Bedivere
(a.k.a. Bedevere, Bedwyr)
Selon P.A. Karr...
One of Arthur's first knights, and the last one left alive with him after the battle with Mordred on Salisbury Plain, Bedivere was the knight who had to throw Excalibur back to the Lady of the Lake.
Malory mentions Bedivere first as one of Arthur's two companions (the other was Kay) in the adventure of the giant of Saint Michael's Mount on the way to the Continental campaign against the Emperor Lucius. Soon after the slaying of the giant, Bedivere, Gawaine, Lionel, and Bors were selected to carry Arthur's warlike message to Lucius. We do not, apparently, meet Bedivere again in Malory's account until he shows up at the tournament of Winchester and at the attempt to heal Sir Urre, which last marks him, if such evidence is needed, as a member of the Round Table. Bedivere, his brother Lucan the Butler, and a pair of bishops served as Arthur's messengers to Mordred to try to arrange a treaty. After the last battle, Bedivere obeyed, with famous reluctance, Arthur's command about Excalibur and then saw Arthur borne away in the boat with Morgan and her companions. Bedivere later found Arthur's grave at the hermitage of the former Archbishop of Canterbury. Bedivere became a hermit with the bishop. [Malory V, 5-6; XVIII, 11; XIX, 11; XXI, 3; XXI, 5-6]
This seems to be all Malory tells us of Bedivere. Nevertheless, I class him among the major knights. Along with Kay, he seems to have been one of the earliest companions of Arthur to have remained in the romances through the centuries, although by the time Malory got hold of the material other knights had crowded him from prominence.
Sutcliff, in Sword at Sunset, makes Bedivere (under the earlier version of his name) the Queen's lover, Lancelot having come too late into the body of Arthurian literature to fit Sutcliff's pseudo historical retelling.
In The Hollow Hills, Stewart seems to follow Sutcliff's lead in assigning the Queen's-lover role to Bedwyr. White identifies Bedivere with Pedivere in The Once and Future King, but in this instance I think he distorts Malory. Chapman includes Bedivere in his character as hermit in the cast of King Arthur's Daughter.