Leir of Britain

King Leir and his daughters, a marginal illustration in the Northumberland Bestiary, c. 1250.
Family tree of the House of Brutus
CorineusBrutus
GwendolenLocrinusAlbanactusKamber
Maddan
MempriciusMalin
Ebraucus
Brutus GreenshieldNineteen other sonsThirty daughters
Leil
Rud Hud Hudibras
Bladud
Leir
GonorillaReganCordeilla
MarganusCunedagius
Rivallo
Gurgustiusunknown
SisilliusJago
Kimarcus
GorboducJudon
FerrexPorrex

Leir was a legendary king of the Britons whose story was recounted or invented by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his pseudohistorical 12th-century History of the Kings of Britain.[1] According to Geoffrey's genealogy of the British dynasty, Leir's reign would have occurred around the 8th century BC. The story was modified and retold by William Shakespeare in his Elizabethan tragedy King Lear.[2]

Name

Leir's name is often but inaccurately derived from the British sea god Llyr (cf. his Irish equivalent Lir), whose name derived from the Brittonic word for "sea", reconstructed as *Leros.[3] The names are in fact etymologically unrelated. Instead, Geoffrey may have derived Leir's name from the Welsh name for Leicester (Old Welsh: Cair Lerion[4] & Welsh: Caerlŷr), which he called Kaerleir,[5] rather than the city's having derived its name from the king as Geoffrey claimed. Leicester's name is now thought to derive from an old name of the River Soar, whose ford it protected. The Brittonic original has been reconstructed as either *Ligera or *Ligora.[6][7][8]

Legend

Reign

Leir's story was first recorded in Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain. In it, Leir is part of the dynasty of Brutus of Britain and succeeded to the throne after his father Bladud died while attempting to fly with artificial wings. The dating is inexact, but Geoffrey made Bladud a contemporary of the biblical prophet Elijah. He was given the longest reign of Geoffrey's kings, ruling for sixty years.[5] Geoffrey claimed he was the eponymous founder of Leicester in England.[6][7][8]

Abdication

Leir was said to have been the end of Brutus's male line of descent, siring three daughters: Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia. As he neared his death, he divided his kingdom among his three daughters. Goneril and Regan flattered their father and, at the advice of Leir's nobles, were married off to the Dukes of Albany and Cornwall, respectively. Cordelia, despite being her father's favorite, refused to flatter the king, feeling that he should not need special assurances of her love, and was given no land to rule. King Aganippus of the Franks courted and married Cordelia, despite Leir refusing to pay a dowry.[5] Leir then gave Goneril and Regan half of his kingdom, planning to bequeath them the remainder at his death; instead, his sons-in-law rebelled and seized the whole of the kingdom. Duke Maglaurus of Albany, Goneril's husband, maintained Leir with a retinue of 60 knights, but his wife reduced this by half after two years. Leir then fled to Regan, who reduced his entourage to only five men. Returning to Albany and pleading with Goneril, Leir was left with a single knight for protection.[9]

Restoration

At this point, Leir feared both his older daughters and fled to France.[9] He sent Cordelia a messenger when he was outside her court at Karitia. She had him bathed, royally clothed, and assigned a fittingly large band of retainers. He was then officially received by the king and made regent of France, with the Frankish nobles vowing to restore him to his former glory.[10] Leir, his daughter, and her husband invaded Britain and successfully overthrew his daughters and sons-in-law. Leir ruled three years and then died. Cordelia succeeded him and buried him in an underground shrine to the god Janus beneath the River Soar near Leicester. An annual feast was held nearby in his honor.[11]

Lear and Cordelia in Prison by William Blake, c. 1779

In culture

Main article: King Lear

Leir's life was dramatised on the Elizabethan stage in King Leir, which was registered in 1594 and published in 1605 under the tile The True Chronicle History of King Leir, and his three daughters, Gonorill, Ragan, and Cordella. This precursor to William Shakespeare's tragedy was a comedy, repeating Geoffrey's story and ending happily with Leir's restoration to power. The story also appears in Higgins’s Mirror for Magistrates, Spenser's The Faerie Queene,[12] and other works.[13]

References

  1. ↑ Galfridus Monemutensis [Geoffrey of Monmouth]. Historia Regum Britanniæ. c. 1136. (Latin) J.A. Giles & al. (trans.) as History of the Kings of Britain in Six Old English Chronicles. 1842. Hosted at Wikisource.
  2. ↑ Mabillard, Amanda. "Shakespeare's Sources for King Lear" at Shakespeare Online. Accessed February of 2010.
  3. ↑ Stokes, Whitley & al. Wortschatz der keltischen Spracheinheit, 5th ed., Vol. II, p. 249. 1894, reprinted by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1979.
  4. ↑ Nennius (attrib.). Theodor Mommsen (ed.). Historia Brittonum, VI. Composed after AD 830. (Latin) Hosted at Latin Wikisource.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Geoffrey, Vol. II, Ch. 11.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Stevenson, W. H. "A note on the derivation of the name 'Leicester'" in The Archaeological Journal, Vol. 75, pp. 30 f. Royal Archaeological Institute (London), 1918.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Ekwall, Eilert. English River-Names, p. xlii. Clarendon Press (Oxford), 1928.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Jackson, Kenneth. Language and HIstory in Early Britain, p. 459. (Edinburgh), 1953.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Geoffrey, Vol. II, Ch. 12.
  10. ↑ Geoffrey, Vol. II, Ch. 13.
  11. ↑ Geoffrey, Vol. II, Ch. 14.
  12. ↑ Spenser, Edmund. The Faerie Queene, Vol. II, §10, ll. 27–33.
  13. ↑ Halio, Jay L. King Lear: A Guide to the Play, pp. 20 f. Greenwood Press, 2001.
Legendary titles
Preceded by
Bladud		 King of Britain Succeeded by
Cordelia