User blog comment:It's Good to be the Queen/The Thrill is Gone/@comment-98.237.96.242-20130107182315/@comment-5674726-20130109185813

''When did he say this? So it means that after Uther's death the Five Kingdoms weren't so keen to keep up the alliances which actually shows that Camelot was even weaker than ever before and that Arthur wasn't much respected.''

In The Hollow Queen; Arthur said of his decision to seek an alliance with Sarrum, "If we're to achieve peace in the Five Kingdoms, we've got no choice."

That means that there wasn't peace at the time, which would indicate that the alliance Uther forged fell apart, since there's no way that Sarrum was a threat to the combined forces of the the Five Kingdoms.

One possibility is that the other monarchs were reluctant to ally with Arthur because of Morgana. She caused quite a bit of trouble for Camelot but had no interest in attacking the other four fifths of the Five Kingdoms, the only other kingdom she attacked was Nemeth, Camelot's ally. From the perspective of another monarch, it may have seemed wise to back away from Camelot and let Morgana be Arthur's problem. If she's not interested in attacking them, why do something that's likely to court her anger? If that's the case, Arthur could have been seeking an alliance with Sarrum to get help to capture and imprison Morgana, to remove the disincentive for other kingdoms to ally with Camelot.