The following screed describes how things are (or will be) for my game.
Duke Gorlois is a Royal Officer of Logres and no relation to the royal house of Cornwall - indeed part of his responsibility as the military commander for Logres' Cornish March is to ride herd on the local client kings (Cornwall, Escavalon, Lyonesse etc) and make sure they don't bollix things up for the High King; whether that be by warring amongst themselves, raiding into Logres, allying themselves with hostile powers (the Irish chiefly) or pissing off friendly powers (the Bretons chiefly). As such, Gorlois is one of the High King's most important lieutenants (by the time of Gorlois' rebellion there are two other comparable men in Logres - Duke Corneus of Lindsey, overseeing the Northern March, and Duke Ulfius of Silchester, overseeing the Saxon March).
My backstory for Gorlois is that he was more Ambrosius' man than Uther's - AA always remembered that he overthrew the tyrant Vortigern from a secure base in the SW and made sure that he had a good friend in place to hold this critical region safe for him once he was confirmed in the High Kingship. When Uther succeeded AA in 480 he confirmed Gorlois in his position but I suspect he wasn't as well disposed towards Gorlois as his brother and that any resentments he had towards him (possibly rooted in a rivalry for Igraine's hand during AA's reign) built up to a fairly strong antipathy over the decade following his coronation.
For my game this all really starts to come to a head in 489 in the aftermath of the Battle of Windsor. Cyning Octa and many of his important followers were captured by Ulfius of Silchester who traded them to Uther (for which he got a Dukedom, lots of brownie points and doubtless numerous bits'n'bobs for his followers). Meanwhile Gorlois had captured Cyning Eossa and his followers, but preferred to hold them for ransom himself rather than turn them over to the High King. This aggravated Uther whose resentment and antipathy now tipped over into active suspicion (ably fanned by Ulfius, who is my designated 'bad guy' Cymric nobleman and was furiously intriguing against those he perceived as his rivals). Fearing that Gorlois is getting set to defy him and raise a rebellion and not knowing who else might be in on it, Uther insists that his chief tenants bring their families to court where they can be kept close as a guarantee of good behaviour.
Of course, once Gorlois' family are at court, Uther has a rush of blood to the nether regions and makes his move on Igraine (I think that Merlin, who is playing the longest of long games, probably has something to do with this). The resulting shenanigans, which prominently featured my PC knights and whose involvement (as Lindseymen) thus seemed to confirm Uther's fears that Cornwall and Lindsey were combining against him; provoked Gorlois' flight from court, his attainder, rebellion and the sorry events of 490-1. Corneus meanwhile kept his nerve, refused to rise to Ulfius' baiting or Uther's suspicions and thus managed to avoid getting caught up in treason.
This catastrophic falling out between the High King and one of his key supporters is what screws the remainder of Uther's reign and sets things up for the chaos of the interregnum. Not only has the High King fallen out with Gorlois (who will be next?), Uther then goes on to make a devil's deal with Aelle (which alienates much of his southern base) so he can prosecute the war against Gorlois and a second devil's deal with the Irish (which alienates much of his western base) for mercenaries to make up the numbers for his severely understrength army (the war is unpopular and the response to the High King's summons is thus extremely poor).
These expedient alliances create festering suspicions of Uther's judgement and/or motives and once the war settles into a stalemate, Uther makes things worse by ransoming Octa (and later Eossa once he gains posession of him) for the cash needed to prosecute a war which has proven disastrous for the Cymric cause - thus throwing away many of the fruits of the victory at Windsor, alienating his northern liegemen (to match the disenchantment of his southern and western liegemen) and reviving a scourge of the Cymri for the final years of his reign. The Clarence/Gloucester feud will get its initial shove around about now I think, probably thanks to Clarence and Gloucester taking opposing sides in the rebellion.
The resentment of the Cornish royal house (Idres and later Mark) towards a High King who posted Dukes on their borders to meddle in their affairs was already in place, but it was intensified by the Irish tribute that was imposed upon them after Gorlois' fall. I'm not sure why this occurred at present, probably Idres allied himself with Gorlois in order to maximise trouble for Uther and the tribute was imposed by Uther as a combination of punishment for a treacherous client king and payment to the Irish for their assistance against Gorlois. Keeping the Totnes kings under the thumb of the Irish also allows Uther to dismember Gorlois' holdings in the region and distribute them amongst several 'dukes' in the area, none of whom would be strong enough to mount the sort of threat that Gorlois posed.
Following the defeat of Gorlois' rebellion, it is only sustained politicking over the next several years and the strategic deployment of Igraine's daughters in a series of marriage alliances with various northern warlords that allows Uther to undo some of the self-inflicted damage to his cause and construct a fragile alliance which is able to corner Octa and Eossa at St Albans and bring them to heel. By this time Uther is a broken man however and clearly failing in health. Ironically his final act as High King (the execution of Octa and Eossa after the battle for reneging on their ransom terms by returning from the Continent) removes a significant check upon Cyning Aelle in the south and sows chaos in the northern Saxon cyningdoms which will make them much harder to deal with during the interregnum.
Uther's death really throws a spanner in the works because IMG both the High Kingship of Britain and the crown of Logres are elective monarchies. Normally the King of Logres is the front-runner to be the High King as well, but the events of the last years of Uther's reign and the death of many of the electors with Uther means that the survivors completely fail to agree on any candidate (Ulfius and Corneus are the key players within Logres at this point and have been at daggers drawn ever since the Cornish mess) and so the throne of Logres falls vacant.
What goes for the throne in Logres goes double for the High Kingship - with all the main candidates (the various northern Kings mainly, but Cornwall, Escavalon, Norgales and Cameliard jockey for position as well) powerful enough to block each other but not powerful enough to secure the prize. Merlin whips up his sword in the stone dog and pony show in the courtyard of St Pauls as a way to prevent the breakout of an all-out civil war (and to smooth the way for Arthur in a few years of course, long-game thinking again) and everyone goes away to sulk in their tents for the next fifteen years. Periodically someone gathers up an army and marches on London to demonstrate that they have secured the mandate of heaven and should be the new High King (including, briefly, Aelle - which puts a hell of a scare into the Cymry) but it never works out and everyone else continues with their watchful sulking, whilst the Cymric cause goes to hell in a handcart. Thus the stage is set for Arthur's appearance, the swift acceptance of his claim by the middling and smaller folk of the realm (who have suffered the most) and the stiff opposition by the larger magnates (who now see Merlin's sword in the stone stunt revealed as a flim-flam delaying tactic, while he readied his own catspaw for the role).
The elective nature of these two crowns also accounts for what happens after Arthur's death. It is irrelevant that Uther or Arthur have had children (illegitimate or not) if these offspring don't have enough of a powerbase amongst the electors to secure elevation to the crown on their own merits.
Mordred, of course, *did* have such a powerbase, but he predeceased Arthur and neither of his two sons was of an age to mount a credible claim of their own. Next closest in the bloodline are Arthur's nephews via his half-sister Morgawse, but they also predeceased Arthur (which is what comes of getting on the wrong side of Lancelot I suppose) and don't appear to have had offspring of any consequence - and so the blood-claim descends to Constantine, a cousin of Arthur (via Cador and Geraint) in the paternal line who has a personal powerbase (in the SW as it happens) and, after Gawaine's death, was nominated by Arthur's as his heir to boot. Election is therefore fairly straightforward for him - but becoming King of a Logres smashed by civil war and half overrun by saxons isn't much of a prize and the High Kingship of the Britons isn't much better.
Regards
Luke
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