Treason in Arthurian legend caused by the duplicity in his knights. A linking motif throughout a variety of centuries and countries, authors focus on the treasonous destruction of Arthur's court, and the temptation knights face to engage in treason. Queen Guinevere found herself facing accusations of treason several times over the course of recorded Arthurian legend. In Malory's Le Morte d’Arthur, she is accused first in the “Poisoned Apple” episode, when at a dinner she holds for some of the knights of the Round Table, one of the knights, Sir Patrise, dies from eating a poisoned apple intended for Gawain. The real culprit is
Treason in Arthurian legend pillory, the wheel, or the removal of the accused's eyes. One source reads that “in 1476, Jean Bon, the would-be assassin of the dauphin Charles, was fortunate not to be punished capitally, though he did have his eyes gouged out.” Punishments of treason could also contain a sense of a macabre “poetic justice,” or a punishment tailored to fit the crime, as in the instance of counterfeiter Jean Jouye who was boiled alive “presumably because his crime involved the melting down of coin.” Imprisonment for traitors was usually the result of a reduced death sentence, rather than of an initial