A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Guenever I
GUENEVER I.
This was the first wife of the British King Arthur, so famed in history and romance, as the implacable and heroic enemy of the Saxons. We are told expressly, that she was so remarkably beautiful, as to excel all the other ladies of Britain, on which account she was called Guinne, "a word in the Welsh tongue, signifying fair." so says Camden. This Guenever, it seems, was of Roman descent, and was educated up to the time of her marriage, by Cador, Earl of Cornwall, who was her near relative, for the old chronicle tells us that when Arthur had established peace he married "a fayre ladye, and a gentel that Cador, the Earl of Cornwall, had long since nourished in his chamber;" and it is afterwards said that although she bore him no children, the king "loved her wonder well and dearly."
Guenever having accompanied her husband on an expedition against the Picts and Scots, was taken prisoner and confined in the castle of Dunbar, in Angus, where she remained for the rest of her life. She is said to have been interred in a field about ten miles from Dundee, and to have had a sumptuous tomb erected over her remains, around which was placed tombs of the noble ladies who shared her captivity. When Holinshed wrote his history the spot was still pointed out, and there was a tradition current that if any woman chanced to tread upon the sepulchre of the queen she would be henceforth barren, as Guenever herself had been.