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Mark of Cornwall (Latin Marcus, Cornish Margh, Welsh March) was a king of Kernow (Cornwall) in the early 6th century. He is most famous for his appearance in Arthurian legend as the uncle of Tristan and husband of Iseult, who engage in a secret affair behind his back.
The legend
Mark sent Tristan as his proxy to fetch his young bride, the Princess Iseult from Ireland. Tristan and Iseult fall in love, and, with the help of a magic potion, proceed to have one of the stormiest love affairs in medieval literature. Mark suspects of the affair and eventually, his suspicions are confirmed. In some versions, he sends for Tristan to be hanged, and Iseult to a leper colony. Tristan escapes the hanging and rescues Mark's bride from her confinement, later to be discovered by Mark. Mark eventually forgives them, with Isolde returning to Mark and Tristan leaving the country.
In the Prose Tristan, Mark's character deteriorates from a sympathetic cuckold to a downright villain. He rapes his niece and then murders her when she produces his son, Meraugis, and he murders his brother Baldwin as well. In earlier versions of the story Tristan dies in Brittany, far away from Mark, but in the Prose Tristan Mark stabs Tristan while he plays the harp under a tree for Iseult. Though this version of Mark's character was popular in other medieval works, including the Romance of Palamedes and Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, modern versions of the Tristan and Iseult legend tend to take their inspiration from the older poetic material, and Mark becomes a sympathetic character once again.
The Drustanus Stone
In Wrmonoc of Landevennec's Life of St. Pol de Leon, he refers to a "King Marc whose other name is Quonomorus". An inscription on a 6th century gravestone near the Cornish town of Fowey memorializes (in Latin) a certain "Drustanus son of Cunomorus" and it has been conjectured that this is the Tristan son of Mark (alias Quonomorus) of legend. However, in most versions of the story, Mark is Tristan's uncle. His sister is Tristan's mother, Blancheflor alias Elizabeth/Isabelle, or, in some later versions, he is related to Tristan's father, Meliadus. Some identify King Mark with King Cynfawr (the Welsh form of Cunomorus) of Dumnonia. However, it is also thought that Wrmonoc may have made a mistake with his recorded alias. In Old Welsh records, Mark is recorded as March ap Meirchion and is variously associated with North Wales, South Wales or South-West Scotland.
In various media
In the 1970s TV show Arthur of the Britons, Mark was played by Brian Blessed, and in the 2006 film Tristan & Isolde, he was played by Rufus Sewell.
Arthurian legend | British traditional history | Natives of Cornwall | Sub-Roman Britain
"Mark of Cornwall"