In 1278 the supposed bodies of Arthur and Guinevere, having been ‘discovered’ at Glastonbury, were re-interred there by command of King Edward I of England. Before reburial, the bodies were re-clothed by the king and queen in person. This form of identification with the dead was chivalric, as was the Lord Edward's burial of Henry de Montfort, but on this occasion it was more than that. This action did, indeed, show the Welsh that Arthur was truly dead, and would not, therefore, return to oust their English overlords as Welsh prophecies claimed. However, this apparently (to us) ghoulish ceremonial was directed also at the English. The great future king prophesied by Merlin would be the resurrected Arthur, so his initial death was immaterial in terms of prophecy. What Edward was showing in this extremely personal identification with the (supposed) body of the dead king was that he himself was the second Arthur. By the time of Edward's death in 1307, the idea of the king of England as the prophetic hero who embodied all the political hopes, ideals and the nature of the English people had taken firm root in the political consciousness of many Englishmen. This hero, frequently identified with Arthur redivivus, was the result of a process of accumulation which had been occurring from the twelfth century onwards, stimulated by an ever-growing demand for political prophecies. This demand for political prophecy was not created by the production of literary texts; rather, it was the demand which stimulated the production of text.