“Arthur is still young enough to feel the sting of the story and be haunted by thoughts of atonement; and when it happened he was younger still, in the first white-and-golden flush of victory and kingship, held up on the love of the people, the acclamation of the soldiers and the blaze of mystery that surrounded the drawing of the sword from the stone.”
Merlin supposes that King Arthur would be remorseful for endorsing the killing of guiltless children. Besides, Merlin speculates that Arthur’s new power encouraged him to engage in the ruthless slaughtering of the children. He was blinded by his power to the degree that he sanctioned the murders.
“Arthur had been kept in ignorance of his royal birth and parentage, and Uther, though he had kept himself informed of the boy’s growth and progress, had never once seen him since he was born. This is because, during the wild night of love when Uther had lain with Ygraine, then the wife of Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall and Uther’s most faithful commander, the old Duke himself had been killed. His death, though not fault of Uther’s, weighed so heavily on the King that he swore never to claim for his own any child born of that night’s guilty love.”
King Arthur is an illegitimate child. However, his illegitimacy does not bar him from succeeding his father. The story of his conception is a covert allusion to the Biblical account of King Solomon, who was conceived in infidelity.
