When It Begins
When you are of royal blood, everyone thinks that you know what you are doing, that your every decision is inspired by God, that you are always inclined to do the right thing. Your choices aren't questioned, and it is easy to fall into arrogance, as Arthur had discovered years before.
It made it particularly hard to admit that you have done something wrong. It made it difficult to say out loud that, perhaps, your predecessors had been wrong as well. When you are King, your word is law, but that doesn't mean your opinion is the right one. To know the difference between what is more comfortable to you and what is fair is the hardest bit of ruling.
So it took Arthur sometime to be able to face his father's misdeeds and to try and change things. Sure, he didn't go searching for magic users to round them up, and bounty-hunters knew that his treasure was closed to them, for it must serve the people's needs and not his fears. And while this was easy to do, to actually change the law and customs wasn't so easy.
He had no wish to hunt druids, he had never wished to go after them. There was no honor in attacking peaceful people, that had always helped him when he needed and hadn't – most of them, at least – done nothing against his rule.
Yet, standing in front of Elyan's possessed body and saying the words that bound him to stop going after them was hard. It was hard because it meant admitting that he had been foolish, and that his father had been wrong. Uther had been a great king, but he knew nothing of compassion. He knew nothing of how to say he was sorry, of when to stop. Arthur wouldn't be such king. He would commit himself to peace – a peace that this land needed so much.
And as he heard his forgiveness, he knew his reign had finally begun.