Joyous Gard

[1] In the prose stories of Tristan and Iseult, the pair later lives in the castle with Lancelot's permission as refugees from King Mark of Cornwall.

Following Lancelot's adulterous and treasonous affair with Arthur's wife Queen Guinevere, Lancelot rescues Guinevere, who is under sentence of death from Arthur, and brings her to the Joyous Gard.

[2] In the French prose cycles, he is laid to rest next to the grave of his dear friend Galehaut (in the Post-Vulgate Queste del Saint Graal, their remnants are later dug up and destroyed by King Mark[3]).

In his Le Morte d'Arthur, the late-medieval English writer Thomas Malory identified the Joyous Gard with Bamburgh Castle,[4] a coastal castle in Northumberland that was built on former location of a Celtic Briton fort known as Din Guarie.

[5] Before writing his work, Malory personally participated in the Yorkist siege of the castle during the War of the Roses.