I must needs take me unto perfection of right.  For I take record of God, in you have I had mine earthly joy, and if I had found you so disposed, I had cast me for to have had you into mine own realm.  But sithen I find you thus disposed, I ensure you faithfully that I will take me to penance, and pray while my life lasteth, if that I may find any hermit, either grey or white, that will receive me.  Wherefore, madam, I pray you kiss me once and never more.

“Nay, said the Queen, that shall I never do, but abstain you from such works.  And they departed.  But there was never so hard a hearted man but he would have wept to see the dolour that they made.  For there was lamentation as though they had been stung with spears, and many times they swooned.  And the ladies bare the Queen to her chamber.  And Sir Lancelot awoke, and went, and took his horse, and rode all that day and all that night in a forest, weeping.  And at the last he was ware of an hermitage, and a chapel stood betwixt two cliffs; and then he heard a little bell ring to Mass, and thither he rode and alighted, and tied his horse to the gate, and heard Mass.  So he that sang the Mass was the Bishop of Canterbury.  There was also Sir Bedevere, and both the bishop and Sir Bedevere knew Sir Lancelot, and they spoke together after Mass.  But when Sir Bedevere had told his tale all whole, Sir Lancelot’s heart almost braste for sorrow, and Sir Lancelot threw his arms abroad and said, Alas, who may trust this world!  And then he kneeled down on his knees, and prayed the bishop to shrive him and assoil him.  And then he besought the bishop that he might be his brother.  Then the bishop said, I will gladly, and there he put an habit upon Sir Lancelot, and there he served God day and night with prayers and fastings.”

Bedevere followed Lancelot’s example, and within half a year seven other knights joined themselves to these two and endured in great penance six year, and then Sir Lancelot took the habit of priesthood, and in twelve months he sang Mass.  And there was none of these other knights but they read in books and holp to sing Mass, and rang bells, and did lowly all manner of service.  And so their horses went where they would for they took no regard of no worldly riches.  For when they saw Sir Lancelot endure such penance, in prayers and fasting, they took no force what pain they endured, for to see the noblest knight of the world take such abstinence that he waxed full lean.  And thus upon a night there came a vision to Sir Lancelot, and charged him in remission of his sins, to haste him unto Almesbury—­and by then thou come there, thou shalt find Queen Guinevere dead, and therefore take thy fellows with thee, and purvey thee of an horse-bier, and fetch thou the corpse of her, and bury her by her husband, the noble King Arthur.  So this vision came to Lancelot thrice in one night.

“Then Sir Lancelot rose upon day and told the hermit.  It were well done, said the hermit, that ye make you ready, and that ye disobey not the vision.  Then Sir Lancelot took his seven fellows with him, and on foot they went from Glastonbury to Almesbury, the which is little more than thirty miles.  And thither they came within two days, for they were weak and feeble to go.