidence that the Yorkshireman was a knight. Linton, however, has removed that principal objection, providing extensive detail about the Malorys of Yorkshire and offering evidence that Thomas of Yorkshire was a Knight Hospitaller, a knight of the church.^[37] She also examines the provenance of some of the known sources of the Morte and demonstrates that this Malory would have had ready access to these documents.^[38]

In spite of Matthews's strong evidence of the Newbold Revel knight's advanced age, Field has long argued that the 1468 exclusion from pardon refers to Malory of Newbold Revel and instead shows that that candidate changed his lifelong Yorkist loyalty to become a Lancastrian. It seems equally plausible, however, to realize that the Knight Hospitaller from Hutton Conyers, who was close to Neville, was excluded from pardon, rather than to think the Newbold Revel knight changed political stripes.

Outside of the contested pardon-exclusion, Thomas Malory of Hutton Conyers was not recorded as having been a knight in the generally accepted secular sense, though his elder brother John and most of his recent forefathers were knights.^[39][3] If to accept Linton's argument that the Yorkshire Thomas was a Knight Hospitaller, the primary objection to his authorship is removed and the contradictions presented by the Newbold Revel knight become irrelevant.

Thomas Malory of Wales

Even only a few years after the original publication of Le Morte, there was speculation as to Malory's identity. The earliest identification was made by John Bale, a 16th-century antiquarian, who declared that Malory was Welsh, hailing from Mailoria on the River Dee. This theory received further support from Sir John Rhys, who proclaimed in 1893 that the alternative spelling indicated an area straddling the border between England and North Wales, Maleore in Flintshire and Maleor in Denbighshire. On this theory, Malory may have been related to Edward Rhys Maelor, a 15th-century Welsh poet.^[3] It was also suggested by antiquary John Leland that he was Welsh, identifying "Malory" with "Maelor". However, most modern scholars have disregarded this early work on the basis that no such place as Mailoria has ever been identified on the Dee or elsewhere; no Welsh Thomas Malory appears in the surviving historical record; and Malory identified himself as English rather than Welsh.^[40]