There's one other problem with Arthurian legend, and it's a doozy. Arthur's alleged subjects were the Celtic peoples who lived in Britain before the invasion of

There's one other problem with Arthurian legend, and it's a doozy. Arthur's alleged subjects were the Celtic peoples who lived in Britain before the invasion of the Anglo-Saxon tribes speaking proto-English. If you use this as the origin story of England, you're making English people the bad guys. Tolkien must have realized this.