A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Guenever III
GUENEVER III,
Was a Pictish princess, and very unlike her predecessors in character, for no sooner, it is said, "did Arthur marry her, than a change took place in the manners of the court;" nor does the fame of Guenever herself escape; not only was she unfaithful to her lord, but even he, the hero of his time, who had been so tenderly attached to his two former queens, followed the bad example of his present wife. Many extraordinary stories are related by the Welsh bards and chroniclers, of doings at this corrupt court, but it is neither necessary nor desirable to repeat them here. Suffice it that Guenever is reported to have favoured the pretensions of Arthur's nephew Mordred to the throne; and when, in the contest which ensued between the king and Mordred, she learned that the latter was defeated and obliged to fly for his life, she was, as the chronicle has it, "sore dread and had great doubt, and wist not what was best all for to be done; for she wist well that her lord, King Arthur, would never of her have mercy, for the great shame she had him done; and took her away privily with four men, without more, and came to Caerleon, and there she dwelled all her life's time, and never was seen among folke her life living."
The repentant queen is said to have become a nun in the church of the Martyr at Caerleon, and to have lived to a very advanced age; some say fifty years after the death of Arthur.