What Is Lancelot's Loyalty In The Death Of King Arthur

King Arthur's Round Table has the shape of a circle, an archetypal symbol of endlessness and unity, but that unity is destroyed through the actions of the knights who used to protect those ideas. In Thomas Malory’s The Death of King Arthur, retold by Peter Ackroyd, a decline in Lancelot du Lake’s honor and integrity leads to a loss of respect from those he loves, suggesting that contrasting loyalties cannot coexist without causing a rift in society. Lancelot, known as a loyal servant of his king and queen, and for a time, he manages those loyalties side by side. In one of Lancelot’s many famed battles, a lady leads him to Sir Tarquin, a fearsome knight who holds many knights of the Round Table hostage. Lancelot challenges him, and they have fought for hours, on end,
When Sir Gaheris (one of the captured knights) thanks him, Lancelot tells him that he is “Lancelot du Lake. [He had] defended [him] for the sake of King Arthur, and for the sake of [his] brother, Gawain.” (Ackroyd 76). This emphasizes Lancelot’s loyalty to King Arthur, in that he gives credit to him after performing a great deed. However, Lancelot does not only give his loyalty to King Arthur. However, Queen Guinevere and Lancelot are deeply in love, unbeknownst to the king. The two have an affair that most of the knights know about, but King Arthur refuses to believe that his two closest allies would do such a thing. However, Mordred finally confronts the King and tells him about what transpires between Lancelot and Guinevere, the King asks his knights to find him as proof. That night, when Lancelot goes to visit Guinevere in her room, Mordred, Agravain, and twelve other knights are there to catch him. As they wait for him to come accept his fate, he turns to his “most noble Christian Queen, [beseeching her] to listen to [Lancelot]. [She had] always been the special lady