Mr. Lysons says, “this castle, which is of great antiquity, is reported to have been the birthplace of King Arthur, with respect to whom it was the opinion of Lord Chancellor Bacon, ‘that there was truth enough in his story to make him famous, besides that which was fabulous.’ His history nevertheless has been so blended with the marvellous by the monkish historians, that some authors have been disposed to doubt of his existence; and the circumstances connected with his supposed birth at Tintagel, are clearly not among those parts of his story most entitled to credit. We find no mention of this castle in authentic history till the year 1245, when Richard Earl of Cornwall was accused of having offered an asylum at his castle of Tintagel, to his nephew David Prince of Wales, in rebellion against his uncle Henry the Third. Thomas de la Hyde was governor or constable of the castle in 1307, Thomas le Arcedekne in 1313, and William de Botreaux in 1325. It appears by a survey taken about that time, that the castle was in a very ruinous state. The great hall was taken down by John of Eltham. John Holland, Earl of Huntingdon, was made constable in 1388.” Mr. Carew states, p. 286 Lord Dunstanville’s Edition, “that being turned from a palace to a prison, this castle restrained one John Northampton’s liberty, who for abusing the same in his unruly mayoralty of London, was condemned hither as a perpetual penitentiary,” and Thomas Earl of Warwick was also a prisoner there in 1397. Lord Treasurer Burleigh abolished the office of constable or governor of this castle. Norden has a print, accompanied by a description of the castle, as it remained in his time, about 1584, when considerable portions of the fortress appear to have remained both on the island and on the main land. The living belonged to the Great Benedictine Monastery at Fontevrault in Anjou, distinguished by the peculiarity of being presided over by an abbess, although the establishment consisted of monks as well as nuns. Having been seized into the king’s hands with other benefices belonging to alien houses, this parish was given by Edward the Fourth to the collegiate church of Windsor, where the great tithes and the patronage of the living still remain. It is stated by Doctor Borlase, that besides the chapel within the fortress, dedicated to St. Ulette or Uliane, two others existed in the parish, one dedicated to St. Tiron and the other to St. Dennis. I have retained the fabulous history of the Great Arthur, with feelings similar to those which induced the Greeks to dwell on the twelve labours of their Hercules, or the Scandinavians to recount the exploits of Odin. In a manner similar to what took place with respect to them, there exist reasons for conjecturing, at least that a mythological personage of remote antiquity became blended with a British warrior who opposed the Saxons, and that the constellation Arcturus is in this way connected with the Cornish chief.