At the end of Le Morte Darthur, Malory wrote, “ . . . I pray you all praye for my soule; for this book was ended the ix yere of the reygne of kyng edward the fourth by syr Thomas Maleore knyght . . . ” Details elsewhere in his book reveal that he was a prisoner at the time of his writing. On this basis the author of Le Morte Darthur is traditionally identified as Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revell, who was repeatedly imprisoned between 1451 and 1460, and possibly later. This identification has never been certain and has recently been thrown into serious doubt: the writer may have been another Thomas Malory. Nevertheless, the traditional identification is still widely accepted and has played so important a part in literary folklore that it is worth preserving, if only as a curiosity.
The outlaw Malory was from an old Warwickshire family uneasily aligned with the House of York until the mid-1460’s, when Warwick shifted to the Lancastrian camp. Malory was in his twenties when he succeeded to the ancestral estate. He served with the Earl of Warwick at Calais in 1436, was married a few years later, and in 1449 acquired a second estate, that of his sister’s husband. All this time he was, as far as we know, a respectable and perhaps well-off citizen. In 1450 he turned outlaw—and with a vengeance. Between 1450 and 1451 he was charged with several major crimes—robbery, two cattle raids, several extortions, a rape, and an attempted murder. He was jailed, but escaped by swimming a moat and immediately after his escape sank to what was for medieval men the darkest of depravities—robbing churches. He broke into the Abbey of the Blessed Mary of Coombe, opened two of the abbot’s chests, and stole various sacred objects and two bags of money. He came back the next night with accomplices, broke eighteen doors, insulted the abbot, and stole more money. He was again arrested and remained in prison for three years (1451-1454), except for a short time outside in 1452. When he was released he returned to his criminal activities, was again jailed, again broke out. He was granted a royal pardon in 1455, probably by the Duke of York, and managed to serve for his shire in Parliament for a year; but two years later he was in debtors’ prison (Ludgate); and he went to Newgate Prison later (1459). He may have been in prison in 1468, when Edward IV extended his pardon to the Lancastrians but excluded “Thomas Malorie, miles.” He may have been released upon the restoration of Henry VI in October, 1470. He died March 14, 1471, and was buried in the chapel of St. Francis at the Grey Friars near Newgate in the suburbs of London.
Although Thomas Malory the highwayman-knight may not in fact have been the author of Le Morte Darthur, his criminal activities are no evidence either for or against his claim to authorship of the work. The author of Le Morte Darthur says at the end of his book that he is “the seruaunt of Ihesu both day and nyght,” and throughout the hook the stiff code of chivalry is played against humane and flexible Christian charity. On the other hand, Malory’s myth of Arthur is essentially secular in its focus. Even the Grail Quest, as Malory treats it, is more secular than holy and ironic in spirit: it shows nobility of soil] and, at the same time, through its slaughter of many of Arthur’s knights, it dangerously weakens the kingdorn. If the God of Malory’s universe is as much a God of love as a ruler of destiny, Merlin—part man, part wizard, part devil—is his only available prophet. What the author of Le Morte Darthur knows best is battle, jealousy, sexual lust, sudden rage, frustrated idealism, and the waste of human potential.
