reigne of the same Henrie, more than six hundred yeeres after the buriall thereof.  He was laid 16 foot deepe vnder ground, for doubt that his enimies the Saxons should haue found him.  But those that digged the ground there to find his bodie, after they had entered about seuen foot deepe into the earth, they found a mightie broad stone with a leaden crosse fastened to that part which laie downewards toward the corps, conteining this inscription: 

  “Hic iacet sepultus inclytus rex Arthurius in insula Aualoniae.”

This inscription was grauen on that side of the crosse which was next to the stone:  so that till the crosse was taken from the stone, it was vnseene.  His bodie was found, not inclosed within a toome of marble or other stone curiouslie wrought, but within a great tree made hollowe for the nonce like a trunke, the which being found and digged vp, was opened, and therein were found the kings bones, of such maruellous bignesse, that the shinbone of his leg being set on the ground, reached vp to the middle thigh of a verie tall man:  as a moonke of that abbeie hath written, which did liue in those daies, and saw it. ¶ But Gyraldus Cambrensis (who also liued in those daies, and spake with the abbat of the place, by whom the bones of this Arthur were then found) affirmeth, that by report of the same abbat, he learned, that the shinbone of the said Arthur being set vp by the leg of a verie tall man (the which the abbat shewed to the same Gyraldus) came aboue the knee of the same man the length of three fingers breadth, which is a great deale more likelie than the other.  Furthermore the skull of his head was of a woonderfull largenesse, so that the space of his forehead betwixt his two eies was a span broad.  There appeered in his head the signes and prints of ten wounds or more:  all the which were growne into one wem, except onelie that whereof it should seeme he died, which being greater than the residue, appeered verie plaine.  Also in opening the toome of his wife queene Gueneuer, that was buried with him, they found the tresses of hir haire whole and perfect, and finelie platted, of colour like to the buruished gold, which being touched, immediatlie fell to dust.  The abbat, which then was [Sidenote:  Henricus Blecensis seu Soliacensis. Io.  Leland.] gouernour of the house, was named Stephan, or Henrie de Blois, otherwise de Sullie, nephue to king Henrie the second (by whose commandement he had serched for the graue of Arthur) translated the bones as well of him as of queene Gueneuer, being so found, into the great church, and there buried them in a faire double toome of marble, laieng the bodie of the king at the head of the toome, and the bodie [Sidenote:  Dauid Pow. pag. 238, 239.] of the queene at his feet towards the west part. ¶ The writer of the historie of Cambria now called Wales saith, that the bones of the said Arthur, and Gueneuer his wife were found in the Ile of Aualon (that is, the Ile of Alpes) without the abbeie of Glastenbury, fifteene feet within the ground, & that his graue was found by the meanes of a Bardh, whome the king heard at Penbroke singing the acts of prince Arthur, and the place of his buriall.