At Glastonbury we indubitably seem to get nearer the real Arthur than we are able to do in any of the other localities mentioned by Geoffrey and the later chroniclers. Whether he was the monarch described in the romances or a semi-barbarous chieftain leading the Britons to a final, though only temporary, victory against the Saxons, there remains the same likelihood of his connection with the first Abbey raised in the land. On the authority of Gildas, we learn that when the Abbot brought about peace between Arthur and Melvas, both kings made oath never to violate the holy place, and both kings gave the Abbot much territory in token of their gratitude. If, however, it is hard to reconcile the death of King Arthur with Merlin’s prophecy, it is harder still to account for the discovery of his bones and his grave in face of the ancient triad which declared his grave to be unknown, and remembering which Tennyson related-- “His grave should be a mystery From all men, like his birth;” while the older poet tells how he “raygnes in faerie.” There was, however, a substantial reason for the finding of King Arthur’s tomb by Henry of Blois, for at that time the revenues brought by pilgrims to the shrine were not sufficient to provide funds for the building. The contest between Wells and Glastonbury had also begun, and the discovery of the bones of a saint was one of the surest methods of obtaining an advantage. According to Stow’s _Chronicle_, the body was found “not enclosed within a tomb of stone, but within a great tree made hollow like a trough, the which being digged upon and opened, therein were found the bones of Arthur, which were of a marvellous bigness.” This circumstantial evidence seems almost irresistible, and no doubt there was a conscientious belief in the discovery at the time it was reported to have been made. Stow has further details to give on the authority of Giraldus Cambriensis, “a learned man that then lived, who reporteth to have heard of the Abbot of Glastonbury that the shin-bone of Arthur being set up by the leg of a very tall man, came above his knee by three fingers. The skull of his head was of a wonderful bigness; in which head there appeared the points of ten wounds, or more, all which were grown in one seam, except only that whereof he died, which being greater than the other, appeared very plain.” Such, then, are the records of this wondrous discovery.