What is known about the life and character of Sir Thomas Malory is very little. We know he was a soldier, at one time a loyalist and at another a rebel. He was born before 1410 and died on the 14th of March, 1471 and belonged to an old Warwickshire family. Both his father and his Grandfather had been persons of consequence in the country.

In 1433 when he was in his early 20's, he came to his father's estate at Newbold Revell. In 1436 he was involved in the seige of Calais where he served in the train of Richard Beuchamp with one lance and two archers. In 1445 he was a member of parlaiment, but it seems that after these heroic deeds he turned to a life of a hardened criminal.

The records from the time state that he lay in ambush 'with other other malefactors' with the intent of murdering the Duke of Buckingham, that he broke into the abbey of Blessed Mary of Coombe and did there steal money and valuables from the abbot's chest, returned to the scene of the crime a few days later to insult the abbot, that on two occasions he stole the property and forced the wife of Hugh Smyth, and that he frequently led extensive cattle-raids and extorted money by threat.

Although he denied these allegations, Malory served eight imprisonments ranging from a few days to a 2 1/2 year stay. On July 27, 1451, he broke out of Coleshill prision and swam the moat and in October of 1454, he brok out of the jail at Colchester using "with great skill a variety of deadly weapons-swords, daggers, and langues-de-boefs (a halberd with a spiked head shaped like an ox-tongue).

His last arrest took place in 1460, and while nothing is known about his release, we find him among the knights who followed the Earl of Warwick on a military expedition to Northumberland. The purpose of this expedition was to raise the royal standard of Edward IV against the French and the Scots who at the instigation of Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou were threatening the peace of the realm. Malory was probably with Warwick throughout this campaign when he took part in the seige of Alnwick which lasted until January 30, 1463. Later, during a breach between Edward IV and Warwick, we see Warwick joining the Lancatrians and Malory did as well, because in 1468, Edward granted two successive general pardons to the Lancastrians and Malory was named on both.

Malory died on March 14, 1471 and his burial near Newgate suggests that he died a prisoner. It was most likely during this last imprisonment that Malory completed what he described as 'the whole book of King Arthur and his noble knights of the Round Table' - a series of Arthurian Romances which on July 31, 1485 appeared on Caxton's press in Westminster under the title of Le Morte Darthur.

Vinaver, Eugene. The Works of Sir Thomas Malory. Oxford University Press. London, 1962.