* We have endeavoured to establish who King Arthur really was. The most plausible contender is a prince of Gwynedd, who unified the nationalist and imperialist factions of late fifth-century Britain.

1. That the Britons were stronger and more united by the last decade of the fifth century is not only shown in Gildas, Bede and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, but is also reflected in archaeology. For example, there are sophisticated fortifications constructed by the British at this time all across the East of Britain. Although this suggests a strong and determined leader, no surviving document for the next three centuries names him. Nennius' Historia Brittonum is the first to do so, telling us that the leaders name was Arthur.

2. Of the British kingdoms free from Anglo-Saxon occupation, only five were sufficiently strong to have been Arthur's power base: Gwynedd in North Wales, Dyfed and Gwent in South Wales, Dumnonia in South-West England, and Powys in the West Midlands and Central Wales. The evidence to determine the most powerful of these kingdoms derives from Gildas. When he was writing, some fifty years after the battle of Badon, the most powerful kingdom was Gwynedd. This, coupled with Ambrosius' connection with the area before Arthur, means that Gwynedd must have been a leading power throughout the era, making it a strong contender for Arthur's original kingdom.

3. Further evidence for Gwynedd being Arthur's kingdom comes from Geoffrey of Monmouth, when he names Arthur's father as Uther Pendragon. From the Welsh, the name means the 'terrible head dragon'. During the mid-fifth century, the rulers of Gwynedd had adopted the symbol of the red dragon as their emblem, and in Dark Age Welsh poetry the kings of Gwynedd are often referred to as the 'dragons of Britain', or the 'head dragons'. When Gildas addresses Maglocunus, the king of Gwynedd, he calls him 'dragon of the island'. If Uther Pendragon really was Arthur's father, then Arthur would appear to have been the son of the King of Gwynedd.