Cador of Cornwall

[Tizun Thane]

He is kin to Arthur in unspecified ways. His son Constantine will rule after Arthur on that claim.

I don't remember his genealogy (or even lands) to be clarified in the GPC. Have any of you a good theory?

[Greyblade]

In some texts he is presented as Gorlois' son, thus making him Arthur's half-brother. In some others he is presented as Arthur's cousin.

 

[jeffjerwin]

In KAP canon, he's related to Igraine, and his son and probably he are Arthur's cousins if you read carefully. There'll be more detailed official information in the future.

He's clearly not Gorlois' son in the game or it would have been mentioned in the same statements. In various non-game sources he's Gorlois' son, Gorlois' cousin, Arthur's cousin, the son of Geraint ab Erbin (who is identified as a son of Constantine, but this is not the case in KAP), the brother of Mark (see this Cornish pedigree: https://books.google.com/books?id=DRwiAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA230&dq=alanus+becket+cornwall&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjvsIm_1NnnAhVKu54KHfftBHMQ6AEwAHoECAIQAg#v=onepage&q=alanus becket cornwall&f=false) etc. The Cornish (and apparently the Bretons) also identified him with Teudar or Tudar (T can resemble C in medieval handwriting) and called Teudar King Mark's father. But this comes from the version of the Mark and Isolt and Tristan story where they lived a generation after Arthur. Teudar was identified by the Bretons with a son of Macliau or Meliau, King of Vannes, in Brittany. Some Cornish and Breton stories suggest that the two regions were one kingdom. Despite the wealth of Cornish stories about the period, there is no coherent chronology, because many of the stories derive from hagiography, and the writers of saints' lives tried to place their heroes as early as possible. The historical Geraint or Gerran, for instance, seems to have lived in the 580s or so, but he is made a younger contemporary of Arthur and various saints said have lived in the first half of the sixth century in religious stories.

Note that Constantine son of Cador is the Constantinus of Gildas' De Exidio, and would have lived in c.545.

Also note that Yder king of Cornouailles, who becomes Idres in KAP, derives from a spelling error for Cador. Idres, Yder, Cador (and several of these other characters, like 'Sador') are all distinct characters in KAP.

[jmberry1s]

For my own purposes I made him Gorlois's grand-nephew. More specifically I split the game's Cador into two separate characters to deal with the problems people have mentioned regarding his lifespan - Cador, who serves Arthur, and his father, Gereint, who is Gorlois's nephew and presumed heir. Gereint (b. 452) is the one who shows up in the Uther Period and the earlier parts of the Anarchy, and the one who serves as a mercenary against the Saxons until he's killed in 507. After this his son Cador (b. 479) goes his own way for a few years before swearing allegiance to Arthur. Gereint's father and Gorlois's brother, BTW, is named Cynwal, and died in the Night of Long Knives.

If you want more information (including where I got the name "Cynwal"), that will be difficult - at the end of January a hardware crash wiped out almost all of my documents, a good 16 years worth of writings. The Pendragon family tree I've put together on Family Echo survived (obviously), but a lot of the justifications I had written down will now require me to re-research them to figure out the conclusions I made.

[Tizun Thane]

Thank you all for you thoughtful explanations!

On 2/19/2020 at 12:07 AM, jmberry1s said:

The Pendragon family tree I've put together on Family Echo survived (obviously), but a lot of the justifications I had written down will now require me to re-research them to figure out the conclusions I made.

I would love to see this family tree

[Leingod]

For some reason until around the Book of Sires I was somehow under the impression that Cador was Gorlois's brother, even though that would mean he wasn't actually related to Arthur by blood, just to Ygraine's daughters.

Him being a maternal uncle through Ygraine makes a lot more sense, though it seems he missed out on all the magical inheritance implied in the Book of Sires (maybe it only goes through the female line?). Although that might be a good enough explanation about the age thing: Ygraine and her daughters all seem to age much more slowly than normal people, so why not Cador?