Hanging in the Great Hall of Winchester Castle is an enormous painted tabletop, eighteen feet across, that was once believed to be King Arthur's own Round Table. It isn't — but the real story of who made it, why, and how it was repurposed by English kings for over two hundred years is more interesting than the legend.
In this video, I trace the table from its origins as a genuine piece of furniture built for a tournament held by Edward I in 1290, through its conversion into an Arthurian relic under Edward III in the 1340s, to its repainting as Tudor political propaganda by Henry VIII ahead of a state visit from the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in 1522. Along the way: Edward I's use of Arthurian legend to claim authority over Britain, Edward III's abandoned plan for a 300-knight Round Table at Windsor, the 1976 scientific investigation led by Martin Biddle that uncovered the table's true history, and what the table's Tudor-era paintwork was really designed to say about Henry VIII's ambitions.
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