SOURCE: “King Mark of Cornwall,” inRomance Philology, Vol. 11, No. 3, February, 1958, pp. 240-53.

In the following essay, Newstead evaluates the significance of the role of King Mark of Cornwall in the Tristan romances, observing that the character figures prominently in the stories, as does the setting of many incidents in the King's castle at Tintagel.

In the dramatic action of the Tristan romances King Mark is almost as important as the lovers themselves. Tristan, as the son of his sister, is bound to him by close ties of kinship, and the hero's first spectacular exploit is the liberation of Mark's kingdom of Cornwall from the annual human tribute demanded by the Irish champion Morholt. Many of the subsequent plots, counter-plots, stratagems, and thrilling escapes that characterize the story are initiated by Mark's uncertain temper towards the lovers, his continual vacillation between belief in their innocence and suspicion of...