“ Malory achieved a remarkable feat—he took the Arthurian story in its worst and weakest form and he imparted to it a moral force and elevation which the cycle, even in its earlier and finer stage, had, save in the unique case of Von Eschenbach’s Parzival, never possessed. While genuine lovers of the Arthurian cycle must regret that the romances should only be known to the great majority of English readers through the versions of Malory and Tennyson, it is impossible to withhold from the Morte d’ Arthur the admiration due to an imperishable monument of English language and literature. ”

“ It seems probable that he is also to be identified with a “Thomas Malorie, miles,” who in 1468 was, on account of the part played by him in the Wars of the Roses, excluded with several others from the operation of a pardon issued by Edward IV. As, however, on the death of Sir Thomas on the 14th of March 1470, there was no difficulty as to inheritance, his estates passing to his grandson, he must, if this identification be correct, have come under the general amnesty of 1469. ”