And therewith she kneeled down upon both her knees, and besought Sir Bors to have mercy upon her, "or I shall have a shameful death, and thereto I never offended." Right so came King Arthur, and found the queen kneeling afore Sir Bors. Then Sir Bors pulled her up, and said, "Madam, ye do to me great dishonor." "Ah, gentle knight," said the king, "have mercy upon my queen, courteous knight, for I am now in certain she is untruly defamed. And therefore, courteous knight," said the king, "promise her to do battle for her: I require you, for the love of Sir Launcelot." "My lord," said Sir Bors, "ye require me the greatest thing that any man may require me; and wit ye well, if I grant to do battle for the queen I shall wrath many of my fellowship of the Table Round; but as for that," said Bors, "I will grant my lord, for my lord Sir Launcelot's sake, and for your sake, I will at that day be the queen's champion, unless that there come by adventure a better knight than I am to do battle for her." "Will ye promise me this," said the king, "by your faith?" "Yea sir," said Sir Bors, "of that will I not fail you, nor her both, but if that there come a better knight than I am, and then shall he have the battle." Then was the king and the queen passing glad, and so departed, and thanked him heartily. So then Sir Bors departed secretly upon a day, and rode unto Sir Launcelot, there as he was with the hermit Sir Brasias, and told him of all their adventure. "Ah," said Sir Launcelot, "this is come happily as I would have it, and therefore I pray you make you ready to do battle, but look that ye tarry till ye see me come, as long as ye may. For I am sure Mador is an hot knight, when he is enchafed, for the more ye suffer him, the hastier will he be to battle." "Sir," said Sir Bors, "let me deal with him; doubt ye not ye shall have all your will." Then departed Sir Bors from him, and came to the court again. Then was it noised in all the court that Sir Bors should do battle for the queen: wherefore many knights were displeased with him, that he would take upon him to do battle in the queen's quarrel, for there were but few knights in the court but they deemed the queen was in the wrong, and that she had done that treason. So Sir Bors answered thus unto his fellows of the Table Round: "Wit ye well, my fair lords, it were shame to us all, and we suffered to see the most noble queen of the world to be shamed openly, considering her lord and our lord is the man of most worship in the world, and most christened, and he hath ever worshipped us all, in all places." Many answered him again: "As for our most noble King Arthur, we love him and honor him as well as ye do; but as for Queen Guenever, we love her not, for because she is a destroyer of good knights."