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ROBIN HOOD, a Collection of all the Ancient
Poems, Songs and Ballads, now extant, Relative
to that Celebrated English Outlaw; by Joseph
Ritson; With eighty Wood Engravings by Thomas
Bewick and nine Etchings from original
paintings by A.H. Tourrier and E. Buckman.
ROBIN HOOD.
_PUBLISHER’S NOTE._
_Of this fine Large Paper Edition one hundred copies are printed,
each being numbered._
_The portrait and nine etchings are given in duplicate, one being
printed on Whatman paper and the other on Japanese._
_No._ 61
[Illustration: J. Ritson.]
[Illustration: J. Ritson.]
_RITSON_
ROBIN HOOD
A Collection of all the Ancient Poems,
Songs and Ballads, now extant, Relative to
that Celebrated English Outlaw
TO WHICH ARE PREFIXED HISTORICAL ANECDOTES
OF HIS LIFE
BY JOSEPH RITSON
With Eighty Wood Engravings
BY THOMAS BEWICK
PRINTED ON CHINA PAPER
Also Nine Etchings from Original Paintings
BY A. H. TOURRIER AND E. BUCKMAN
LONDON
JOHN C. NIMMO
14, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND, W.C.
1885
[Illustration: The Ballantyne Press
Ballantyne & Hanson Edinburgh London]
[Illustration]
_PUBLISHER’S NOTICE._
_This edition of ROBIN HOOD is printed from that published in
1832, which was carefully edited and printed from Mr. RITSON’S own
annotated edition of 1795._
_The original wood engravings, by the celebrated THOMAS BEWICK,
have been again used; and from being printed on China paper, will
be found superior in clearness and beauty to the first impression._
_The nine etchings now given have been newly etched from original
pictures painted by A. H. TOURRIER and E. BUCKMAN._
[Illustration]
CONTENTS.
THE LIFE OF ROBIN HOOD . . . i
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS . . . xiv
Part the First.
I. A LYTELL GESTE OF ROBYN HODE . . . 1
II. ROBIN HOOD [AND THE POTTER] . . . 81
III. ROBIN HOOD AND THE BEGGAR . . . 97
IV. ROBIN HOOD AND GUY OF GISBORNE . . . 114
V. A TRUE TALE OF ROBIN HOOD . . . 126
Part the Second.
I. ROBIN HOOD’S BIRTH, BREEDING, VALOUR, AND
MARRIAGE . . . 149
II. ROBIN HOOD’S PROGRESS TO
NOTTINGHAM . . . 161
III. THE JOLLY PINDER OF WAKEFIELD, WITH ROBIN
HOOD, SCARLET, AND JOHN . . . 166
IV. ROBIN HOOD AND THE BISHOP . . . 170
V. ROBIN HOOD AND THE BUTCHER . . . 175
VI. ROBIN HOOD AND THE TANNER . . . 181
VII. ROBIN HOOD AND THE TINKER . . . 189
VIII. ROBIN HOOD AND ALLIN A DALE . . . 197
IX. ROBIN HOOD AND THE SHEPHERD . . . 203
X. ROBIN HOOD AND THE CURTALL FRYER . . . 209
XI. ROBIN HOOD AND THE STRANGER . . . 217
XII. ROBIN HOOD AND QUEEN KATHERINE . . . 235
XIII. ROBIN HOOD’S CHASE . . . 244
XIV. ROBIN HOOD’S GOLDEN PRIZE . . . 249
XV. ROBIN HOOD RESCUING WILL STUTLY . . . 254
XVI. THE NOBLE FISHERMAN; OR, ROBIN HOOD’S
PREFERMENT . . . 262
XVII. ROBIN HOOD’S DELIGHT . . . 268
XVIII. ROBIN HOOD AND THE BEGGAR . . . 274
XIX. LITTLE JOHN AND THE FOUR BEGGARS . . . 280
XX. ROBIN HOOD AND THE RANGER . . . 285
XXI. ROBIN HOOD AND LITTLE JOHN . . . 290
XXII. ROBIN HOOD AND THE BISHOP OF
HEREFORD . . . 298
XXIII. ROBIN HOOD RESCUING THE WIDOW’S THREE
SONS FROM THE SHERIFF WHEN GOING TO BE
EXECUTED . . . 303
XXIV. ROBIN HOOD AND MAID MARIAN . . . 309
XXV. THE KING’S DISGUISE, AND FRIENDSHIP WITH
ROBIN HOOD . . . 314
XXVI. ROBIN HOOD AND THE GOLDEN ARROW . . . 323
XXVII. ROBIN HOOD AND THE VALIANT
KNIGHT . . . 330
XXVIII. ROBIN HOOD’S DEATH AND BURIAL . . . 335
APPENDIX . . . 341
GLOSSARY . . . 387
[Illustration]
LIST OF EMBELLISHMENTS.
PORTRAIT OF JOSEPH RITSON . . . _Frontispiece_
KIRKLEY HALL . . . _Page_ xiv
COURTESY OF LITTLE JOHN . . . 6
LITTLE JOHN AND THE KNIGHT . . . 14
ROBIN HOOD AND THE LADY . . . 58
THE BANQUET . . . 89
ROBIN HOOD AND THE ABBOT . . . 132
ROBIN HOOD AND THE PINDER . . . 168
THE PRAYER OF THE FRIARS . . . 252
ROBIN HOOD AND HIS BETRAYER . . . 336
[Illustration]
PREFACE.
The singular circumstance that the name of an outlawed individual
of the twelfth or thirteenth century should continue traditionally
popular, be chanted in ballads, and, as one may say,
Familiar in our mouth as household words,
at the end of the eighteenth, excited the editor’s curiosity to
retrieve all the historical or poetical remains concerning him that
could be met with: an object which he has occasionally pursued
for many years; and of which pursuit he now publishes the result.
He cannot, indeed, pretend that his researches, extensive as they
must appear, have been attended with all the success he could
have wished; but, at the same time, it ought to be acknowledged
that many poetical pieces, of great antiquity and some merit, are
deservedly rescued from oblivion.
The materials collected for the “Life” of this celebrated
character, which are either preserved at large or carefully
referred to in the “Notes and Illustrations,” are not, it must
be confessed, in every instance, so important, so ancient, or,
perhaps, so authentic, as the subject seems to demand; although the
compiler may be permitted to say, in humble second-hand imitation
of the poet Martial:
Some there are good, some middling, and some bad;
But yet they were the best that could be had.
Desirous to omit nothing that he could find upon the subject, he
has everywhere faithfully vouched and exhibited his authorities,
such as they are: it would, therefore, seem altogether uncandid or
unjust to make him responsible for the want of authenticity of such
of them as may appear liable to that imputation.
[Illustration]
{i}
[Illustration]
THE LIFE OF ROBIN HOOD.
It will scarcely be expected that one should be able to offer
an authentic narrative of the life and transactions of this
extraordinary personage. The times in which he lived, the mode of
life he adopted, and the silence or loss of contemporary writers,
are circumstances sufficiently favourable, indeed, to romance,
but altogether inimical to historical truth. The reader must,
therefore, be contented with such a detail, however scanty or
imperfect, as a zealous pursuit of the subject enables one to give;
and which, though it may fail to satisfy, may possibly serve to
amuse.
No assistance has been derived from the labours of his professed
biographers (1);[1] and even the {ii} industrious Sir John
Hawkins, from whom the public might have expected ample
gratification upon the subject, acknowledges that “the history
of this popular hero is but little known, and all the scattered
fragments concerning him, could they be brought together, would
fall far short of satisfying such an inquirer as none but real
and authenticated facts will content. We must,” he says, “take
his story as we find it.” He accordingly gives us nothing but two
or three trite and trivial extracts, with which every one at all
curious about the subject was as well acquainted as himself. It is
not, at the same time, pretended, that the present attempt promises
more than to bring together the scattered fragments to which the
learned historian alludes. This, however, has been done, according
to the best of the compiler’s information and abilities; and the
result is, with a due sense of the deficiency of both, submitted to
the reader’s candour.
* * * * *
ROBIN HOOD was born at Locksley, in the county of Nottingham (2),
in the reign of King Henry the Second, and about the year of Christ
1160 (3). His extraction was noble, and his true name ROBERT
FITZOOTH, which vulgar pronunciation easily corrupted into ROBIN
HOOD (4). He is frequently styled, and commonly reputed to have
been, EARL OF HUNTINGDON; a title to which, in the latter part of
his life, at least, he actually appears to have had some sort of
pretension (5). In his youth he {iii} is reported to have been of
a wild and extravagant disposition; insomuch that, his inheritance
being consumed or forfeited by his excesses, and his person
outlawed for debt, either from necessity or choice, he sought
an asylum in the woods and forests, with which immense tracts,
especially in the northern parts of the kingdom, were at that time
covered (6). Of these, he chiefly affected Barnsdale, in Yorkshire,
Sherwood, in Nottinghamshire, and, according to some, Plompton
Park, in Cumberland (7). Here he either found, or was afterward
joined by, a number of persons in similar circumstances—
“Such as the fury of ungovern’d youth
Thrust from the company of awful men,” (8)
who appear to have considered and obeyed him as their chief or
leader, and of whom his principal favourites, or those in whose
courage and fidelity he most confided, where Little John (whose
surname is said to have been Nailor), William Scadlock (Scathelock
or Scarlet), George a Green, pinder (or pound-keeper) of Wakefield,
Much, a miller’s son, and a certain monk or frier named Tuck (9).
He is likewise said to have been accompanied in his retreat by a
female, of whom he was enamoured, and whose real or adopted name
was Marian (10).
His company, in process of time, consisted of a hundred archers;
men, says Major, most skilful in battle, whom four times that
number of the boldest fellows durst not attack (11). His manner
of recruiting was somewhat singular; for, in the words of an {iv}
old writer, “whersoever he hard of any that were of unusual
strength and ‘hardines,’ he would desgyse himselfe, and, rather
then fayle, go lyke a begger to become acquaynted with them; and,
after he had tryed them with fyghting, never give them over tyl he
had used means to drawe [them] to lyve after his fashion” (12):
a practice of which numerous instances are recorded in the more
common and popular songs, where, indeed, he seldom fails to receive
a sound beating. In shooting with the long bow, which they chiefly
practised, “they excelled all the men of the land; though, as
occasion required, they had also other weapons” (13).
In those forests, and with this company, he for many years reigned
like an independent sovereign; at perpetual war, indeed, with the
King of England, and all his subjects, with an exception, however,
of the poor and needy, and such as were “desolate and oppressed,”
or stood in need of his protection. When molested, by a superior
force in one place, he retired to another, still defying the power
of what was called law and government, and making his enemies pay
dearly, as well for their open attacks, as for their clandestine
treachery. It is not, at the same time, to be concluded that he
must, in this opposition, have been guilty of manifest treason or
rebellion; as he most certainly can be justly charged with neither.
An outlaw, in those times, being deprived of protection, owed
no allegiance: “his hand was against every man, and every man’s
hand against him” (14). {v} These forests, in short, were his
territories; those who accompanied and adhered to him his subjects:
“The world was not his friend, nor the world’s law:”
and what better title King Richard could pretend to the territory
and people of England than Robin Hood had to the dominion of
Barnsdale or Sherwood is a question humbly submitted to the
consideration of the political philosopher.
The deer with which the royal forests then abounded (every Norman
tyrant being, like Nimrod, “a mighty hunter before the Lord”)
would afford our hero and his companions an ample supply of food
throughout the year; and of fuel, for dressing their vension, or
for the other purposes of life, they could evidently be in no want.
The rest of their necessaries would be easily procured, partly by
taking what they had occasion for from the wealthy passenger who
traversed or approached their territories, and partly by commerce
with the neighbouring villages or great towns.
It may be readily imagined that such a life, during great part of
the year, at least, and while it continued free from the alarms
or apprehensions to which our foresters, one would suppose, must
have been too frequently subject, might be sufficiently pleasant
and desirable, and even deserve the compliment which is paid to it
by Shakespeare in his comedy of _As you like it_ (act i. scene 1),
where, on Oliver’s asking, “Where will the old duke live?” Charles
answers, “They say he is already in the forest of Arden, and {vi}
a many merry men with him; and there they live like the OLD ROBIN
HOOD OF ENGLAND; . . . and fleet the time carelessly as they did in
the golden world.” Their gallant chief, indeed, may be presumed to
have frequently exclaimed with the banished Valentine, in another
play of the same author:[2]
“How use doth breed a habit in a man!
This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods,
I better brook than flourishing peopled towns:
Here can I sit alone, unseen of any,
And, to the nightingale’s complaining notes,
Tune my distresses and record my woes.”
He would doubtless, too, often find occasion to add:
“What hallooing and what stir is this to-day?
These are my mates, that make their wills their law,
Have some unhappy passenger in chace:
They love me well; yet I have much to do,
To keep them from uncivil outrages.”
But, on the other hand, it will be at once difficult and painful to
conceive,
“――When they did hear
The rain and wind beat dark December, how,
In that their pinching cave, they could discourse
The freezing hours away!” (15).
Their mode of life, in short, and domestic economy, of which no
authentic particulars have been even traditionally preserved,
are more easily to be guessed at than described. They have,
nevertheless, been elegantly sketched by the animating pencil of an
excellent though neglected poet:—
{vii}
“The merry pranks he play’d, would ask an age to tell,
And the adventures strange that Robin Hood befell,
When Mansfield many a time for Robin hath been laid,
How he hath cousen’d them, that him would have betray’d;
How often he hath come to Nottingham disguis’d,
And cunningly escap’d, being set to be surpriz’d.
In this our spacious isle, I think there is not one,
But he hath heard some talk of him and Little John;
And to the end of time, the tales shall ne’er be done,
Of Scarlock, George a Green, and Much the miller’s son,
Of Tuck the merry frier, which many a sermon made
In praise of Robin Hood, his outlaws, and their trade.
An hundred valiant men had this brave Robin Hood,
Still ready at his call, that bowmen were right good,
All clad in Lincoln green (16), with caps of red and blue,
His fellow’s winded horn not one of them but knew,
When setting to their lips their little beugles shrill,
The warbling ecchos wak’d from every dale and hill.
Their bauldricks set with studs, athwart their shoulders cast,
To which under their arms their sheafs were buckled fast,
A short sword at their belt, a buckler scarce a span,
Who struck below the knee, not counted then a man:
All made of Spanish yew, their bows were wondrous strong;
They not an arrow drew, but was a cloth-yard long.
Of archery they had the very perfect craft,
With broad-arrow, or but, or prick, or roving shaft,
At marks full forty score, they us’d to prick, and rove,
Yet higher than the breast, for compass never strove;
Yet at the farthest mark a foot could hardly win:
At long-outs, short, and hoyles, each one could cleave the pin:
Their arrows finely pair’d, for timber, and for feather,
With birch and brazil piec’d to fly in any weather;
And shot they with the round, the square, or forked pile,
The loose gave such a twang, as might be heard a mile.
And of these archers brave, there was not any one,
But he could kill a deer his swiftest speed upon,
Which they did boil and roast, in many a mighty wood,
Sharp hunger the fine sauce to their more kingly food. {viii}
Then taking them to rest, his merry men and he
Slept many a summer’s night under the greenwood tree.
From wealthy abbots’ chests, and churls’ abundant store,
What oftentimes he took, he shar’d amongst the poor:
No lordly bishop came in lusty Robin’s way,
To him before he went, but for his pass must pay:
The widow in distress he graciously reliev’d,
And remedied the wrongs of many a virgin griev’d: (17)
He from the husband’s bed no married woman wan,
But to his mistress dear, his loved Marian,
Was ever constant known, which wheresoe’er she came,
Was sovereign of the woods; chief lady of the game:
Her clothes tuck’d to the knee, and dainty braided hair,
With bow and quiver arm’d, she wander’d here and there,
Amongst the forests wild; Diana never knew
Such pleasures, nor such harts as Mariana slew.”[3]
That our hero and his companions, while they lived in the woods,
had recourse to robbery for their better support is neither to
be concealed nor to be denied. Testimonies to this purpose,
indeed, would be equally endless and unnecessary. Fordun, in the
fourteenth century, calls him “_ille famosissimus siccarius_,”
that most celebrated robber, and Major terms him and Little John
“_famatissimi latrones_.” But it is to be remembered, according to
the confession of the latter historian, that, in these exertions
of power, he took away the goods of rich men only; never killing
any person, unless he was attacked or resisted: that he would not
suffer a woman to be maltreated; nor ever took anything from the
poor, but charitably fed them with the wealth he drew from the
abbots. I disapprove, says he, of the rapine {ix} of the man:
but he was the most humane and the prince of all robbers (18). In
allusion, no doubt, to this irregular and predatory course of life,
he has had the honour to be compared to the illustrious Wallace,
the champion and deliverer of his country; and that, it is not a
little remarkable, in the latter’s own time (19).
Our hero, indeed, seems to have held bishops, abbots, priests, and
monks, in a word, all the clergy, regular or secular, in decided
aversion.
“These byshoppes and thyse archebyshoppes,
Ye shall them bete and bynde,”
was an injunction carefully impressed upon his followers. The Abbot
of Saint Mary’s, in York (20), from some unknown cause, appears to
have been distinguished by particular animosity; and the Sheriff of
Nottinghamshire (21), who may have been too active and officious in
his endeavours to apprehend him, was the unremitted object of his
vengeance.
Notwithstanding, however, the aversion in which he appears to
have held the clergy of every denomination, he was a man of
exemplary piety, according to the notions of that age, and retained
a domestic chaplain (Frier Tuck, no doubt) for the diurnal
celebration of the divine mysteries. This we learn from an anecdote
preserved by Fordun (22), as an instance of those actions which
the historian allows to deserve commendation. One day, as he heard
mass, which he was most devoutly accustomed to do (nor would {x}
he, in whatever necessity, suffer the office to be interrupted,)
he was espied by a certain sheriff and officers belonging to the
king, who had frequently before molested him in that most secret
recess of the wood where he was at mass. Some of his people, who
perceived what was going forward, advised him to fly with all
speed, which, out of reverence to the sacrament, which he was then
most devoutly worshipping, he absolutely refused to do. But the
rest of his men having fled for fear of death, Robin, confiding
solely in Him whom he reverently worshipped, with a very few,
who by chance were present, set upon his enemies, whom he easily
vanquished; and, being enriched with their spoils and ransom, he
always held the ministers of the Church and masses in greater
veneration ever after, mindful of what is vulgarly said:
“Him God does surely hear
Who oft to th’ mass gives ear.”
Having, for a long series of years, maintained a sort of
independent sovereignty, and set kings, judges, and magistrates at
defiance, a proclamation was published (23) offering a considerable
reward for bringing him in either dead or alive; which, however,
seems to have been productive of no greater success than former
attempts for that purpose. At length, the infirmities of old age
increasing upon him (24), and desirous to be relieved, in a fit
of sickness, by being let blood, he applied for that purpose to
the Prioress of Kirkleys nunnery in Yorkshire, his {xi} relation
(women, and particularly religious women, being, in those times,
somewhat better skilled in surgery than the sex is at present), by
whom he was treacherously suffered to bleed to death. This event
happened on the 18th of November 1247, being the 31st year of King
Henry III. and (if the date assigned to his birth be correct) about
the 87th of his age (24). He was interred under some trees, at a
short distance from the house; a stone being placed over his grave,
with an inscription to his memory (25).
Such was the end of Robin Hood: a man who, in a barbarous age, and
under a complicated tyranny, displayed a spirit of freedom and
independence which has endeared him to the common people, whose
cause he maintained (for all opposition to tyranny is the cause of
the people), and, in spite of the malicious endeavours of pitiful
monks, by whom history was consecrated to the crimes and follies
of titled ruffians and sainted idiots, to suppress all record of
his patriotic exertions and virtuous acts, will render his name
immortal.
With respect to his personal character: it is sufficiently evident
that he was active, brave, prudent, patient; possessed of uncommon
bodily strength and considerable military skill; just, generous,
benevolent, faithful, and beloved or revered by his followers
or adherents for his excellent and amiable qualities. Fordun,
a priest, extols his piety, Major (as we have seen) pronounces
him the most humane and the prince of all robbers; and Camden,
whose testimony is of {xii} some weight, calls him “_prædonem
mitissimum_,” the gentlest of thieves. As proofs of his universal
and singular popularity: his story and exploits have been made
the subject as well of various dramatic exhibitions (26), as of
innumerable poems, rimes, songs and ballads (27): he has given
rise to divers proverbs (28); and to swear by him, or some of his
companions, appears to have been a usual practice (29): his songs
have been chanted on the most solemn occasions (30); his service
sometimes preferred to the Word of God (31): he may be regarded
as the patron of archery (32); and, though not actually canonised
(a situation to which the miracles wrought in his favour, as well
in his lifetime as after his death, and the supernatural powers
he is, in some parts, supposed to have possessed (33), give him
an indisputable claim), he obtained the principal distinction of
sainthood, in having a festival allotted to him, and solemn games
instituted in honour of his memory, which were celebrated till the
latter end of the sixteenth century; not by the populace only, but
by kings or princes and grave magistrates; and that as well in
Scotland as in England; being considered, in the former country, of
the highest political importance, and essential to the civil and
religious liberties of the people, the efforts of government to
suppress them frequently producing tumult and insurrection (34).
His bow, and one of his arrows, his chair, his cap, and one of
his slippers, were preserved, with peculiar veneration, till
within {xiii} the present century (35); and not only places which
afforded him security or amusement, but even the well at which he
quenched his thirst, still retain his name (36): a name which, in
the middle of the present century, was conferred as a singular
distinction upon the prime minister to the king of Madagascar (37).
After his death his company was dispersed (38). History is silent
in particulars: all that we can, therefore, learn is, that the
honour of Little John’s death and burial is contended for by
rival nations (39); that his grave continued long “celebrous
for the yielding of excellent whetstones;” and that some of his
descendants, of the name of Nailor, which he himself bore, and they
from him, were in being so late as the last century (40).
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES TO “THE LIFE OF ROBIN HOOD”, pp. i–xiii
[1] For Notes, &c., see p. xiv. _et seq._
[2] Two Gentlemen of Verona, act v. scene 4.
[3] Drayton’s Polyolbion, song xxvi.
{xiv}
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS REFERRED TO IN THE FOREGOING LIFE.
(1) _“Former biographers,” &c._] Such, that is, as have already
appeared in print, since a sort of manuscript life in the Sloane
Library will appear to have been of some service. The first of
these respectable personages is the author, or rather compiler,
of “The noble birth and gallant achievements of that remarkable
outlaw Robin Hood; together with a true account of the many
merry extravagant exploits he played; in twelve several stories:
newly collected by an ingenious antiquary. London, printed by W.
O.” [William Onley], 4to, black letter, no date. These “several
stories,” in fact, are only so many of the songs in the common
Garland transposed; and the “ingenious antiquary,” who strung them
together, has known so little of his trade, that he sets out with
informing us of his hero’s banishment by King Henry the Eighth. The
above is supposed to be the “small merry book” called Robin Hood,
mentioned in a list of “books, ballads, and histories, printed for
and sold by William Thackeray at the Angel in Duck-lane” (about
1680), preserved in one of the volumes of old ballads (part of
Bagford’s collection) in the British Museum.
Another piece of biography, from which much will not be expected,
is “The lives and heroick atchievements of the renowned Robin Hood
and James Hind, two noted robbers and highwaymen. London, 1752.”
8vo. This, however, is probably nothing more than an extract from
Johnson’s “Lives of the Highwaymen,” in which, as a specimen of the
authors historical authenticity, we have the life and actions of
that noted robber, Sir John Falstaff.
[Illustration: KIRKLEY HALL.]
[Illustration: KIRKLEY HALL.]
{xv}
The principal if not sole reason why our hero is never once
mentioned by Matthew Paris, Benedictus Abbas, or any other
ancient English historian, was most probably his avowed enmity to
churchmen; and history, in former times, was written by none but
monks. They were unwilling to praise the actions which they durst
neither misrepresent nor deny. Fordun and Major, however, being
foreigners, have not been deterred by this professional spirit from
rendering homage to his virtues.
(2) —“_was born at Locksley, in the county of Nottingham._”] “Robin
Hood,” says a MS. in the British Museum (Bib. Sloan. 715), written,
as it seems, toward the end of the sixteenth century, “was borne at
Lockesley in Yorkshyre, or after others in Nottinghamshire.” The
writer here labours under manifest ignorance and confusion, but the
first row of the rubric will set him right:
“In Locksly town, in merry Nottinghamshire,
In merry sweet Locksly town,
There bold Robin Hood was born and was bred,
Bold Robin of famous renown.”[4]
Dr. Fuller (Worthies of England, 1662, p. 320) is doubtful as to
the place of his nativity. Speaking of the “Memorable Persons” of
Nottinghamshire, “Robert Hood,” says he, “(if not by birth) by his
chief abode this country-man.”
The name of such a town as Locksley, or Loxley (for so we sometimes
find it spelled), in the county of Nottingham or of York, does
not, it must be confessed, occur either in Sir Henry Spelman’s
Villare Anglicum. in Adams’s Index Villaris, in Whatley’s England’s
Gazetteer,[5] in Thoroton’s History of Nottinghamshire, or in the
Nomina Villarum Eboracensium (York, 1768, 8vo). The silence of
these authorities is not, however, to be regarded as a conclusive
proof that such a place never existed. The names of towns and
villages, of which no trace is now to be found but in ancient
writings, would fill a volume.
{xvi}
(3) —“_in the reign of King Henry the Second, and about the year
of Christ 1160._”] “Robin Hood,” according to the Sloane MS., “was
borne . . . in the dayes of Henry the 2nd, about the yeare 1160.”
This was the 6th year of that monarch; at whose death (anno 1189)
he would, of course, be about 29 years of age. Those writers are
therefore pretty correct who represent him as playing his pranks
(Dr. Fuller’s phrase) in the reign of King Richard the First, and,
according to the last-named author, “about the year of our Lord
1200.”[6] Thus Mair (who is followed by Stowe, Annales, 1592, p.
227), “Circa hæc tempora [sci. Ricardi I.] ut auguror,” &c. A MS.
note in the Museum (Bib. Har. 1233), not, in Mr. Wanley’s opinion,
to be relied on, places him in the same period, “Temp. Rich. I.”
Nor is Fordun altogether out of his reckoning in bringing him down
to the time of Henry III., as we shall hereafter see; and with him
agrees Andrew of Wyntowne, in his “Oryginale Cronykil,” written
about 1420, which, at the year 1283, has the following lines:
“Lytil Jhon and Robyne Hude
Wayth-men were commendyd gud:
In Yngil-wode and Barnysdale
Thai oysyd all this tyme thare trawale.”
A modern writer (History of Whitby, by Lionel Charlton, York, 1779,
4to), though of no authority in this point, has done well enough to
speak of him as living “in the days of abbot Richard and Peter his
successor;” that is, between the years 1176 and 1211. The author
of the two plays upon the story of our hero, of which a particular
account will be hereafter given, makes him contemporary with King
Richard, who, as well as his brother Prince John, is introduced
upon the scene; which is confirmed by another play, quoted in Note
5. Warner, also, in his Albion’s England, 1602, p. 132, refers his
existence to “better daies, first Richard’s daies.” This, to be
sure, may not be such evidence as would be sufficient to decide the
point in a court of justice; but neither judge nor counsel will
dispute {xvii} the authority of that oracle of the law Sir Edward
Coke, who pronounces that “This Robert Hood lived in the reign of
King R. I.” (3 Institute, 197).
We must not therefore regard what is said by such writers as the
author of “George a Greene, the pinner of Wakefield,” 1599 (see
Note 9), who represents our hero as contemporary with King Edward
IV.,[7] and the compiler of a foolish book called “The noble birth,
&c. of Robin Hood” (see Note 1), who commences it by informing us
of his banishment by King Henry VIII. As well, indeed, might we
suppose him to have lived before the time of Charlemagne, because
Sir John Harington, in his translation of the Orlando Furioso,
1590, p. 391, has made
“Duke ’Ammon in great wrath thus wise to speake:
This is a Tale indeed of Robin Hood,
Which to beleeve, might show my wits but weake;”
or to imagine his story must have been familiar to Plutarch,
because in his Morals, translated by Dr. Philemon Holland, 1603, p.
644, we read the following passage:—“Evenso [_i.e._ as the crane
and fox serve each other in Æsop], when learned men at a table
plunge and drowne themselves (as it were), in subtile problemes and
questions interlaced with logicke, which the vulgar sort are not
able for their lives to comprehend and conceive; whiles they also
againe for their part come in with their foolish songs, and vain
ballads of Robin-Hood and Little John, telling tales of a tubbe, or
of a roasted horse, and such like.” Who, indeed, would be apt to
think that his skill in archery was known to Virgil? And yet, as
interpreted by our facetious friend Mr. Charles Cotton, he tells us
that
“Cupid was a little tyny,
Cogging, lying, peevish nynny;
But with a bow the shit-breecht elf
Would shoot like Robin Hood himself.”
In a word, if we are to credit translators, he must have {xviii}
existed before the siege of Troy; for thus, according to one of
Homer’s:
“Then came a choice companion
Of Robin Hood and Little John,
Who many a buck and many a doe,
In Sherwood forest, with his bow,
Had nabb’d; believe me it is true, sir,
The fellow’s Christian name was Teucer.”
_Iliad_, by Bridges, 4to, p. 231.[8]
This last supposition, indeed, has even the respectable countenance
of Dan Geoffrey Chaucer:
“Pandarus answerde, it may be well inough,
And held with him of all that ever he saied,
But in his hart he thought, and soft lough,
And to himselfe full soberly he saied,
From hasellwood there Jolly Robin plaied,
Shall come all that thou abidest here,
Ye, farewell all the snow of ferne yere.”
_Troilus_ (B. 5), Speght’s edition, 1602.
(4) “_His extraction was noble, and his true name Robert
Fitzooth._”] In “an olde and auncient pamphlet,” which Grafton
the chronicler had seen, it was written that “This man discended
of a noble parentage.” The Sloane MS. says “He was of . . . .
parentage;” and though the material word is illegible, the sense
evidently requires noble. So, likewise, the Harleian note: “It is
said that he was of noble blood.” Leland also has expressly termed
him “nobilis” (Collectanea, i. 54). The following account of his
family will be found sufficiently particular. Ralph Fitzothes,
or Fitzooth, a Norman, who had come over to England with William
Rufus, married Maud or Matilda, daughter of Gilbert de Gaunt, Earl
of Kyme and Lindsey, by whom he had two sons: Philip, afterward
Earl of Kyme, that earldom being part of his mother’s dowry, and
William. Philip the elder died without issue; William was a ward to
Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, in whose household he received his
education, and who, by the king’s express command, gave {xix} him
in marriage to his own niece, the youngest of the three daughters
of the celebrated Lady Roisia de Vere, daughter of Aubrey de Vere,
Earl of Guisnes in Normandy, and lord high chamberlain of England
under Henry I., and of Adeliza, daughter to Richard de Clare, Earl
of Clarence and Hertford, by Payn de Beauchamp, baron of Bedford,
her second husband. The offspring of this marriage was our hero,
Robert Fitzooth, commonly called Robin Hood. (See Stukeley’s
Palæographia Britannica, No. I. passim.)
A writer in the Gentleman’s Magazine for March 1793, under the
signature D. H.,[9] pretends that Hood is only a corruption of
“o’ th’ wood, q.d. of Sherwood.” This, to be sure, is an absurd
conceit; but, if the name were a matter of conjecture, it might
be probably enough referred to some particular sort of hood
our hero wore by way of distinction or disguise. See Scot’s
Discoverie of Witchcraft, 1584, p. 522. In Jonson’s masque of “The
king’s entertainment at Welbeck” (Works, 1756, vii. 53), certain
characters are introduced “in livery hoods,” of whom Fitz-ale says,
“Six hoods they are, and of the blood,
They tell of ancient Robin Hood.”
It may be remembered that Hugh _Capet_, the first king of France
of the third and last race, obtained that surname from a similar
circumstance. It is unnecessary to add that Hood is a common
surname at this day, as well as a place in Yorkshire, formerly
_Hode_; and that Edward the Third, in the tenth year of his reign,
confirmed to Thomas, the son of _Robert de Hode_, of Hoveden, in
tail-general, certain places of moorland, _&c._ _in vasto de_
Incklesmore, _&c._ (Ro. Pa. 10 E. 3. m. 31).
(5) “_He is frequently styled . . . Earl of Huntingdon, a title
to which, for the latter part of his life at least, he actually
appears to have had some sort of pretension._”] In Grafton’s “olde
and auncient pamphlet,” though the author had, as already noticed,
said “this man discended of a NOBLE PARENTAGE,” he adds, “or
rather beyng of a base stocke {xx} and linage, was for his manhood
and chivalry advaunced to the noble dignitie of an ERLE.”
In the MS. note (Bib. Har. 1233) is the following passage: “It is
said that he was of noble blood no lesse then an earle.” Warner,
in his Albion’s England, already cited, calls him “a county.” The
titles of Mundy’s two plays are: “The downfall” and “The death of
Robert earle of Huntington.” He is likewise introduced in that
character in the same author’s Metropolis Coronata, hereafter
cited. In his epitaph we shall find him expressly styled “Robert,
Earl of Huntingtun.”
In “A pleasant commodie called Looke about you,” printed in 1600,
our hero is introduced, and performs a principal part. He is
represented as the young Earl of Huntington, and in ward to Prince
Richard, though his brother Henry, the young king, complains of his
having “had wrong about his wardship.” He is described as
“A gallant youth, a proper gentleman;”
and is sometimes called “pretty earle” and “little wag.” One of the
characters thus addresses him:
“But welcome, welcome, and young Huntington,
Sweet Robyn Hude, honor’s best flowing bloome,”
and calls him
“――an honourable youth,
Vertuous and modest, Huntington’s right heyre.”
It is also said that
“His father Gilbert was the smoothst fac’t lord
That ere bare armes in England or in Fraunce.”
In one scene, “Enter Richard and Robert with coronets.”
“_Rich._ Richard the Prince of England, with his ward,
The noble Robert Hood, earle Huntington,
Present their service to your majestie.”
Dr. Percy’s objection, that the most ancient poems make no mention
of this earldom,[10] but only call him a yeoman, will be considered
in another place. How he founded his pretensions to this title will
be seen in his pedigree. Here it is. {xxi}
[Illustration: “THE PEDIGREE OF ROBIN HOOD EARL OF HUNTINGTON.”]
[Transcriber’s Note] The following is a Distributed Proofreaders
transcription of the pedigree chart printed in the original book.
1 Richard Fitzgilbert de Clare, earl of Brien; m. Roisia.
11 Robert Fitzgilbert; m. Alice (22).
12 Roisia; m. Gilbert de Gaunt, earl of Kyme and Lindsey came in
with the conquerer.
121 Walter de Gaunt earl of Lindsey.
1211 Gilbert de Gaunt earl of Lincoln; m. Avis dau. and heir of
William de Romara e. of Lincoln.
12111 Alice heiress; m. Simon S. lis III. earl of Huntingdon
and Northton (2121). ob. s. p 1184.
122 Maud; m. Ralf Fitzooth a Norman, lord of Kyme.
1221 Philip Fitzooth, lord of Kyme, ob. s. p.
1222 William Fitzooth, brought up by Robert earl of Oxford; m. a
daughter of Payn Beauchamp and lady Roisia de Vere.
12221 ROBERT FITZOOTH, commonly called ROBIN HOOD, pretended
earl of Huntington, ob. 1274 [1247].[11]
2 I. Waltheof earl of Northumberland and Huntington; m. Judith
countess of Huntington, the conqueror’s niece.
21 Maud; m. II. Simon de S. lis I. earl of Northampton and
Huntingdon; m. III. David I. king of Scots, earl of Huntingdon;
211 IV. Henry earl of Northumberland and Huntingdon; son of Maud
and David; m. Ada daughter of William earl of Warren.
2111 VI. Malcolm IV. king of Scots, earl of Northumberland and
Huntingdon.
2112 VII. William earl of Huntingdon.
2113 IX. David earl of “Carrick” and Huntingdon, son of Henry
IV. (above) earl and of Ada. ob. 1219.
21131 X. John sirnamed Scot his son, earl of Angus and
Huntingdon, ob. s. p. 1237.
212 V. Simon S. lis II.; son of Simon and Maud; m. Isabel dau. of
Robert Bossu earl of Leicester.
2121 VIII. Simon S. lis III. earl of Huntingdon and Northton.
ob. s. P. 1184; m. Alice heiress (12111).
22 Alice; m. Robert Fizgilbert (11), son of Richard Fitzgilbert and
Roisia.
[End Transcriber’s Note]
{xxii}
(6) _“In his youth he is reported to have been of a wild and
extravagant disposition,” &c._] Grafton’s pamphlet, after supposing
him to have been “advaunced to the noble dignitie of an erle,”
continued thus: “But afterwardes he so prodigally exceeded in
charges and expences, that he fell into great debt, by reason
whereof, so many actions and sutes were commenced against him
whereunto he answered not, that by {xxiii} order of lawe he was
outlawed.”[12] Leland must undoubtedly have had good authority for
calling him “nobilis ille exlex.”[13] Fordun supposes him in the
number of those deprived of their estates by King Henry III. “Hoc
intempore,” says he, “de exheredatis surrexit & caput erexit ille
famosissimus siccarius Robertus Hode & littill Johanne cum eorum
complicibus” (p. 774). The Sloane MS. says he was “so ryotous that
he lost or sould his patrimony & for debt became an outlawe;”
and the Harleian note mentions his “having wasted his estate in
riotous courses.” The former authority, however, gives a different,
though, it may be, less credible, account of his being obliged to
abscond. It is as follows: “One of his first exployts was the
going abrode into a forrest & bearing with him a bowe of exceeding
great strength, he fell into company with certayne rangers or
woodmen, who fell to quarrel with him, as making showe to use such
a bowe as no man was able to shoote withall. Whereto Robin replyed
that he had two better then that at Lockesley, only he bare that
with him nowe as a byrding bowe. At length the ‘contention’ grewe
so hote that there was a wager layd about the kyllyng of a deere a
greate distance of, for performance whereof Robin offered to lay
his head to a certayne some of money, the advantage of which rash
speach the others presently tooke. So the marke being found out,
one of them, both to make his hart faynt and hand unsteady, as he
was about to shoote urged him with the losse of head if he myst the
marke. Notwithstanding Robyn kyld the deare, and gave every man his
{xxiv} money agayne, save to him which at the poynt of shooting so
upbraided him with danger to loose his hed for that wager; & he
sayd they would drinke togeyther: whereupon the others stomached
the matter and from quarelling they grewe to fighting with him. But
Robin, getting him somewhat of, with shooting dispatch them, and so
fled away; and then betaking himselfe to lyve in the woods,” &c.[14]
That he lurked or infested the woods is agreed by all. “Circa hæc
tempora,” says Major, “Robertus Hudus Anglus & parvus Joannes,
latrones famatissimi, in nemoribus latuerunt.”
Dr. Stukeley says that “Robin Hood took to this wild way of life
in imitation of his grandfather Geoffrey de Mandeville, who being
a favorer of Maud empress, King Stephen took him prisoner at S.
Albans, and made him give up the tower of London, Walden, Plessis,
&c., upon which he lived on plunder” (MS. note in his copy of Robin
Hood’s Garland).
(7) _“Of these, he chiefly affected Barnsdale,” &c._] “Along on
the lift hond,” says Leland, “a iii. miles of betwixt Milburne and
Feribridge I saw the wooddi and famose forrest of Barnesdale, wher
thay say that Robyn Hudde lyvid like an outlaw” (Itinerary, v. 101).
“They haunted about Barnsdale forrest, Compton [r. Plompton]
parke,[15] and such other places” (MS. Sloane).
“His principal residence,” says Fuller, “was in Shirewood forrest
in this county [Notts], though he had another haunt (he is no
fox that hath but one hole) near the sea in the North Riding in
Yorkshire, where Robin Hood’s Bay still retaineth his name: not
that he was any pirat, but a land-thief, who retreated to those
unsuspected parts for his security” (Worthies of England, p. 320).
{xxv}
In Thoroton’s Nottinghamshire, p. 505, is some account of the
ancient and present state of Sherwood forest; but one looks in
vain through that dry detail of land-owners for any particulars
relating to our hero. “In anno domini 1194, King Richard the First,
being a hunting in the forrest of Sherwood, did chase a hart out of
the forrest of Sherwood into Barnesdale in Yorkshire, and because
he could not there recover him, he made proclamation at Tickill
in Yorkshire, and at divers other places there, that no person
should kill, hurt, or chase the said hart, but that he might safely
retorne into forrest againe, which hart was afterwards called a
hart-royall proclaimed” (Manwood’s Forest Laws, 1598, p. 25, from
“an auncient recorde” found by him in the tower of Nottingham
Castle).[16]
(8) _“Here he either found,” &c._] After being outlawed, Grafton
tells us, “for a lewde shift, as his last refuge, [he] gathered
together a companye of roysters and cutters, and practised
robberyes and spoyling of the kinges subjects, and occupied and
frequented the forestes or wild countries.” See also the following
note.
(9) “_Little John, William Scadlock, George a Green, pinder of
Wakefield, Much a miller’s son, and a certain monk or frier named
Tuck._”] Of these, the pre-eminence is incontestably due to Little
John, whose name is almost constantly coupled with that of his
gallant leader. “Robertus Hode & littill Johanne,” are mentioned
together by Fordun as early as 1341; and later instances of the
connection would be almost endless. After the words, “for debt
became an {xxvi} outlaw,” the Sloane MS. adds: “then joyninge to
him many stout fellowes of lyke disposition, amongst whom one
called Little John was principal or next to him, they haunted about
Barnsdale forrest,” &c. See Notes 39, 40.
With respect to Frier Tuck, “thogh some say he was an other kynd
of religious man, for that the order of freyrs was not yet sprung
up” (MS. Sloan.), yet as the Dominican friers (or friers preachers)
came into England in the year 1221, upward of twenty years before
the death of Robin Hood, and several orders of these religious had
flourished abroad for some time, there does not seem much weight
in that objection: nor, in fact, can one pay much regard to the
term frier, as it seems to have been the common title given by
the vulgar (more especially after the Reformation) to all the
regular clergy, of which the friers were at once the lowest and
most numerous. If Frier Tuck be the same person who, in one of the
oldest songs, is called the curtail frier of Fountains-dale, he
must necessarily have been one of the monks of that abbey, which
was of the Cistercian order. However this may be, Frier Tuck is
frequently noticed by old writers as one of the companions of Robin
Hood, and as such was an essential character in the morris-dance
(see Note 34). He is thus mentioned by Skelton, laureat, in his
“goodly interlude” of Magnificence, written about the year 1500,
and with an evident allusion to some game or practice now totally
forgotten and inexplicable:
“Another bade shave halfe my berde,
And boyes to the pylery gan me plucke,
And wolde have made me freer Tucke,
To preche oute of the pylery hole.”
In the year 1417, as Stow relates, “one, by his counterfeite name,
called Frier Tucke, with manie other malefactors, committed many
robberies in the counties of Surrey & Sussex, whereupon the king
sent out his writs for their apprehension” (Annales, 1592).
George a Green is George o’ the green, meaning perhaps the
town-green, in which the pound or pinfold stood of which he had the
care. He has been particularly celebrated, and {xxvii} “As good as
George a Green” is still a common saying.[17] Drayton, describing
the progress of the river Calder, in the West Riding of Yorkshire,
has the following lines:
“It chanc’d she in her course on ‘Kirkley’ cast her eye,
Where merry Robin Hood, that honest thief, doth lie;
Beholding fitly too before how Wakefield stood,
She doth not only think of lusty Robin Hood,
But of his merry man, the pindar of the town
Of Wakefield, George a Green, whose fames so far are blown
For their so valiant fight, that every freeman’s song
Can tell you of the same; quoth she, be talk’d on long,
For ye were merry lads, and those were merry days.”
Thus, too, Richard Brathwayte, in his poetical epistle “to
all true-bred northerne sparks of the generous society of the
Cottoneers” (Strappado for the Divell, 1615):
“But haste, my muse, in colours to display
Some auncient customes in their high-roade way,
* * * * *
At least such places labour to make knowne
As former times have honour’d with renowne.
* * * * *
The first whereof that I intend to show
Is merry Wakefield, and her pindar too,
Which fame hath blaz’d with all that did belong,
Unto that towne in many gladsome song,
The pindar’s valour, and how firme he stood
In th’ townes defence ’gainst th’ rebel Robin Hood,
How stoutly he behav’d himselfe, and would,
In spite of Robin, bring his horse to th’ fold,
His many May-games which were to be seene
Yearly presented upon Wakefield greene,
Where lovely Jugge and lustie Tib would go,
To see Tom-lively turne upon the toe;
Hob, Lob, and Crowde the fidler would be there,
And many more I will not speake of here.
Good God! how glad hath been this hart of mine,
To see that towne, which hath, in former time,
So flourish’d and so gloried in her name,
Famous by th’ pindar who first rais’d the same!
Yea, I have paced ore that greene and ore
And th’ more I saw’t I tooke delight the more, {xxviii}
For where we take contentment in a place,
A whole daies walke seemes as a cinquepace.
Yet as there is no solace upon earth
Which is attended evermore with mirth,
But when we are transported most with gladnesse,
Then suddenly our joy’s reduc’d to sadnesse;
So far’d with me to see the pindar gone,
And of those jolly laddes that were not one
Left to survive: I griev’d more then Ile say:
(But now for Bradford I must hast away).
* * * * *
Unto thy task, my muse, and now make knowne
The jolly shoo-maker of Bradford towne,
His gentle craft so rais’d in former time
By princely journey-men his discipline,
Where he was wont with passengers to quaffe,
But suffer none to carry up their staffe
Upon their shoulders, whilst they past through town,
For if they did he soon would beat them downe;
(So valiant was the souter) and from hence
Twixt Robin Hood and him grew th’ difference;
Which, cause it is by most stage-poets writ,
For brevity I thought good to omit.”
In the latter part of this extract, honest Richard evidently
alludes to “A pleasant conceyted comedie of George a Greene, the
pinner of Wakefield; as it was sundry times acted by the servants
of the right honourable the earle of Sussex,” 1599, 4to, which
has been erroneously ascribed to Heywood the epigrammatist, and
is reprinted, with other trash, in the late edition of Dodsley’s
Old Plays; only it unluckily happens that Robin Hood is almost the
only person who has no difference with the souter (or shoemaker) of
Bradford. The play, in short (or at least that part of it which we
have any concern with), is founded on the ballad of Robin Hood and
the Pinder of Wakefield (see part ii. song 3), which it directly
quotes, and is, in fact, a most despicable performance.[18] King
Edward (the Fourth) having taken King James of Scotland prisoner,
after a most bloody battle near Middleham Castle, from which of
30,000 Scots not 5000 had escaped, comes with his royal captive in
disguise to Bradford, where they {xxix} meet Robin Hood and George
a Green, who have just had a stout affray: and after having read
this, and a great deal more such nonsensical stuff, Captain Grose
sagaciously “supposes that this play has little or no foundation
in history;” and very gravely sits down and debates his opinion in
form.
“The history of George a Green, pindar of the town of Wakefield,”
4to, no date,[19] is a modern production, chiefly founded on the
old play just mentioned, of neither authority nor merit.
Our gallant pinder is thus facetiously commemorated by Drunken
Barnaby:
“Hinc diverso cursu, sero
Quod audissem de pindero
Wakefeeldensi; gloria mundi,
Ubi socii sunt jucundi,
Mecum statui peragrare
Georgii fustem visitare.”
“Turning thence, none could me hinder
To salute the Wakefield pindar;
Who indeed is the world’s glory,
With his comrades never sorry.
This was the cause, lest you should miss it,
George’s club I meant to visit.”
“Veni Wakefield peramænum,
Ubi quærens Georgium Greenum,
Non inveni, sed in lignum
Fixum reperi Georgii signum,
Ubi allam bibi feram
Donec Georgio fortior eram.”
“Strait at Wakefield I was seen a,
Where I sought for George a Green a;
But could find not such a creature,
Yet on a sign I saw his feature,
Where strength of ale had so much stir’d me,
That I grew stouter far than Jordie.”
Besides the companions of our hero enumerated in the text, and
whose names are most celebrated and familiar, we find those of
William of Goldsbrough (mentioned by Grafton), Right-hitting Brand
(by Mundy), and Gilbert with the white {xxx}
hand, who is thrice named in the Lyttell Geste of Robyn Hode (i.
52, 71), and is likewise noticed by Bishop Gawin Douglas in his
Palice of Honour, printed at Edinburgh in 1579, but written before
1518:
“Thair saw I Maitlaind upon auld Beird Gray,
Robene Hude, and Gilbert with the quhite hand,
How Hay of Nauchton slew, in Madin land.”[20]
As no mention is made of Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and William
of Cloudeslie, either in the ancient legend or in more than one of
the numerous songs of Robin Hood, nor does the name of the latter
once occur in the old metrical history of those famous archers
reprinted in Percy’s Reliques, and among pieces of ancient popular
poetry, it is to be concluded that they flourished at different
periods, or at least had no connection with each other. In a poem,
however, intitled, “Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and young
William of Cloudesley, the second part,” 1616, 4to, b. l. (Bib.
Bod. Art. L. 71, being a more modern copy than that in Selden C.
39, which wants the title, but was probably printed with the first
part, which it there accompanies, in 1605; differing considerably
therefrom in several places, and containing many additional
verses), are the following lines (not in the former copy):
“Now beare thy father’s heart, my boy,
Said William of Cloudesley then,
When i was young i car’d not for
The brags of sturdiest men.
The pinder of Wakefield, George a Green,
I try’d a sommer’s day,
Yet he nor i were victors made
Nor victor’d went away.
Old Robin Hood, nor Little John,
Amongst their merry men all,
Nor fryer Tuck, so stout and young,
My courage could appall.”
(10) “_Marian._”] Who or whatever this lady was, it is observable
that no mention of her occurs either in the Lytell Geste of Robyn
Hode, or in any other poem or song {xxxi} concerning him, except
the not very old ballad of Robin Hood’s Golden Prize, where she is
barely named, and a still more modern one of no merit (see part ii.
song 24).[21] She is an important character, however, in the two
old plays of The death and downfall of Robert earl of Huntington,
written before 1600, and is frequently mentioned by dramatic or
other writers about that period. Her presence, likewise, was
considered as essential to the morris-dance. See Note 34.
In the _First Part of King Henry IV._ Falstaff says to the hostess,
“There’s no more faith in thee than in a stew’d prune; nor no more
truth in thee than in a drawn fox; and for womanhood, Maid Marian
may be the deputy’s wife of the ward to thee;” upon which Dr.
Johnson observes, that “Maid Marian is a man dressed like a woman,
who attends the dancers of the morris.” “In the ancient songs of
Robin Hood,” says Percy, “frequent mention is made of Maid Marian,
who appears to have been his concubine. I could quote,” adds he,
“many passages in my old MS. to this purpose, but shall produce
only one:[22]
‘Good Robin Hood was living then,
Which now is quite forgot,
And so was fayre Maid Marian,’ &c.”
Mr. Steevens, too, after citing the old play of “The downfall of
Robert earl of Huntington,” 1601, to prove “that Maid Marian was
originally a name assumed by Matilda, the daughter of Robert, Lord
Fitzwater, while Robin Hood remained in a state of outlawry,”
observes, that “Shakespeare speaks of Maid Marian in her degraded
state, when she was {xxxii} represented by a strumpet or a clown;”
and refers to figure 2 in the plate at the end of the play, with
Mr. Tollet’s observations on it. The widow, in Sir W. Davenant’s
“Love and Honour,” says, “I have been Mistress Marian in a maurice
ere now;” and Mr. Warton[23] quotes an old piece, entitled “Old
Meg of Herefordshire for a Maid Marian, and Hereford town for a
morris-dance: or 12 morris-dancers in Herefordshire of 1200 years
old,” London, 1609, 4to, which is dedicated, he says, to one Hall,
a celebrated tabourer in that country.[24] See Note 34.
(11) _“His company,” &c._] See the entire passage quoted from Major
in a subsequent note. “By such bootyes as he could get,” says the
writer of the Sloane MS., “his company encreast to an hundred and a
halfe.”
(12) _—“the words of an old writer.”_] The author of the Sloane
manuscript; which adds: “after such maner he procured the pynner
of Wakefeyld to become one of his company, and a freyr called
Muchel [r. Tuck] . . . Scarlock he induced upon this occasion: one
day meeting him as he walket solitary & like to a man forlorne,
because a mayd to whom he was affyanced was taken from [him] by the
violence of her frends, & given to another that was old & welthy,
whereupon Robin, understanding when the maryage-day should be,
came to the church as a begger, & having his own company not far
of, which came in so soone as they hard {xxxiii} the sound of his
horne, he tooke the bryde perforce from him that [bare] in hand
to have marryed her, & caused the preist to wed her & Scarlocke
togeyther.” (See part ii. song 8.) This MS., of which great part
is merely the old legend or Lytell Geste of Robyn Hode turned into
prose, appears to have been written before the year 1600.
(13) _“In shooting,” &c._] MS. Sloan. Grafton also speaks of our
hero’s “excellyng principally in archery or shooting, his manly
courage agreeyng thereunto.”
Their archery, indeed, was unparalleled, as both Robin Hood and
Little John have frequently shot an arrow a measured mile, or 1760
yards, which it is supposed no one, either before or since, was
ever able to do. “Tradition,” says Master Charlton, “informs us
that in one of ‘Robin Hood’s’ peregrinations, he, attended by his
trusty mate Little John, went to dine [at Whitby Abbey] with the
abbot Richard, who, having heard them often famed for their great
dexterity in shooting with the long bow, begged them after dinner
to shew him a specimen thereof; when, to oblige the abbot, they
went up to the top of the abbey, whence each of them shot an arrow,
which fell not far from Whitby-laths, but on the contrary side of
the lane; and in memorial thereof, a pillar was set up by the abbot
in the place where each of the arrows was found, which are yet
standing in these our days; that field where the pillar for Robin
Hood’s arrow stands being still called Robin Hood’s field, and the
other where the pillar for Little John’s arrow is placed, still
preserving the name of John’s field. Their distance from Whitby
Abbey is more than a measured mile, which seems very far for the
flight of an arrow, and is a circumstance that will stagger the
faith of many; but as to the credibility of the story, every reader
may judge thereof as he thinks proper; only I must here beg leave
to observe that these very pillars are mentioned, and the fields
called by the aforesaid names, in the old deeds for that ground,
now in the possession of Mr. Thomas Watson” (History of Whitby,
York, 1779, p. 146).[25] {xxxiv}
Dr. Meredith Hanmer, in his Chronicle of Ireland (p. 179), speaking
of Little John, says, “There are memorable acts reported of him,
which I hold not for truth, that he would shoot an arrow a mile off
and a great deale more; but them,” adds he, “I leave among the lyes
of the land.”[26] See Note 39. {xxxv}
(14) “_An outlaw, in those times, being deprived of protection,
owed no allegiance,” &c._] Such a character was, doubtless, at the
period treated of, in a very critical situation; it being equally
as legal and meritorious to hunt down and dispatch him as it was to
kill a wolf, the head of which animal he was said to bear. “Item
foris facit,” says Bracton (who wrote about the time), “omnia que
pacis sunt, quia a tempore quo utlagatus est caput gerit lupinum,
ita ut impune ab omnibus interfici possit” (l. 2, c. 35). In the
great roll of the exchequer, in the 7th year of King Richard I.,
is an allowance by writ of two marks to Thomas de Prestwude,
for bringing to Westminster the head of William de Elleford, an
outlaw. (See Madox’s History of the Exchequer, 136.) Those who
received or consorted with a person outlawed were subject to the
same punishment. Such was the humane policy of our enlightened
ancestors! See Note 21.
(15)
“_――how
. . . . they could discourse
The freezing hours away!_”]
(Cymbeline, act iii. scene 3). The chief subjects of our hero’s
conversation are supposed, by a poetical genius of the 16th {xxxvi}
century, to have been the commendation of a forest-life and the
ingratitude of mankind.
“I have no tales of Robin Hood, though mal-content was he
In better daies, first Richard’s daies, and liv’d in woods as we
A Tymon of the world; but not devoutly was he soe,
And therefore praise I not the man: but for from him did groe
Words worth the note, a word or twaine of him ere hence we goe.
Those daies begot some mal-contents, the principall of whome
A county was, that with a troope of yomandry did rome,
Brave archers and deliver men, since nor before so good,
Those took from rich to give the poore, and manned Robin Hood.
He fed them well, and lodg’d them safe in pleasant caves and bowers,
Oft saying to his merry men, What juster life than ours?
Here use we tallents that abroad the churles abuse or hide,
Their coffers’ excrements, and yeat for common wants denide.
We might have sterved for their store, & they have dyc’st our bones,
Whose tongues, driftes, harts, intice, meane, melt, as syrens, foxes,
stones,
Yea even the best that betterd them heard but aloofe our mones.
And redily the churles could prie and prate of our amis,
Forgetfull of their owne. . . .
I did amis, not missing friends that wisht me to amend:
I did amend, but missed friends when mine amis had end:
My friends therefore shall finde me true, but I will trust no frend.
Not one I knewe that wisht me ill, nor any workt me well,
To lose, lacke, live, time, frends, in yncke, an hell, an hell, an
hell!
Then happie we (quoth Robin Hood) in merry Sherwood that dwell.”[27]
It has been conjectured, however, that, in the winter season, our
hero and his companions severally quartered themselves in villages
or country-houses more or less remote, with persons of whose
fidelity they were assured. It is not improbable, at the same time,
that they might have tolerably comfortable habitations erected in
the woods.
Archery, which our hero and his companions appear to have carried
to a state of perfection, continued to be cultivated for some
ages after their time, down, indeed, to that of Henry VIII., or
about the year 1540, when, owing to the introduction of artillery
and matchlock-guns, it became neglected, and the bowmen of Cressy
and Agincourt utterly extinct; though it may be still a question
whether a body of expert archers would not, even at this day, be
superior to an equal {xxxvii} number armed with muskets.[28]
The loss sustained from this change by the people at large seems
irreparable. Anciently, the use of the bow or bill qualified every
man for a soldier; and a body of peasants, led on by a Tyler or a
Cade, was not less formidable than any military force that could
be raised to oppose them: by which means the people from time to
time preserved the very little liberty they had, and which their
tyrants were constantly endeavouring to wrest from them. See how
the case stands at present: the sovereign, let him be who or what
he will (kings have been tyrants, and may be so again), has a
standing army, well disciplined and accoutred, while the subjects
or people are absolutely defenceless: as much care having been
taken, particularly since “the glorious revolution,” to deprive
them of arms as was formerly bestowed to enforce their use and
practice.[29] The following extract from Hale’s Historia Placitorum
Coronæ (i. 118) will serve to show how familiar the bow and arrow
was in the 14th century:—“M. 22. E. 3. Rot. 117. coram rege Ebor.
This was the case of Henry Vescy, who had been indicted before
the sheriff in turno suo . . . of divers felonies, whereupon the
sheriff mandavit commissionem suam Henrico de Clyderawe & aliis
ad capiendum prædictum H. Vescy, & salvo ducendum usque castrum
de Ebor.” Vescy would not submit to an arrest, but fled, and
inter fugiendum shot with his bow and arrows at his pursuers,
but in the end was killed by Clyderawe: to which may be added a
remarkable passage in Harison’s “Description of England” (prefixed
to Holinshed’s Chronicle, 1587), to prove how much it had declined
in the 16th. “In times past,” says he, “the {xxxviii} cheefe
force of England consisted in their long bowes. But now we have
in maner generallie given over that kind of artillerie, and for
long bowes in deed doo practise to shoot compasse for our pastime;
which kind of shooting can never yeeld anie smart stroke, nor beat
down our enemies, as our countrymen were woont to doo at everie
time of need. Certes the Frenchmen and Rutters,[30] deriding our
new archerie in respect of their corslets, will not let, in open
skirmish, if anie leisure serve, to turne up their tailes, and
crie, Shoote, English; and all because our strong shooting is
decaied and laid in bed. But if some of our Englishmen now lived
that served King Edward the Third in his warres with France, the
breech[31] of such a varlet should have beene nailed to his bum
with one arrow, and an other fethered in his bowels, before he
should have turned about to see who shot the first” (p. 198).
Bishop Latimer, in his sixth sermon before King Edward VI., gives
an interesting account how the sons of yeomen were, in his infancy,
trained up to the bow. “But now,” says he, “we have taken up
whooring in townes, instead of shooting in the fieldes.”
(16)
“_All clad in Lincoln green._”]
This species of cloth is mentioned by Spenser (Faerie Queene, VI.
ii. 5):
“All in a woodman’s jacket he was clad
Of Lincolne greene, belay’d with silver lace
And on his head an hood with aglets sprad,
And by his side his hunter’s horne he hanging had.”
It is likewise noticed by our poet himself, in another place:
“Swains in shepherds gray, and gyrles in Lincolne greene.”[32]
See Polyolbion, song xxv., where the marginal note says, “Lincolne
anciently dyed the best green in England.” Thus Coventry had
formerly the reputation of dying the best blue. {xxxix} See Ray’s
Proverbs, p. 178. Kendal green is equally famous, and appears to
have been cloth of a similar quality. This colour was adopted
by foresters to prevent their being too readily discovered by
the deer. See Sir John Wynne’s History of the Guedir Family
(Barrington’s Miscellanies), p. 419. Thus the Scotish Highlanders
used to wear brown plaids to prevent their being distinguished
among the heath. It is needless to observe that green has ever been
the favourite dress of an archer, hunter, &c. See Note 34.[33] We
now call it a Saxon or grass green:
“His coat is of a Saxon green, his waistcoat’s of a plaid” (O. song).
Lincoln green was well known in France in or before the 13th
century. Thus, in an old fabliau, transprosed by M. Le Grand
(Fabliaux ou Contes, iv. 13), “Il mit donc son surcot fourré
d’écureuil, et sa belle robe d’Estanfort teinte en verd.” Estanfort
is Stamford, in Lincolnshire.[34] This cloth is, likewise, often
mentioned by the old Scotish poets under the names of Lincum licht,
Lincum twyne, &c., and appears to have been in universal request:
and yet, notwithstanding this cloud of evidence, Mr. Pinkerton
has had the confidence to assert that “no particular cloth was
ever made at Lincoln.” (See Ancient Scotish Poems, ii. 430.) But,
indeed, this worthy gentleman, as Johnson said of Goldsmith, only
stumbles upon truth by accident. {xl}
(17)
“_From wealthy abbots’ chests_,” _&c._]
“But who,” exclaims Dr. Fuller, having cited this passage, “made
him a judge? or gave him a commission to take where it might
be best spared, and give where it was most wanted?” That same
power, one may answer, which authorises kings to take where it
can be worst spared, and give it where it is least wanted. Our
hero, in this respect, was a knight-errant; and wanted no other
commission than that of Justice, whose cause he militated. His
power, compared with that of the king of England, was by no means
either equally usurped or equally abused: the one reigned over
subjects (or slaves) as a master (or tyrant), the other possessed
no authority but what was delegated to him by the free suffrage
of his adherents, for their general good: and as for the rest,
it would be absurd to blame in Robin what we should praise in
Richard.[35] The latter, too, warred in remote parts of the
world against nations from which neither he nor his subjects had
sustained any injury; the former at home against those to whose
wealth, avarice, or ambition he might fairly attribute not only
his own misfortunes, but the misery of the oppressed and enslaved
society he had quitted. In a word, every man who has the power has
also the authority to pursue the ends of justice, to regulate the
gifts of fortune, by transferring the superfluities of the rich to
the necessities of the poor; by relieving the oppressed, and even,
when necessary, destroying the oppressor. These are the objects of
the social union, and every individual may, and to the utmost of
his power should, endeavour to promote them. Had our Robin Hood
been, like M’Donald of Barrisdale, a reader of Virgil, he, as well
as that gallant chief, might have inscribed on his baldric— {xli}
“Hæ tibi erunt artes; pacis componere mores,
Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos.”[36]
(18) “_But it is to be remembered_,” _&c._] The passage from
Major’s work, which has been already quoted, is here given entire
(except as to a single sentence introduced in another place).
“Circa hæc tempora [s. Ricardi I.] ut auguror, Robertus Hudus &
Parvus Joannes latrones famatissimi, in nemoribus latuerunt, solum
opulentum virorum bona diripientes. Nullum nisi eos invadentem
vel resistentem pro suarum rerum tuitione occiderunt. Centum
sagittarios ad pugnam aptissimos Robertus latrociniis aluit quos
400 viri fortissimi invadere non audebant. Fæminam nullum opprimi
permisit, nec pauperum bona surripuit, verum eos ex abbatum bonis
ablatis opipare pavit. Viri rapinam improbo sed latronum omnium
humanissimus & princeps erat” (Majoris Britanniæ Historia, Edin.
1740, p. 128).
Stowe, in his Annales, 1592, p. 227, gives an almost literal
version of the above passage; Richard Robinson versifies it;[37]
and Camden slightly refers to it. {xlii}
(19) —“_has had the honour to be compared to the illustrious
Wallace_,” _&c._] In the first volume of Peck’s intended supplement
to the Monasticon, consisting of collections for the history of
Præmonstratensian monasteries, now in the British Museum, is a
very curious riming Latin poem with the following title: “Prioris
Alnwicensis de bello Scotico apud Dumbarr, tempore rigis Edwardi
I. dictamen sive rithmus Latinus, quo de Willielmo Wallace Scotico
illo Robin Whood, plura sed invidiose canit;” and in the margin
are the following date and reference:—“22. Julii 1304. 32. E. 1.
Regist. Prem. fol. 59. a.” This, it maybe observed, is the first
known instance of our hero’s name being mentioned by any writer
whatever; and affords a strong and respectable proof of his early
popularity.
(20) “_The abbot of St. Mary’s in York._”] “In the year 1088, Alan,
Earl of Richmond, founded here a stately abbey for black monks to
the honour of St. Olave; but it was afterwards dedicated to the
Blessed Virgin by the command of king William Rufus. Its yearly
revenues at the suppression amounted to £1550, 7_s._ 9_d._ Dugd.,
£2850, 1_s._ 5_d._ Speed” (Willis’s Mitred Abbeys, i. 214). The
abbots in our hero’s time were—
Robert de Harpsham (el. 1184), ob. 1198.
Robert de Longo Campo, ob. 1239.
William Rondele, ob. 1244.
Tho. de Wharterhille, ob. 1258.
(21) —“_the sheriff of Nottinghamshire._”] Ralph Murdach was
sheriff of Derby and Nottinghamshires in the first year of King
Richard I., and for the seven years preceding, and William Brewerre
in his sixth year, between which and the first no name appears on
the roll. See Fuller’s Worthies, &c.
In the year 1195, Hubert, Archbishop of Canterbury, {xliii}
justiciary of all England, sent throughout the kingdom this form
of oath: that all men of the realm of England would keep the peace
of the lord the king to their power; and that they would neither
be thieves nor robbers, nor the receivers of such, nor consent to
them in anything; and that when they were able to know such-like
malefactors, they would take them to the utmost of their power, and
deliver them to the sheriff; who in no wise should be delivered
unless by the lord the king or his chief justice; and if unable to
take them, they should cause the bailiffs of the lord the king to
know who they were: and, cry being raised for pursuing outlaws,
robbers, thieves, or their receivers, all should fully do that
suit to the utmost of their power, &c. Knights were to be assigned
for these purposes, and men chosen and faithful were sent to
execute them in every county, who by the oath of true men of the
vicinages took many and put them in the king’s prisons; but many,
being forewarned, and conscious of evil, left their houses and
possessions and fled (_R. de Hoveden_, p. 757).
(22) —“_an anecdote preserved by Fordun_,” _&c._] “De quo eciam
quædam commendabilia recitantur, sicut patuit in hoc, quod cum
ipse quondam in Barnisdale iram [f. ob iram] regis & fremitum
principis, missam, ut solitus erat, devotissime audiret, nec
aliqua necessitate volebat interrumpere officium, quadam die cum
audiret missam, à quodam vicecomite & ministris regis, sæpius per
prius ipsum infestantibus, in illo secretissimo loco nemorali,
ubi missæ interfuit, exploratus, venientes ad eum qui de suis
hoc perceperunt, ut omni annisu fugeret suggesserunt, qui, ob
reverentiam sacramenti, quod tunc devotissime venerabatur, omnino
facere recusavit. Sed ceteris suis, ob metum mortis trepidantibus,
Robertus tantum confisus in eum, quem coluit reveritus, cum
paucissimis, qui tunc forte ei affuerunt, inimicos congressus &
eos de facili devicit, et de eorum spoliis ac redemptione ditatus,
ministros ecclesiæ & missas semper in majori veneratione semper &
de post habere præelegit, attendens quod wlgariter dictum est:
Hunc deus exaudit, qui missam sæpius audit.”
J. De Fordun Scotichronicon, à Hearne, Ox. 1722, p. 774. {xliv}
This passage is found in no other copy of Fordun’s Chronicle than
one in the Harleian Library. Its suppression in all the rest may
be fairly accounted for on the principle which is presumed to have
influenced the conduct of the ancient English historians. See Note
1.
(23) —“_a proclamation was published_,” _&c._] “The king att last,”
says the Harleian MS., “sett furth a proclamation to have him
apprehended,” &c. Grafton, after having told us that he “practised
robberyes,” &c., adds, “The which beyng certefyed to the king, and
he beyng greatly offended therewith, caused his proclamation to
be made that whosoever would bryng him quicke or dead, the king
would geve him a great summe of money, as by the recordes in the
Exchequer is to be seene: But of this promise no man enjoyed any
benefite. For the sayd Robert Hood, being afterwardes troubled with
sicknesse,” &c. (p. 85.) See Note 14.
(24) “_At length the infirmities of old age increasing upon him_,”
_&c._] Thus Grafton: “The sayd Robert Hood, beyng troubled with
sicknesse, came to a certain nonry in Yorkshire called Bircklies
[r. Kircklies], where desiryng to be let blood, he was betrayed and
bled to death.” The Sloane MS. says that “[Being] dystempered with
could and age, he had great payne in his lymmes, his bloud being
corrupted, therefore to be eased of his payne by letting bloud, he
repayred to the priores of Kyrkesly, which some say was his aunt, a
woman very skylful in physique & surgery; who, perceyving him to be
Robyn Hood, & waying howe fel an enimy he was to religious persons,
toke reveng of him for her owne howse and all others by letting him
bleed to death. It is also sayd that one Sir Roger of Doncaster,
bearing grudge to Robyn for some injury, incyted the priores, with
whome he was very familiar, in such a maner to dispatch him.” See
the Lytell Geste of Robyn Hode, ad finem. The Harleian MS., after
mentioning the proclamation “sett furth to have him apprehended,”
adds, “At which time it happened he fell sick at a nunnery in
Yorkshire called Birkleys [r. Kirkleys]; & desiring there to be let
blood, hee was betrayed & made bleed to death.”
Kirkleys, Kirklees, or Kirkleghes, formerly Kuthale, in the {xlv}
deanery of Pontefract, and archdeaconry of the West Riding of
Yorkshire, was a Cistercian, or, as some say, a Benedictine
nunnery, founded, in honour of the Virgin Mary and St. James, by
Reynerus Flandrensis in the reign of King Henry II. Its revenues
at the dissolution were somewhat about £20, and the site was
granted (36 Hen. 8.) to John Tasburgh and Henry Savill, from whom
it came to one of the ancestors of Sir George Armytage, Bart.,
the present possessor. The remains of the building (if any) are
very inconsiderable, and its register has been searched after in
vain. See Tanner’s Notitia, p. 674. Thoresby’s Ducatus Leodiensis,
p. 91. Hearne’s “Account of Several Antiquities in and about the
University of Oxford,” at the end of Leland’s Itinerary, vol. ii.
p. 128.
In 1706 was discovered, among the ruins of the nunnery, the
monument of Elisabeth de Staynton, prioress; but it is not certain
that this was the lady from whom our hero experienced such kind
assistance. See Thoresby and Hearne ubi supra.
“One may wonder,” says Dr. Fuller, “how he escaped the hand of
justice, dying in his bed, for ought is found to the contrary;
but it was because he was rather a merry than a mischievous thief
(complementing passengers out of their purses), never murdering any
but deer, and . . . . ‘feasting’ the vicinage with his vension”
(Worthies, p. 320). See the following note.
(25) “_He was interred under some trees at a short distance from
the house; a stone being placed over his grave with an inscription
to his memory._”] “Kirkley monasterium monialium, ubi Ro: Hood
nobilis ille exlex sepultus” (Leland’s Collectanea, i. 54).
“Kirkleys Nunnery, in the Woods, whereof Robin Hood’s grave is, is
between Halifax and Wakefield upon Calder” (Letter from Jo. Savile
to W. Camden, Illus. viro epis. 1691).
“――as Caldor comes along,
It chanced she in her course on ‘Kirkley’ cast her eye,
Where merry Robin Hood, that honest thief, doth lie.”
(Polyolbion, song 28.)
See also Camden’s Britannia, 1695, p. 709. {xlvi}
In the second volume of Dr. Stukeley’s Itinerarium Curiosum is an
engraving of “the prospect of Kirkley’s abby, where Robin Hood
dyed, from the footway leading to Heartishead church, at a quarter
of a mile distance. A. The New Hall. B. The Gatehouse of the
Nunnery. C. The trees among which Robin Hood was buryed. D. The way
up the Hill were this was drawn. E. Bradley wood. F. Almondbury
hill. G. Castle field. Drawn by Dr. Johnston among his Yorkshire
Antiquitys, p. 54 of the drawings. E. Kirkall, sculp.” It makes
plate 99 of the above work, but is unnoticed in the letterpress.
According to the Sloane MS., the prioress, after “letting him bleed
to death, buryed him under a great stone by the hywayes syde;”
which is agreeable to the account in Grafton’s Chronicle, where it
is said that, after his death, “the prioresse of the same place
caused him to be buried by the highway-side, where he had used to
rob and spoyle those that passed that way. And vpon his grave the
sayde prioresse did lay a very fayre stone, wherein the names of
Robert Hood, William of Goldesborough, and others were graven.
And the cause why she buryed him there was, for that the common
passengers and travailers, knowyng and seeyng him there buryed,
might more safely and without feare take their jorneys that way,
which they durst not do in the life of the sayd outlawes. And at
eyther ende of the sayde tombe was erected a crosse of stone, which
is to be seene there at this present.”
“Near unto ‘Kirklees’ the noted Robin Hood lies buried under a
grave-stone that yet remains near the park, but the inscription
scarce legible” (Thoresby’s Ducatus Leodiensis, fo. 1715, p. 91).
In the Appendix, p. 576, is the following note, with a reference to
“page 91:”—
“Amongst the papers of the learned Dr. Gale, late dean of Yorke,
was found this epitaph of Robin Hood:
Hear undernead dis laitl stean
laiz robert earl of Huntingtun
nea arcir ver az hie sa geud
an pipl kauld im robin heud {xlvii}
sick utlawz az hi an iz men
vil england nivr si agen.
obiit 24 [r. 14] kal dekembris 1247.”
The genuineness of this epitaph has been questioned. Dr. Percy,
in the first edition of his “Reliques of Ancient English Poetry”
(1765), says “It must be confessed this epitaph is suspicious,
because in the most ancient poems of Robin Hood there is no mention
of this imaginary earldom.” This reason, however, is by no means
conclusive, the most ancient poem now extant having no pretension
to the antiquity claimed by the epitaph: and indeed the Doctor
himself should seem to have afterward had less confidence in it,
as, in both the subsequent editions, those words are omitted, and
the learned critic merely observes that the epitaph appears to him
suspicious. It will be admitted that the bare suspicion of this
ingenious writer, whose knowledge and judgment of ancient poetry
are so conspicuous and eminent, ought to have considerable weight.
As for the present editor’s part, though he does not pretend to
say that the language of this epitaph is that of Henry the Third’s
time, nor indeed to determine of what age it is, he can perceive
nothing in it from whence one should be led to pronounce it
spurious, _i.e._ that it was never inscribed on the grave-stone
of Robin Hood. That there actually was some inscription upon it
in Thoresby’s time, though then scarce legible, is evident from
his own words: and it should be remembered as well that the last
century was not the era of imposition, as that Dr. Gale was both
too good and too learned a man either to be capable of it himself
or to be liable to it from others.
That industrious chronologist and topographer, as well as
respectable artist and citizen, master Thomas Gent, of York, in
his “List of religious houses,” annexed to “The ancient and modern
state of” that famous city, 1730, 12mo, p. 234, informs us that
he had been told “that his [Robin Hood’s] tombstone, having his
effigy thereon, was order’d, not many years ago, by a certain
knight to be placed as a harth-stone in his great hall. When it
was laid overnight, the next morning it was ‘surprizingly’ removed
[on or to] one side; and {xlviii} so three times it was laid, and
as successively turned aside. The knight, thinking he had done
wrong to have brought it thither, order’d it should be drawn back
again; which was performed by a pair of oxen and four horses, when
twice the number could scarce do it before. But as this,” adds the
sagacious writer, “is a story only, it is left to the reader to
judge at pleasure.” N.B.—This is the second instance of a miracle
wrought in favour of our hero!
In Gough’s Sepulchral Monuments, p. cviii., is “the figure of the
stone over the grave of Robin Hood [in Kirklees park, being a
plain stone with a sort of cross fleuree thereon], now broken and
much defaced, the inscription illegible. That printed in Thoresby,
Ducat. Leod. 576, from Dr. Gale’s papers, was never on it.[38]
The late Sir Samuel Armitage owner of the premises, caused the
ground under it to be dug a yard deep, and found it had never been
disturbed; so that it was probably brought from some other place,
and by vulgar tradition ascribed to Robin Hood” (refers to “Mr.
Watson’s letter in Antiquary Society minutes”). This is probably
the tomb-stone of Elizabeth de Staynton, mentioned in the preceding
note.
The old epitaph is, by some anonymous hand, in a work entitled
“Sepulchrorum inscriptiones; or a curious collection of 900 of the
most remarkable epitaphs,” Westminster, 1727 (vol. ii. p. 73), thus
not inelegantly paraphrased:
“Here, underneath this little stone,
Thro’ Death’s assaults, now lieth one,
Known by the name of Robin Hood,
Who was a thief, and archer good;
Full thirteen years, and something more,
He robb’d the rich to feed the poor: {xlix}
Therefore, his grave bedew with tears,
And offer for his soul your prayers.”[39]
(26) —“_various dramatic exhibitions_.”] The earliest of these
performances now extant is “The playe of Robyn Hode, very proper
to be played in Maye games,” which is inserted in the Appendix to
this work, and may probably be as old as the 15th century. That a
different play, however, on the same subject has formerly existed,
seems pretty certain from a somewhat curious passage in “The famous
chronicle of king Edward the first, sirnamed Edward Longshankes,”
&c., by George Peele, printed in 1593.
“Lluellen . . . . . weele get the next daie from Brecknocke the
booke of Robin Hood, the frier he shall instruct us in his cause,
and weele even here . . . wander like irregulers up and down the
wildernesse, ile be maister of misrule, ile be Robin Hood that
once, cousin ‘Rice,’ thou shalt be little John, and hers frier
David, as fit as a die for frier Tucke. Now, my sweet Nel, if you
will make up the messe with a good heart for maide Marian, and doe
well with Lluellen under the green-woode trees, with as good a wil
as in the good townes, why plena est curia.
[_Exeunt._
_Enter Mortimor, solus._
_Mortimor._ . . . . . Maisters, have after gentle Robin Hood,
You are not so well accompanied I hope,
But if a potter come to plaie his part,
Youle give him stripes or welcome good or worse. [_Exit._
_Enter Lluellen, Meredith, frier, Elinor, and their traine. They
are all clad in greene, &c. sing, &c. Blyth and bonny, the song
ended, Lluellen speaketh._
_Luellen._ Why so, I see, my mates of olde,
All were nor lies that Bedlams [beldams] told;
Of Robin Hood and little John,
Frier Tucke and maide Marian.”
Mortimer, as a potter, afterwards fights the frier with “flailes.”
2. “The downfall of Robert earle of Huntington, afterward {l}
called Robin Hood of merrie Sherwodde: with his love to chaste
Matilda, the lord Fitzwater’s daughter, afterwardes his faire maide
Marian. Acted by the right honourable, the earle of Notingham, lord
high admirall of England, his servants. ¶ Imprinted at London, for
William Leake, 1601.” 4to, b. l.
3. “The death of Robert, earle of Huntington, otherwise called
Robin Hood of merrie Sherwodde: with the lamentable tragedie of
chaste Matilda, his faire maid Marian, poysoned at Dunmowe, by king
John. Acted, &c. ¶ Imprinted &c. [as above] 1601.” 4to, b. l.
These two plays, usually called the first and second part of Robin
Hood, were always, on the authority of Kirkman, falsely ascribed
to Thomas Heywood, till Mr. Malone fortunately retrieved the names
of the true authors, Anthony Mundy and Henry Chettle.[40] As they
seem partly founded on traditions long since forgotten, and refer
occasionally to documents not now to be found; at any rate, as they
are much older than most of the common ballads upon the subject,
and contain some curious and possibly authentic particulars not
elsewhere to be met with, the reader will excuse the particularity
of the account and length of the extracts here given.
The first part, or downfall of Robert earle of Huntington, is
supposed to be performed at the court and command of Henry VIII.,
the poet Skelton being the dramatist, and {li} acting the part of
chorus. The introductory scene commences thus:
“_Enter Sir John Eltam, and knocke at Skelton’s doore._
_Sir John._ Howe, maister Skelton! what, at studie hard?
[_Opens the doore._
_Skel._ Welcome and wisht for, honest Sir John Eltam,—
Twill trouble you after your great affairs,
[i.e. _the surveying of certain maps which his majesty had
employed him in_;
To take the paine that I intended to intreate you to,
About rehearsall of your promis’d play.
_Elt._ Nay, master Skelton; for the king himselfe,
As wee were parting, bid mee take great heede
Wee faile not of our day: therefore I pray
Sende for the rest, that now we may rehearse.
_Skel._ O they are readie all, and drest to play.
What part play you?
_Elt._ Why, I play little John,
And came of purpose with this greene sute.
_Skel._ Holla, my masters, little John is come.
[_At every doore all the players runne out: some crying_ where?
where? _others_, Welcome, Sir John: _among others the boyes and
clowne_.
_Skel._ Faith, little Tracy, you are somewhat forward.
What, our maid Marian leaping like a lad!
If you remember, Robin is your love,
Sir Thomas Mantle yonder, not Sir John.
_Clow._ But, master, Sir John is my fellowe, for I am Much the
miller’s sonne. Am I not?
_Skel._ I know yee are, sir:—
And, gentlemen, since you are thus prepar’d,
Goe in, and bring your dumbe scene on the stage.
And I, as prologue, purpose to expresse
The ground whereon our historie is laied.
[_Exeunt, manet Skelton._
_Trumpets sounde_, [1] _enter first King Richard with drum and
auncient, giving Ely a purse and sceptre, his mother and brother
John, Chester, Lester, Lacie, others at the king’s appointment,
doing reverence. The king goes in: presently Ely ascends the
chaire, Chester, John, and the queene part displeasantly._ [2]
Enter ROBERT, EARLE OF HUNTINGTON, _leading Marian; followes him
Warman, and after Warman, the prior; Warman ever flattering and
making curtsie, taking gifts of the prior behinde and his master
before. Prince John enters, offereth to take Marian; Queen Elinor
enters, offering to pull Robin from her; but they infolde each
other, and sit downe within the curteines._ [3] _Warman with the
prior, Sir Hugh Lacy, Lord Sentloe, and Sir Gilbert Broghton folde
hands, and drawing the curteins, all_ (_but the prior_) _enter,
and are kindely received by_ Robin Hoode.”
{lii}
During the exhibition of the second part of the dumb show, Skelton
instructs the audience as follows:
“This youth that leads yon virgin by the hand
Is our earle Robert, or your Robin Hoode,
That in those daies was earle of Huntington;
The ill-fac’t miser, brib’d in either hand,
Is Warman, once the steward of his house,
Who, Judas like, betraies his liberall lord,
Into the hands of that relentlesse prior,
Calde Gilbert Hoode, uncle to Huntington.
Those two that seeke to part these lovely friends,
Are Elenor the queene, and John the prince,
She loves earle Robert, he maide Marian,
But vainely; for their deare affect is such,
As only death can sunder their true loves.
Long had they lov’d, and now it is agreed,
This day they must be troth-plight, after wed:
At Huntington’s faire house a feast is helde,
But envie turnes it to a house of teares.
For those false guestes, conspiring with the prior;
To whom earle Robert greatly is in debt,
Meane at the banquet to betray the earle,
Unto a heavie writ of outlawry:
The manner and escape you all shall see.
* * * * *
Looke to your entrance, get you in, Sir John.
My shift is long, for I play Frier Tucke;
Wherein, if Skelton hath but any lucke,
Heele thanke his hearers oft with many a ducke.
For many talk of Robin Hood that never shot in his bowe,
But Skelton writes of Robin Hood what he doth truly knowe.”
After some Skeltonical rimes, and a scene betwixt the prior,
the sheriff, and justice Warman, concerning the outlawry, which
appears to be proclaimed, and the taking of Earl Huntington at
dinner, “Enter Robin Hoode, little John following him; Robin having
his napkin on his shoulder, as if hee were sodainly raised from
dinner.” He is in a violent rage at being outlawed, and Little John
endeavours to pacify him. Marian being distressed at his apparent
disorder, he dissembles with her. After she is gone, John thus
addresses him:
“Now must your honour leave these mourning tunes,
And thus by my areede you shall provide; {liii}
Your plate and jewels ‘i wil’ straight packe up,
And toward Notingham convey them hence.
At Rowford, Sowtham, Wortley, Hothersfield,
Of all your cattell mony shall be made,
And I at Mansfield will attend your comming;
Where weele determine which waie’s best to take.
_Rob._ Well, be it so; a God’s name, let it be;
And if I can, Marian shall come with mee.
_John._ Else care will kill her; therefore if you please,
At th’ utmost corner of the garden wall,
Soone in the evening waite for Marian,
And as I goe ile tell her of the place.
Your horses at the Bell shall readie bee,
I meane Belsavage,[41] whence, as citizens
That ‘meane’ to ride for pleasure some small way,
You shall set foorth.”
The company now enters, and Robin charges them with the conspiracy,
and rates their treacherous proceedings. Little John in attempting
to remove the goods is set upon by Warman and the sheriff; and
during the fray “Enter Prince John, Ely and the prior, and others.”
Little John tells the prince he but defends the box containing his
own gettings; upon which his royal highness observes,
“You do the fellow wrong; his goods are his:
You only must extend upon the earles.
_Prior._ That was, my lord, but nowe is Robert Hood,
A simple yeoman as his servants were.”
Ely gives the prior his commission, with directions to make speed,
lest “in his country-house all his heards be solde;” and gives
Warman a patent “for the high sheriffewick of Nottingham.” After
this, “Enter Robin like a citizen; and then the queen and Marian
disguised for each other. Robin takes Marian, and leaves the queen
to Prince John, who is {liv} so much enraged at the deception
that he breaks the head of Ely’s messenger. Sir Hugh, brother to
Lord Lacy, and steward to Ely, who had been deeply concerned in
Huntington’s ruin, is killed in a brawl by Prince John, whom Ely
orders to be arrested; but the prince, producing letters from the
king revoking Ely’s appointment, “lifts up his drawne sworde,” and
“Exit, cum Lester and Lacy,” in triumph. Then “Enter Robin Hoode,
Matilda at one doore, little John and Much the Miller’s sonne at
another doore.” After mutual congratulations, Robin asks if it be
“――possible that Warman’s spite
Should stretch so farre, that he doth hunt the lives
Of bonnie Scarlet, and his brother Scathlock?
_Much._ O, I, sir. Warman came but yesterday to take charge of the
jaile at Notingham, and this daie, he saies, he will hang the two
outlawes. . . .
_Rob._ Now, by my honour’s hope, . . .
He is too blame: say, John, where must they die?
_John._ Yonder’s their mother’s house, and here the tree,
Whereon, poore men, they must forgoe their lives;
And yonder comes a lazy lozell frier,
That is appointed for their confessor,
Who, when we brought your monie to their mother’s,
Was wishing her to patience for their deaths.”
Here “Enter Frier Tucke;” some conversation passes, and the frier
Skeltonizes; after which he departs, saying,
“――let us goe our way,
Unto this hanging businesse; would for mee
Some rescue or repreeve might set them free.
_Rob._ Heardst thou not, little John, the frier’s speach?
_John._ He seemes like a good fellow, my good lord.
_Rob._ He’s a good fellowe, John, upon my word.
Lend me thy horne, and get thee in to Much,
And when I blowe this horne, come both and helpe mee.
_John._ Take heed, my lord: the villane Warman knows you,
And ten to one he hath a writ against you.
_Rob._ Fear not: below the bridge a poor blind man doth dwell,
With him I will change my habit, and disguise,
Only be readie when I call for yee,
For I will save their lives, if it may bee. . . .
{lv}
_Enter Warman, Scarlet and Scathlock bounde, Frier Tuck as
their confessor, officers with halberts._
_War._ Master frier, be briefe, delay no time.
Scarlet and Scatlock, never hope for life;
Here is the place of execution,
And you must answer lawe for what is done.
_Scar._ Well, if there be no remedie, we must:
Though it ill seemeth, Warman, thou shouldst bee,
So bloodie to pursue our lives thus cruellie.
_Scat._ Our mother sav’d thee from the gallows, Warman,
His father did preferre thee to thy lord:
One mother had wee both, and both our fathers
To thee and to thy father were kinde friends. . . .
_War._ Ye were first outlawes, then ye proved theeves. . . .
Both of your fathers were good honest men;
Your mother lives their widowe in good fame:[42]
But you are scapethrifts, unthrifts, villanes, knaves,
And as ye liv’d by shifts, shall die with shame.”
To them enters Ralph, the sheriff’s man, to acquaint him that the
carnifex, or executor of the law, had fallen off his “curtall” and
was “cripplefied” and rendered incapable of performing his office;
so that the sheriff was to become his deputy. The sheriff insists
that Ralph shall serve the turn, which he refuses. In the midst of
the altercation, “Enter Robin Hoode, like an old man,” who tells
the sheriff that the two outlaws had murdered his young son, and
undone himself; so that for revenge-sake he desires they may be
delivered to him. They denying the charge, “Robin whispers with
them,” and with the sheriff’s leave, and his man’s help, unbinds
them: then, sounds his horn; and “Enter little John, Much . . .
Fight; the frier, making as if he helpt the sheriffe, knockes down
his men crying, Keepe the king’s peace. Sheriffe [perceiving that
it is “the outlawed earle of Huntington”] runnes away, and his
men.” (See the ballad of “Robin Hood rescuing the widow’s sons,”
part ii. num. xxiii.) {lvi}
“_Fri._ Farewell, earle Robert, as I am true frier,
I had rather be thy clarke then serve the prior.
_Rob._ A jolly fellowe! Scarlet, knowest thou him?
_Scar._ Hee is of Yorke, and of Saint Maries cloister;
There where your greedie uncle is lord prior. . . .
_Rob._ Here is no biding, masters; get yee in. . . .
John, on a sodaine thus I am resolv’d.
To keepe in Sherewoodde tille the king’s returne,
And being outlawed, leade an outlawe’s life. . . .
_John._ I like your honour’s purpose exceeding well.
_Rob._ Nay, no more honour, I pray thee, little John;
Henceforth I will be called Robin Hoode,
Matilda shall be my maid Marian.”
Then follows a scene betwixt old Fitzwater and Prince John, in the
course of which the prince, as a reason to induce Fitzwater to
recall his daughter Matilda, tells him that she is living in an
adulterous state, for that
“—Huntington is excommunicate,
And till his debts be paid, by Rome’s decree,
It is agreed, absolv’d he cannot be;
And that can never be.—So never wife,” &c.
Fitzwater, on this, flies into a passion, and accuses the prince
of being already married to “earle Chepstowe’s daughter.” They
“fight; John falles.” Then enter the queen, &c., and John sentences
Fitzwater to banishment: after which “Enter Scathlocke and Scarlet,
winding their hornes at severall doores. To them enter Robin Hoode,
Matilda, all in greene . . . Much, little John; all the men with
bowes and arrowes.[43]
* * * * *
“_Rob._ Wind once more, jolly huntsmen, all your horns,
Whose shrill sound, with the ecchoing wods assist,
Shall ring a sad knell for the fearefull deere,
Before our feathered shafts, death’s winged darts,
Bring sodaine summons for their fatall ends. {lvii}
_Scar._ Its ful seaven years since we were outlawed first,
And wealthy Sherewood was our heritage:
For all those yeares we raigned uncontrolde,
From Barnsdale shrogs to Notingham’s red cliffes.
At Blithe and Tickhill were we welcome guests:
Good George a Greene at Bradford was our friend,
And wanton Wakefield’s pinner lov’d us well.[44]
At Barnsley dwels a potter, tough and strong,
That never brookt we brethren should have wrong.
The nunnes of Farnsfield (pretty nunnes they bee)
Gave napkins, shirts, and bands to him and mee.
Bateman of Kendall gave us Kendall greene;
And Sharpe of Leedes sharpe arrows for us made.
At Rotherham dwelt our bowyer, God him blisse,
Jackson he hight, his bowes did never misse.
This for our goode, our scathe let Scathlocke tell,
In merry Mansfield how it once befell.
_Scath._ In merry Mansfield, on a wrestling day,
Prizes there were, and yeomen came to play,
My brother Scarlet and myselfe were twaine;
Many resisted, but it was in vaine,
For of them all we wonne the mastery,
And the gilt wreathes were given to him and me.
There by Sir Doncaster of ‘Hothersfield,’
We were bewraied, beset, and forst to yield;
And so borne bound from thence to Notingham,
Where we lay doom’d to death till Warman came.”
Some cordial expressions pass between Robin and Matilda. He
commands all the yeomen to be cheerful; and orders Little John to
read the articles.
“_Joh._ First, no man must presume to call our master,
By name of earle, lorde, baron, knight, or squire:
But simply by the name of Robin Hoode.――
That faire Matilda henceforth change her name,
‘And’ by maid Marian’s name be only cald.
Thirdly, no yeoman following Robin Hoode
In Sherewood, shall use widowe, wife, or maid,
But by true labour, lustfull thoughts expell.
Fourthly, no passenger with whom ye meete,
Shall yee let passe till hee with Robin feaste:
Except a poast, a carrier, or such folke,
As use with foode to serve the market townes.
Fiftly, you never shall the poore man wrong. {lviii}
Nor spare a priest, a usurer, or a clarke.
Lastly, you shall defend with all your power
Maids, widowes, orphants, and distressed men.
_All._ All these we vowe to keepe, as we are men.
_Rob._ Then wend ye to the greenewod merrily,
And let the light roes bootlesse from yee runne,
Marian and I, as soveraigns of your toyles,
Will wait, within our bower, your bent bowes spoiles.
[_Exeunt winding their hornes._”
In the next scene, we find Frier Tucke feignedly entering into a
conspiracy with the prior and Sir Doncaster to serve an execution
on Robin in disguise. Jinny, the widow Scarlet’s daughter, coming
in on her way to Sherwood, is persuaded by the frier to accompany
him, “disguised in habit like a pedler’s mort.” Fitzwater enters
like an old man:—sees Robin sleeping on a green bank, Marian
strewing flowers on him; pretends to be blind and hungry, and is
regaled by them. In answer to a question why the fair Matilda
(Fitzwater’s daughter) had changed her name, Robin tells him it is
“Because she lives a spotlesse maiden life:
And shall, till Robin’s outlawe life have ende,
That he may lawfully take her to wife;
Which, if King Richard come, will not be long.”
“Enter Frier Tucke and Jinny like pedlers singing,” and afterward
“Sir Doncaster and others weaponed.” The frier discovers the plot,
and a fray ensues. The scene then changes to the court, where the
prior is informed of six of his barns being destroyed by fire, and
of the different execrations of all ranks upon him, as the undoer
of “the good lord Robert, earle of Huntington;” that the convent
of St. Mary’s had elected “Olde father Jerome” prior in his place;
and lastly, a herald brings his sentence of banishment, which is
confirmed by the entrance of the prior. Lester brings an account
of the imprisonment of his gallant sovereign, King Richard, by
the Duke of Austria, and requires his ransom to be sent. He then
introduces a description of his matchless valour in the Holy Land.
John not only refuses the ransom-money, but usurps the style of
king; upon which Lester grows furious, {lix} and rates the whole
company. The following is part of the dialogue:
“_Joh._ (_to Lester_). Darest thou attempt thus proudly in our sight?
_Lest._ What is’t a subject dares, that I dare not?
_Sals._ Dare subjects dare, their soveraigne being by?
_Lest._ O God, that my true soveraigne were ny!
_Qu._ Lester, he is.
_Lest._ Madame, by God, you ly.
_Chest._ Unmanner’d man.
_Lest._ A plague of reverence!”
After this, and more on the same subject, the scene returns to the
forest, where Ely, being taken by Much, “like a countryman with
a basket,” is examined and detected by Robin, who promises him
protection and service. On their departure:
“_Joh._ Skelton, a worde or two beside the play.
_Fri._ Now, Sir John Eltam, what ist you would say?
_John._ Methinks I see no jeasts of Robin Hoode,
No merry morices of Frier Tuck,
No pleasant skippings up and downe the wodde,
No hunting songs, no coursing of the bucke:
Pray God this play of ours may have good lucke,
And the king’s majestie mislike it not!
_Fri._ And if he doe, what can we doe to that?
I promis’d him a play of Robin Hoode,
His honorable life, in merry Sherewod;
His majestie himselfe survaid the plot,
And bad me boldly write it, it was good.
For merry jeasts, they have bene showne before
As how the frier fell into the well,
For love of Jinny, that faire bonny bell:
How Greeneleafe rob’d the shrieve of Notingham,
And other mirthful matter, full of game.”
“Enter Warman banished.” He laments his fall, and applies to a
cousin, on whom he had bestowed large possessions, for relief; but
receives nothing, except reproaches for his treachery to his noble
master. The jailor of Nottingham, who was indebted to him for his
place, refuses him even a scrap of his dog’s meat, and reviles
him in the severest terms. Good-wife Tomson, whose husband he had
delivered from death, to his great joy, promises him a caudle,
but {lx} fetches him a halter,[45] in which he is about to hang
himself, but is prevented by Fitzwater, and some of Robin Hood’s
men, who crack a number of jokes upon him; Robin puts an end to
their mockery, and proffers him comfort and favour. Then enters
Frier Tucke, with an account of Sir Doncaster and the prior being
stripped and wounded in their way to Bawtrey: Robin, out of love
to his uncle, hastens to the place. After this “Enter Prince John,
solus, in green, bowe and arrowes.
“_John._ Why this is somewhat like, now may I sing,
As did the Wakefield pinder in his note;
At Michaelmas commeth my covenant out,
My master gives me my fee:
Then Robin Ile weare thy Kendall greene,
And wend to the greenewodde with thee.”[46]
He assumes the name of Woodnet, and is detected by Scathlocke and
Frier Tucke. The prince and Scathlocke fight, Scathelocke grows
weary, and the frier takes his place. Marion enters, and perceiving
the frier, parts the combatants. Robin enters, and John submits
to him. Much enters, running, with information of the approach of
“the king and twelve and twenty score of horses.” Robin places his
people in order. The trumpets sound, the king and his train enter,
a general pardon ensues, and the king confirms the love of Robin
and Matilda. Thus the play concludes, Skelton promising the second
part, and acquainting the audience of what it should consist.
The second part, or death of Robert earle of Huntington, is
a pursuit of the same story. The scene, so far as our hero
is concerned, lyes in Sherwood. A few extracts may not be
unacceptable. {lxi}
“Sc. iiii. Winde hornes. Enter king, queene, &c. Frier Tuck
carrying a stag’s head, dauncing.” The frier has been sent for to
read the following incription upon a copper ring round the stag’s
neck:
“When Harold Hare-foote raigned king,
About my necke he put this ring.”
The king orders “head, ring, and all” to be sent to Nottingham
Castle, to be kept for monuments. Fitzwater tells him he has heard
“an olde tale,”
“That Harold, being Goodwin’s sonne of Kent,[47]
Hunted for pleasure once within this wood,
And singled out a faire and stately stagge,
Which, foote to foote, the king in running caught;
And sure this was the stagge.
_King._ It was no doubt.
_Chester._ But some, my lord, affirme,
That Julius Cæsar, many years before,
Tooke such a stagge, and such a poesie writ.”[48] {lxii}
Upon which his majesty very sagaciously remarks,
“It should not be in Julius Cæsar’s time:
There was no English used in this land
Untill the Saxons came, and this is writ
In Saxon characters.”
The next quotation may be of service to Dr. Percy, who {lxiii}
has been pleased to question our hero’s nobility, because “the
most ancient poems make no mention of this earldom,” and the old
legend expressly asserts him “to have been a yeoman.” It is very
true; and we shall here not only find his title established, but
also discover the secret of his not being usually distinguished or
designed by it.
“_Enter Roben Hoode._
_King._ How now, earle Robert!
_Fri._ A forfet, a forfet, my liege lord,
My master’s lawes are on record,
The court-roll here your grace may see.
_King._ I pray thee, frier, read them mee.
_Fri._ One shall suffice, and this is hee.
No man that commeth in this wod,
To feast or dwell with Robin Hood,
Shall call him earle, lord, knight, or squire,
He no such titles doth desire,
But Robin Hood, plain Robin Hoode,
That honest yoeman, stout and good,
On paine of forfetting a marke,
That must be paid to mee his clarke.
My liege, my liege, this lawe you broke,
Almost in the last word you spoke;
That crime may not acquitted bee,
Till Frier Tuck receive his fee.”
Now, the reason that “the most ancient poems make no mention
of this earldom,” and the old legend expressly asserts him “to
have been a yeoman,” appears, plainly enough, to be, that as,
pursuant to his own injunction, he was never called, either by his
followers, or in the vicinity, by any other name than Robin Hood,
so particularly the minstrels, who were always, no doubt, welcome
to Sherwood,[49] {lxiv} and liberally entertained by him and his
yeomanry, would take special care never to offend against the above
law: which puts an end to the dispute.—Q. E. D.
Our hero is, at length, poisoned by a drink which Doncaster and the
prior, his uncle, had prepared for him to give to the king. His
departing scene and last dying speech are beautiful and pathetic.
“_Rob._ Inough, inough, Fitzwater, take your child.
My dying frost, which no sunnes heat can thawe,
Closes the powers of all my outward parts;
My freezing blood runnes back into my heart,
Where it assists death, which it would resist:
Only my love a little hinders death,
For he beholds her eyes, and cannot smite.
* * * * *
_Mat._ O let mee looke for ever in thy eyes,
And lay my warme breath to thy bloodlesse lips,
If my sight can restraine death’s tyrannies,
Or keep lives breath within thy bosome lockt.”
He desires to be buried
“At Wakefield, underneath the abbey-wall;”
directs the manner of his funeral; and bids his yeomen,
“For holy dirges, sing ‘him’ wodmen’s songs.”
The king, upon the earl’s death, expresses his sorrow for the
tragical event; ratifies the will; repeats the directions for the
funeral; and says,
“Fall to your wod-songs, therefore, yeomen bold,
And deck his herse with flowers, that lov’d you deere.”
The whole concludes with the following solemn dirge:
“Weepe, weepe, ye wod-men waile,
Your hands with sorrow wring;
Your master Robin Hood lies deade,
Therefore sigh as you sing. {lxv}
“Here lies his primer, and his beades,
His bent bowe, and his arrowes keene,
His good sworde and his holy crosse:
Now cast on flowers fresh and greene.
“And, as they fall, shed teares and say,
Well a, well a day, well a, well a day!
Thus cast yee flowers and sing,
And on to Wakefield take your way.”
The poet then prosecutes the legend of Matilda, who is finally
poisoned, by the procurement of King John, in Dunmow Priory.
The story of this lady, whom the author of these plays is supposed
to have been the first that converted into the character of Maid
Marian, or connected in any shape with the history of Robin Hood,
is thus related by Stow, under the year 1213: “The chronicle of
Dunmow sayth, this discord arose betwixt the king and his barons,
because of Mawd called the faire, daughter to Robert Fitzwalter,
whome the king loved, but her father would not consent; and
thereupon ensued warre throughout England. . . . . . Whilst Mawd
the faire remayned at Dunmow, there came a messenger unto her
from King John about his suite in love, but because she would not
agree, the messenger poysoned a boyled or potched egge against she
was hungrie, whereof she died” (Annales, 1592). Two of Drayton’s
heroical epistles pass between King John and Matilda. He has also
written her legend.
4. “Robin Hood’s penn’orths, by Wm. Haughton.”[50]
5. “Metropolis coronata, the triumphs of ancient drapery: or, rich
cloathing of England, in a second yeeres performance. In honour of
the advancement of Sir John Jolles, knight, to the high office of
lord maior of London, and taking his oath for the same authoritie,
on Monday being the 30. day of October, 1615. Performed in heartie
affection to him, and at the bountifull charges of his worthy
brethren the truely honourable society of drapers, the first that
received such dignitie, in this citie. Devised and written by A. M.
{lxvi} [Anthony Mundy] citizen and draper of London.” 1615, 4to.
This is one of the pageants formerly usual on Lord Mayor’s day,
and of which several are extant, written as well by our author
Mundy,[51] as by Middleton, Dekker, Heywood, and other hackney
dramatists of that period. They were thought of such consequence
that the City had for some time (though probably not till after
the Restoration) a professed laureat for their composition; an
office which expired with Elkanah Settle in 1723–24. They consisted
chiefly of machinery, allegorical or historical personages, songs
and speeches.
“After all these shewes, thus ordered in their appointed places,
followeth another device of huntsmen, all clad in greene, with
their bowes, arrowes and bugles, and a new slaine deere, carried
among them. It savoureth of earle Robert de la Hude, sometime
the noble earle of Huntington, and sonne in law (by marriage) to
old Fitz-Alwine,[52] raised by the muses all-commanding power,
to honour this triumph with his father. During the time of his
out-lawed life in the forest of merry Shirwood, and elsewhere,
while the cruel oppression of a most unnatural and covetous brother
hung heavy upon him, Gilbert de la Hude, lord abbot of Christall
[r. Kirkstall] abbey, who had all or most of his lands in mortgage:
he was commonly called Robin Hood, and had a gallant company of
men (out-lawed in the like manner) that followed his downecast
fortunes; as little John, Scathlocke, Much the miller’s son,
Right-hitting Brand, fryar Tuck, and many more. In which condition
of life we make instant use of him, and part of his brave bowmen,
fitted with bowes and arrowes, of the like strength and length, as
good records {lxvii} deliver testimonie, were then used by them in
their killing of deere. . . . .
“Afterward, [viz. after “Fitz-Alwine’s speech to the lord maior at
night,”] as occasion best presenteth itselfe, when the heate of
all other employments are calmly overpast, earle Robin Hood, with
fryer Tuck, and his other brave huntesmen, attending (now at last)
to discharge their duty to my lord, which the busie turmoile of the
whole day could not before affoord: they shewe themselves to him in
this order, and earle Robin himselfe thus speaketh.
The speech spoken by Earl Robert de la Hude, commonly called Robin
Hood.
Since graves may not their dead containe,
Nor in their peacefull sleepes remaine,
But triumphes and great showes must use them,
And we unable to refuse them;
It joyes me that earle Robert Hood,
Fetcht from the forrest of merrie Shirwood,
With these my yeomen tight and tall,
Brave huntsmen and good archers all,
Must in this joviall day partake,
Prepared for your honour’s sake.
No sooner was i raysde from rest,
And of my former state possest
As while i liv’d, but being alone,
And of my yeomen seeing not one,
I with my bugle gave a call,
Made all the woods to ring withall.
Immediately came little John,
And Scathlock followed him anon,
With Much the honest miller’s sonne;
And ere ought else could be done,
The frollicke frier came tripping in,
His heart upon a merrie pinne.
Master (quoth he) in yonder brake,
A deere is hid for Marian’s sake,
Bid Scathlock, John, or honest Brand,
That hath the happy hitting hand,
Shoote right and have him: and see, my lord,
The deed performed with the word.
For Robin and his bow-men bold,
Religiously did ever holde,
Not emptie-handed to be seene,
Were’t but at feasting on a greene; {lxviii}
Much more then, when so high a day
Calls our attendance: all we may
Is all too little, tis your grace
To winke at weakenesse in this case:
So, fearing to be over-long,
End all with our old hunting song.
* * * * *
The song of Robin Hood and his huntes-men.
Now wend we together, my merry men all,
Unto the forrest side a;
And there to strike a buck or a doae,
Let our cunning all be tried a.
Then goe we merrily, merrily on,
To the green-wood to take up our stand [a],
Where we will lye in waite for our game,
With our best bowes all in our hand [a].
What life is there like to bold Robin Hood?
It is so pleasant a thing a:
In merry Shirwood he spends his dayes,
As pleasantly as a king a.
No man may compare with bold Robin Hood,
With Robin Hood, Scathlocke and John [a]:
Their like was never, nor never will be,
If in case that they were gone [a].
They will not away from merry Shirwood,
In any place else to dwell [a]:
For there is neither city nor towne,
That likes them half so well [a].
Our lives are wholly given to hunt,
And haunt the merry greene-wood [a];
Where our best service is daily spent,
For our master Robin Hood [a].”
6. “Robin Hood and his pastoral May games.” 1624.
7. “Robin Hood and his crew of soldiers.” 1627.
These two titles are inserted among the plays mentioned by Chetwood
in his British Theatre (p. 67) as written by anonymous authors in
the 16th century to the Restoration. But neither Langbaine, who
mentions both, nor any other person, pretends to have ever seen
either of them. The former, indeed, may possibly be “The playe
of Robyn {lxix} Hode,” already noticed; and the other is probably
a future article. Langbaine, it is to be observed, gives no date
to either piece; so that it may be fairly concluded those above
specified are of Chetwood’s own invention, which appears to have
been abundantly fertile in every species of forgery and imposture.
8. “The sad shepherd, or a tale of Robin Hood.”
The story of our renowned archer cannot be said to have been wholly
occupied by bards without a name, since, not to mention Mundy or
Drayton, the celebrated Ben Jonson intended a pastoral drama on
this subject, under the above title; but dying, in the year 1637,
before it was finished, little more than the two first acts have
descended down to us. His last editor (Mr. Whalley), while he
regrets that it is but a fragment, speaks of it in raptures, and,
indeed, not without evident reason, many passages being eminently
poetical and judicious.
“The persons of the play,” so far as concerns our immediate
purpose, are: [1] “Robin Hood, the chief woodman [i.e. forester],
master of the feast. [2] Marian, his lady, the mistress. [3] Friar
Tuck, the chaplain and steward. [4] Little John, bow-bearer. [5,
6] Scarlet, Scathlocke,[53] two brothers, huntsmen. [7] George a
Green, huisher of the bower. [8] Much, Robin Hood’s bailiff or
acater.” The rest are the guests invited, the witch of Paplewick,
her daughter, the swin’ard her son, Puck Hairy or Robin Goodfellow,
their hind, and lastly a devout hermit. “The scene, Sherwood,
consisting of a landscape of a forest, hills, valleys, cottages,
a castle, a river, pastures, herds, flocks, all full of country
simplicity; Robin Hood’s bower, his well, &c.” “The argument of
the first act” is as follows: “Robin Hood, having invited all the
shepherds and shepherdesses of the vale of Be’voir to a feast in
the forest of Sherwood, and trusting to his mistress, Maid Marian,
with her woodmen, to kill him venison against the day; having
left the like charge with Friar Tuck, his chaplain and steward,
to command the rest of his merry men to see the bower made {lxx}
ready, and all things in order for the entertainment: ‘meets’
with his guests at their entrance into the wood, and conducts
them to his bower: where, by the way, he receives the relation of
the sad shepherd Æglamour, who is fallen into a deep melancholy
for the loss of his beloved Earine, reported to have been drowned
in passing over the Trent, some few days before. . . . . In the
meantime Marian is come from hunting. . . . . Robin Hood inquires
if she hunted the deere at force, and what sport he made? how long
he stood? and what head he bore? all which is briefly answered,
with a relation of breaking him up, and the raven, and her bone.
The suspect had of that raven to be Maudlin the witch of Paplewick,
whom one of the huntsmen met i’ the morning at the rousing of the
deer, and is confirmed by her being then in Robin Hood’s kitchen,
i’ the chimney corner, broiling the same bit which was thrown
to the raven at the quarry or fall of the deer. Marian, being
gone in to shew the deer to some of the shepherdesses, returns
discontented; sends away the venison she had killed to her they
call the witch; quarrels with her love Robin Hood, abuseth him,
and his guests the shepherds; and so departs, leaving them all in
wonder and perplexity.”
By “the argument of the second act” it appears that the witch had
“taken the shape of Marian to abuse Robin Hood and perplex his
guests.” However, upon an explanation of the matter with the true
Marian, the trick is found out, the venison recovered, and “Robin
Hood dispatches out his woodmen to hunt and take her: which ends
the act.” The third act was designed to be taken up with the chase
of the witch, her various schemes to elude the pursuers, and the
discovery of Earine in the swineherd’s enchanted oak. Nothing
more of the author’s design appearing, we have only to regret
the imperfect state of a pastoral drama, which, according to the
above learned and ingenious editor, would have done honour to the
nation.[54] {lxxi}
9. “Robin Hood and his crew of souldiers, a comedy acted at
Nottingham on the day of his saCRed majesties corronation. Vivat
rex. The actors names: Robin Hood, commander; Little John, William
Scadlocke, souldiers; messenger from the sheriffe. London, printed
for James Davis, 1661.” 4to.
This is an interlude, of a few pages and no merit, alluding to the
late rebellion, and the subject of the day. The outlaws, convinced
by the reasoning of the sheriff’s messenger, become loyal subjects.
10. “Robin Hood. An opera, as it is perform’d at Lee’s and Harper’s
great theatrical booth in Bartholomew-fair.” 1730. 8vo.
11. “Robin Hood.” 1751. 8vo.
This was a ballad-farce, acted at Drury-lane Theatre, in which the
following favourite song was originally sung by Mr. Beard, in the
character of Robin Hood:
As blithe as the linnet sings in the green wood,
So blithe we’ll wake the morn;
And through the wide forest of merry Sherwood
We’ll wind the bugle horn.
The sheriff attempts to take bold Robin Hood,
Bold Robin disdains to fly;
Let him come when he will, we’ll, in merry Sherwood,
Or vanquish, boys, or die.
Our hearts they are stout, and our bows they are good,
As well their masters know;
They’re cull’d in the forest of merry Sherwood,
And never will spare a foe.
Our arrows shall drink of the fallow deer’s blood,
We’ll hunt them all o’er the plain!
And through the wide forest of merry Sherwood,
No shaft shall fly in vain.
Brave Scarlet, and John, who ne’er were subdu’d,
Give each his hand so bold;
We’ll range through the forest of merry Sherwood,
What say my hearts of gold?
12. “Robin Hood; or Sherwood forest: a comic opera. As performed
at the theatre-royal in Covent-garden. By Leonard Mac Nally, esq.”
1784. 8vo. {lxxii}
This otherwise insignificant performance was embellished with some
fine music by Mr. Shield. It has been since reduced to, and is
still frequently acted as, an after-piece.
A drama on the subject of Robin Hood, under the title of The
Foresters, has been long expected from the elegant author of The
School for Scandal. The first act, said to have been written many
years ago, is, by those who have seen or heard it, spoken of with
admiration.[55]
(27) —“_innumerable poems, rimes, songs and ballads._”] The
original and most ancient pieces of this nature have all perished
in the lapse of time, during a period of between five and six
hundred years’ continuance; and all we now know of them is that
such things once existed. In the Vision of Pierce Plowman, an
allegorical poem, thought to have been composed soon after the
year 1360, and generally ascribed to Robert Langeland, the author
introduces an ignorant, idle, and drunken secular priest, the
representative, no doubt, of the parochial clergy of that age, in
the character of Sloth, who makes the following confession:
“I cannot parfitli mi paternoster, as the preist it singeth,
But I can ryms of Roben Hode, and ‘Randolf’ erl of Chester,
But of our lorde or our lady I lerne nothyng at all.”[56]
{lxxiii}
Fordun, the Scotish historian, who wrote about 1340, speaking
of Robin Hood and Little John, and their accomplices, says, “of
whom the foolish vulgar in comedies and tragedies make lewd
entertainment, and are delighted to hear the jesters and minstrels
sing them above all other ballads;”[57] and Mair (or Major),
whose history was published by himself in 1521, observes that
“The exploits of this Robert are celebrated in songs throughout
all Britain.”[58] So, likewise, Maister Johne Bellendene, the
translator of “that noble clerk Maister Hector Boece” (Bois or
Boethius), having mentioned “that waithman Robert Hode with his
fallow litil Johne,” adds, “of quhom ar mony fabillis and mery
sportis soung amang the vulgar pepyll.”[59] Whatever may have been
the nature of the compositions alluded to by the above writers,
several of the pieces printed in the present collection are {lxxiv}
unquestionably of great antiquity; not less, that is, than between
three and four hundred years old. The Lytell Geste, which is first
inserted, is probably the oldest thing upon the subject we now
possess;[60] but a legend, apparently of the same species, was once
extant, of, perhaps, a still earlier date, of which it is some
little satisfaction to be able to give even the following fragment,
from a single leaf, fortunately preserved in one of the volumes of
old printed ballads in the British Museum, in a handwriting as old
as Henry the Sixth’s time. It exhibits the characters of our hero
and his _fidus Achates_ in the noblest point of view.
“He say_d_ Robyn Hod . . . . yne the preson,
And owght off hit was g_on_.
The porter rose a-non certeyn,
As sone as he hard Johan call;
Lytyll Johan was redy with a sword,
And bare hym throw to the wall.
Now will I be jayler, sayd lytyll Johan,
And toke the keys in hond;
He toke the way to Robyn Hod,
And sone he hyme unbond.
He gaffe hym a good swerd in his hond,
His hed ther-with for to kepe;
And ther as the wallis wer lowest,
Anon down ther they lepe.
* * * * *
To Robyn . . . . . sayd:
I have d_one_ the a god torne for an . . .
Quit me when thow may;
I have done the a gode torne, sayd lytyll [Johan],
Forsothe as I the saye; {lxxv}
I have browghte the under the gren wod . . .
Farewell & have gode daye.
Nay, be my trowthe, sayd Robyn,
So schall it never bee;
I make the master, sayd Robyn,
Off all my men & me.
Nay, be my trowthe, sayd lytyll Johan,
So schall it never bee.”
This, indeed, may be part of the “story of Robin Hood and Little
John,” which M. Wilhelm Bedwell found in the ancient MS. lent him
by his much honoured good friend M. G. Withers, whence he extracted
and published “The Turnament of Tottenham,” a poem of the same age,
and which seemed to him to be done (perhaps but transcribed) by Sir
Gilbert Pilkington, formerly, as some had thought, parson of that
parish.[61]
That poems and stories on the subject of our hero and his
companions were extraordinarily popular and common before and
during the 16th century is evident from the testimony of divers
writers. Thus, Alexander Barclay, priest, in his translation of The
Shyp of Folys, printed by Pynson in 1508, and by John Cawood in
1570,[62] says:
“I write no jeste ne tale of Robin Hood.”
Again:
“For goodlie scripture is not worth an hawe,
But tales are loved ground of ribaudry;
And many are so blinded with their foly,
That no scriptur thinke they so true nor gode,
As is a foolish jest of Robin Hode.”
Again:
“And of all fables and jestes of Robin Hood,
Or other trifles.”
{lxxvi}
The same Barclay, in the fourth of his Egloges, subjoined to the
last edition of The Ship of Foles, but originally printed soon
after 1500, has the following passage:
“Yet would I gladly heare some mery fit
Of maide Marion, or els of Robin Hood,
Or Benteleyes ale, which chafeth well the blood,
Of Perte of Norwich, or Sauce of Wilberton,
Or buckishe Joly[63] well stuffed as a ton.”
Robert Braham, in his epistle to the reader, prefixed to Lydgate’s
Troy-book, 1555, is of opinion that “Caxton’s recueil” [of Troy]
is “worthye to be numbred amongest the trifelinge tales and
barrayne luerdries of Robyn Hode and Bevys of Hampton.” (See Ames’s
Typographical Antiquities, by Herbert, p. 849.)
“For one that is sand blynd,” says Sir Thomas Chaloner, “would take
an asse for a moyle, or another prayse a rime of Robyn Hode for
as excellent a making as Troylus of Chaucer, yet shoulde they not
straight-waies be counted madde therefore?” (Erasmus’s Praise of
Folye, sig. h.)
“If good lyfe,” observes Bishop Latimer, “do not insue and folowe
upon our readinge to the example of other, we myghte as well spende
that tyme in reading of prophane hystories, of Canterburye tales,
or a fit of Roben Hode” (Sermons, sig. A. iiii.)
The following lines, from a poem in the Hyndford MS. compiled
in 1568, afford an additional proof of our hero’s popularity in
Scotland:
“Thair is no story that I of heir,
Of Johne nor Robene Hude,
Nor zit of Wallace wicht but weir,
That me thinkes half so gude,
As of thre palmaris,” &c.
That the subject was not forgotten in the succeeding age, can be
testifyed by Drayton, who is elsewhere quoted, and in his sixth
eclogue makes Gorbo thus address “old Winken de Word:” {lxxvii}
“Come, sit we down under this hawthorn-tree,
The morrow’s light shall lend us day enough,
And let us tell of Gawen, or Sir Guy,
Of Robin Hood, or of old Clem a Clough.”
Richard Johnson, who wrote “The History of Tom Thumbe,” in prose
(London, 1621, 12mo, b. l.), thus prefaces his work: “My merry muse
begets no tales of Guy of Warwicke, &c. nor will I trouble my penne
with the pleasant glee of Robin Hood, little John, the fryer, and
his Marian; nor will I call to mind the lusty Pinder of Wakefield,
&c.”
In “The Calidonian Forrest,” a sort of allegorical or mystic tale,
by John Hepwith, gentleman, printed in 1641, 4to, the author says,
“Let us talke of Robin Hoode,
And little John in mery Shirewoode,” &c.[64]
Of one very ancient, and undoubtedly once very popular, song this
single line is all that is now known to exist: {lxxviii}
“Robin Hood in Barnsdale stood.”
However, though but a line, it is of the highest authority in
Westminster Hall, where, in order to the decision of a knotty
point, it has been repeatedly cited, in the most solemn manner, by
grave and learned judges.
M. 6 Jac. B. R. Witham _v._ Barker, Yelv. 147. Trespass, for
breaking plaintif’s close, &c. Plea. Liberum tenementum of Sir
John Tyndall, and justification as his servant and by his command.
Replication, That it is true it is his freehold, but that long
before the time when &c. he leased to plaintif at will, who
entered and was possessed until, &c. traversing, that defendant
entered, &c. by command of Sir John. Demurrer: and adjudged
against plaintif, on the ground of the replication being bad, as
not setting forth any seisin or possession in Sir John, out of
which a lease at will could be derived. For a title made by the
plea or replication should be certain to all intents, because it
is traversable. Here, therefor, he should have stated Sir John’s
seisin, as well as the lease at will; which is not done here: “mes
tout un come il ust replie Robin Whood in Barnwood stood, absque
hoc q def. p commandement Sir John. Quod nota. Per Fenner, Williams
et Crook justices sole en court. Et judgment done accordant. Yelv.
p def.”
In the case of Bush _v._ Leake, B. R. Trin. 23 G. 3, Buller,
justice, cited the case of Coulthurst _v._ Coulthurst, C. B.
Pasch. 12 G. 3 (an action on bond), and observed, “There a case in
Yelverton was alluded to, where the court said, you might as well
say, by way of inducement to a traverse, Robin Hood in Barnwood
stood.”
It is almost unnecessary to observe, because it will be shortly
proved, that Barnwood, in the preceding quotations, ought to be
Barnsdale.[65] With respect to Whood, the reader {lxxix} will
see, under Note 19, a remarkable proof of the antiquity of that
pronunciation, which actually prevails in the metropolis at this
day. See also the word “whodes” in Note 34. So, likewise, Bale, in
his _Actes of English Votaries_, 1560, says, “the monkes had their
cowles, caprones or whodes;” and in Stow’s _Survey_, 1598, p. 120,
have “a fooles whoode.”
This celebrated and important line occurs as the first of a foolish
mock-song, inserted in an old mortality, intitled “A new interlude
and a mery of the nature of the iiii elementes,” supposed to
have been printed by John Rastall about 1520; where it is thus
introduced:
“_Hu_[_manyte_]. ――let us some lusty balet syng.
_Yng_[_norance_]. Nay, syr, by the hevyn kyng:
For me thynkyth it servyth for no thyng,
All suche pevysh prykeryd song.
_Hu._ Pes, man, pryk-song may not be dyspysyd,
For therwith God is well plesyd.
* * * * *
_Yng._ Is God well pleasyd, trowest thou, therby?
Nay, nay, for there is no reason why.
For is it not as good to say playnly
Gyf me a spade,
As gyf me a spa ve va ve va ve vade?
But yf thou wylt have a song that is good,
I have one of Robyn Hode,
The best that ever was made. {lxxx}
_Hu._ Then a feleshyp, let us here it.
_Yng._ But there is a bordon, thou must here it,
Or ellys it wyll not be.
_Hu._ Than begyn, and care not for . . .
Downe downe downe, &c.
_Yng._ Robyn Hode in Barnysdale stode,
And lent hym tyl a mapyll thystyll;
Than cam our lady & swete saynt Andrewe;
Slepyst thou, wakyst thou, Geffrey Coke?[66]
A c. wynter the water was depe,
I can not tell you how brode;
He toke a gose nek in his hande,
And over the water he went.
He start up to a thystell top,
And cut hym downe a holyn clobbe;
He stroke the wren betwene the hornys,
That fyre sprange out of the pygges tayle.
Jak boy is thy bow i-broke,
Or hath any man done the wryguldy wrange?
He plukkyd muskyllys out of a wyllowe,
And put them in to his sachell.
Wylkyn was an archer good,
And well coude handell a spade;
He toke his bend bowe in his hand,
And set him downe by the fyre.
He toke with hym lx. bowes and ten,
A pese of befe, another of baken.
Of all the byrdes in mery Englond,
So merely pypys the mery bottel.”
“The lives, stories, and giftes of men which are contained in the
bible, they [the papists] read as thinges no more pertaining unto
them than a tale of Robin Hood” (Tyndale, Prologue to the prophecy
of Jonas, about 1531).
Gwalter Lynne, printer, in his dedication to Ann, Duchess of
Somerset, of “The true beliefe in Christ and his sacramentes,”
1550, says, “I woulde wyshe tharfore that al men, {lxxxi} women,
and chyldren, would read it. Not as they haue bene here tofore
accustomed to reade the fained storyes of Robin-hode, Clem of the
Cloughe, wyth such lyke to passe the tyme wythal,” &c.
In 1562, John Alde had license to print “a ballad of Robyn god,” a
mistake, it is probable, for Robyn Hod.
Alexander Hume, minister of Logie, about 1599, says in one of his
“Hymnes or Sacred Songs,” printed in that year, that
――“much to blame are those of carnal brood,
Who loath to taste of intellectual food,
Yet surfeit on old tales of Robin Hood.”
Complaint of Scotland, Edin. 1801, Dissertation, p. 221.
“Exclude the scriptures, and bid them read the story
Of Robin Hood and Guy, which was both tall and stout,
And Bevis of Southampton, to seek the matter out.
Suffer all slander against God and his truth,
And praise the old fashion in king Arthur’s days,
Of abbays and monasteries how it is great ruth
To have them plucked down, and so the eldest says;
And how it was merry when Robin Hood’s plays
Was in every town, the morrice and the fool,
The maypole and the drum, to bring the calf from school,
With Midge, Madge and Marion, about the pole to dance,
And Stephen, that tall stripling, to lead Volans dance,
With roguing Gangweeke, a goodly remembrance,
With beads in every hand, our prayers stood by tale:
This was a merry work, talk among our meany,
And then of good eggs ye might have twenty for a penny.”
L. Ramsey’s Practice of the Divell, b. l.
All the entire poems and songs known to be extant will be found
in the following collection; but many more may be traditionally
preserved in different parts of the country which would have
added considerably to its value.[67] That {lxxxii} some of these
identical pieces, or others of the like nature, were great
favourites with the common people in the time of Queen Elizabeth,
though not much esteemed, it would seem, by the refined critic,
may, in addition to the testimonies already cited, be inferred
from a passage in Webbe’s Discourse {lxxxiii} of English Poetrie,
printed in 1586. “If I lette passe,” says he, “the unaccountable
rabble of ryming ballet-makers and compylers of sencelesse sonets,
who be most busy to stuffe every stall full of grosse devises
and unlearned pamphlets, I trust I shall with the best sort be
held excused. For though many such can frame an alehouse-song of
five or sixe score verses, hobbling uppon some tune of a northern
jygge, or Robyn Hoode, or La lubber, &c. and perhappes observe
just number of sillables, eyght in one line, sixe in an other,
and therewithall an A to make a jercke in the ende, yet if these
might be accounted poets (as it is sayde some of them make meanes
to be promoted to the lawrell), surely we shall shortly have whole
swarmes of poets; and every one that can frame a booke in ryme,
though, for want of matter, it be but in commendations of copper
noses, or bottle ale, wyll catch at the garlande due to poets:
whose potticall (poeticall, I should say) heades, I woulde wyshe,
at their worshipfull comencements, might, in steede of lawrell,
be gorgiously garnished with fayre greene barley, in token of
their good affection to our Englishe malt.” The chief object of
this satire seems to be William Elderton, the drunken {lxxxiv}
ballad-maker, of whose compositions all but one or two have
unfortunately perished.[68]
Most of the songs inserted in the second half of this volume were
common broad-sheet ballads, printed in black letter, with woodcuts,
between the Restoration and the Revolution; though copies of some
few have been found of an earlier date. “Who was the author of the
collection intitled Robin Hood’s Garland, no one,” says Sir John
Hawkins, “has yet pretended to guess. As some of the songs have in
them more of the spirit of poetry than others, it is probable,” he
thinks, “it is the work of various hands: that it has from time to
time been varied and adapted to the phrase of the times,” he says,
“is certain.” None of these songs, it is believed, were collected
into a garland till after the Restoration; as the earliest that
has been met with, a copy of which is in the possession of Francis
Douce, Esq., was printed by W. Thackeray, a noted ballad-monger,
in 1670. This, however, contains no more than sixteen songs, some
of which, very falsely as it seems, are said to have been “never
before printed.” “The latest edition of any worth,” according to
Sir John Hawkins, “is that of 1719.” None of the old editions of
this garland have any sort of preface: that prefixed to the modern
ones, of Bow or Aldermary churchyard, being {lxxxv} taken from the
collection of old ballads, 1723, where it is placed at the head of
Robin Hood’s birth and breeding. The full title of the last London
edition of any note is—“Robin Hood’s Garland: being a complete
history of all the notable and merry exploits performed by him and
his men on many occasions: To which is added a preface [_i.e._ the
one already mentioned] giving a more full and particular account
of his birth, &c., than any hitherto published. [Cut of archers
shooting at a target.]
I’ll send this arrow from my bow,
And in a wager will be bound
To hit the mark aright, although
It were for fifteen hundred pound.
Doubt not I’ll make the wager good,
Or ne’er believe bold Robin Hood.
Adorned with twenty-seven neat and curious cuts adapted to the
subject of each song. London, Printed and sold by R. Marshall,
in Aldermary church-yard, Bow-lane.” 12mo. On the back of the
title-page is the following Grub-street address:
“To all gentlemen archers.
“This garland has been long out of repair,
Some songs being wanting, of which we give account;
For now at last, by true industrious care,
The sixteen songs to twenty-seven we mount;
Which large addition needs must please, I know,
All the ingenious ‘yeomen’ of the bow.
To read how Robin Hood and Little John,
Brave Scarlet, Stutely, valiant, bold and free,
Each of them bravely, fairly play’d the man,
While they did reign beneath the green-wood tree;
Bishops, friars, likewise many more,
Parted with their gold, for to increase their store,
But never would they rob or wrong the poor.”
The last seven lines are not by the author of the first six, but
were added afterwards; perhaps when the twenty-four songs were
increased to twenty-seven.[69] {lxxxvi}
(28) —“_has given rise to divers proverbs._”] Proverbs, in all
countries, are, generally speaking, of very great antiquity; and
therefore it will not be contended that those concerning our hero
are the oldest we have. It is highly probable, however, that they
originated in or near his own time, and of course have existed
for upwards of 500 years, which is no modern date. They are here
arranged, not, perhaps, according to their exact chronological
order, but by the age of the authorities they are taken from.
1. “Good even, good Robin Hood.”
The allusion is to civility extorted by fear. It is preserved by
Skelton, in that most biting satire against Cardinal Wolsey, “Why
come ye not to court?” (Works, 1736, p. 147).
“He is set so hye,
In his hierarchy,
* * * * *
That in the chambre of stars
All matters there he mars;
Clapping his rod on the borde,
No man dare speake a word;
For he hath all the saying,
Without any renaying: {lxxxvii}
He rolleth in his recordes,
He saith, How say ye my lordes?
Is not my reason good?
Good even, good Robin Hood.”[70]
2. “Many men talk of Robin Hood that never shot in his bow.”
“That is, many discourse (or prate rather) of matters wherein they
have no skill or experience. This proverb is now extended all over
England, though originally of Nottinghamshire extraction, where
Robin Hood did principally reside in Sherwood forest. He was an
arch-robber, and withal an excellent archer; though surely the
poet[71] gives a twang to the loose of his arrow, making him shoot
one a cloth-yard long, at full forty score mark, for compass never
higher than the breast, and within less than a foot of the mark.
But herein our author hath verified the proverb, talking at large
of Robin Hood, in whose bow he never shot” (Fuller’s Worthies, p.
315).
“One may justly wonder,” adds the facetious writer, “this archer
did not at last hit the mark, I mean, come to the gallows for his
many robberies.”
The proverb is mentioned, and given as above, by Sir Edward Coke in
his 3d Institute, p. 197. See also Note 26. It is thus noticed by
Jonson in “The king’s entertainment at Welbeck in Nottinghamshire,
1633:”
“This is . . . . . father Fitz-Ale, herald of Derby, &c.
He can fly o’er hills and dales,
And report you more odd tales
Of our out law Robin Hood,
That revell’d here in Sherewood,
And more stories of him show,
(Though he ne’er shot in his bow)
Than au’ men or believe, or know.”
{lxxxviii}
We likewise meet with it in Epigrams, &c., 1654:
“In Vertutem.
“Vertue we praise, but practice not her good,
(Athenian-like) we act not what we know;
So many men doe talk of Robin Hood,
Who never yet shot arrow in his bow.”
On the back of a ballad in Anthony a Wood’s collection he has
written,
“There be some that prate
Of Robin Hood, and of his bow,
Which never shot therein, I trow.”
Ray gives it thus:
“Many talk of Robin Hood, that never shot in his bow,
And many talk of little John, that never did him know:”
which Kelly has varied, but without authority.
Camden’s printer has separated the lines, as distinct proverbs
(Remains, 1674):
“Many speak of Robin Hood that never shot in his bow.
“Many a man talks of little John that never did him know.”
This proverb likewise occurs in The downfall of Robert earle of
Huntington, 1600, and is alluded to in a scarce and curious old
tract intitled “The contention betwyxte Church-yeard and Camell,
upon David Dycer’s Dreame,” &c. 1560, 4to, b. l.
“Your sodain stormes and thundre claps, your boasts and braggs so loude:
Hath doone no harme thogh Robin Hood spake with you in a cloud.
Go learne againe of litell Jhon, to shute in Robyn Hods bowe,
Or Dicars dreame shall be unhit, and all his whens, I trowe.”[72]
The Italians appear to have a similar saying:
Molti parlan di Orlando
Chi non viddero mai suo brando.
{lxxxix}
3. “To overshoot Robin Hood.”
“And lastly and chiefly, they cry out with open mouth as if they
had overshot Robin Hood, that Plato banished them [_i.e._ poets]
out of his commonwealth” (Sir P. Sidney’s Defence of Poesie).
4. “Tales of Robin Hood are good [enough] for fools.”
This proverb is inserted in Camden’s Remains, printed originally in
1605; but the word in brackets is supplied from Ray.
5. “To sell Robin Hood’s pennyworths.”
“It is spoken of things sold under half their value; or if you
will, half sold, half given. Robin Hood came lightly by his
ware, and lightly parted therewith; so that he could afford the
length of his bow for a yard of velvet. Whithersoever he came, he
carried a fair along with him; chapmen crowding to buy his stollen
commodities. But seeing the receiver is as bad as the thief, and
such buyers are as bad as receivers, the cheap pennyworths of
plundered goods may in fine prove dear enough to their consciences”
(Fuller’s Worthies, p. 315).
This saying is alluded to in the old North-country song of Randal a
Barnaby:
“All men said, it became me well,
And Robin Hood’s pennyworths I did sell.”
6. “Come, turn about, Robin Hood.”
Implying that to challenge or defy our hero must have been the _ne
plus ultra_ of courage. It occurs in “Wit and Drollery,” 1661:
“O love, whose power and might,
No creature ere withstood,
Thou forcest me to write,
Come turn about Robin-hood.”
7. “As crook’d as Robin Hood’s bow.”
That is, we are to conceive, when bent by himself. The following
stanza of a modern Irish song is the only authority for this
proverb that has been met with:
“The next with whom I did engage,
It was an old woman worn with age, {xc}
Her teeth were like tobacco pegs,
Besides she had two bandy legs,
Her back more crook’d than Robin Hood’s bow,
Purblind and decrepid, unable to go;
Altho’ her years were sixty-three,
She smil’d at the humours of Soosthe Bue.”
8. “To go round by Robin Hood’s barn.”
This saying, which now first appears in print, is used to imply the
going of a short distance by a circuitous method, or the farthest
way about.
(29) —“_to swear by him, or some of his companions, appears to
have been a usual practice._”] The earliest instance of this
practice occurs in a pleasant story among “Certaine merry tales of
the mad-men of Gottam,” compiled in the reign of Henry VIII. by
Dr. Andrew Borde, an eminent physician of that period, which here
follows verbatim, as taken from an old edition in black letter,
without date (in the Bodleian Library), being the first tale in the
book.
“There was two men of Gottam, and the one of them was going to
the market at Nottingham to buy sheepe, and the other came from
the market; and both met together upon Nottingham bridge. Well
met, said the one to the other. Whither be yee going? said he that
came from Nottingham. Marry, said he that was going thither, I
goe to the market to buy sheepe. Buy sheepe! said the other, and
which way wilt thou bring them home? Marry, said the other, I will
bring them over this bridge. By Robin Hood, said he that came from
Nottingham, but thou shalt not. By Maid Marrion, said he that was
going thitherward, but I will. Thou shalt not, said the one. I
will, said the other. Ter here! said the one. Shue there! said the
other. Then they beate their staves against the ground, one against
the other, as there had beene an hundred sheepe betwixt them. Hold
in, said the one. Beware the leaping over the bridge of my sheepe,
said the other. I care not, said the other. They shall not come
this way, said the one. But they shall, said the other. Then said
the other, & if that thou make much to doe, I will put my finger in
thy mouth. A turd thou wilt, said the other. And as they were at
that contention, another man of Gottam {xci} came from the market,
with a sacke of meale upon a horse, and seeing and hearing his
neighbours at strife for sheepe, and none betwixt them, said, Ah
fooles, will you never learn wit? Helpe me, said he that had the
meale, and lay my sack upon my shoulder. They did so; and he went
to the one side of the bridge, and unloosed the mouth of the sacke,
and did shake out all his meale into the river. Now, neighbours,
said the man, how much meale is there in my sacke now? Marry, there
is none at all, said they. Now, by my faith, said he, even as much
wit is in your two heads, to strive for that thing you have not.
Which was the wisest of all these three persons, judge you.”[73]
“By the bare scalp of Robin Hood’s fat frier,” is an oath put
by Shakespeare into the mouth of one of his outlaws in the _Two
Gentlemen of Verona_, act iv. scene 1. “Robin Hood’s fat frier” is
Frier Tuck; a circumstance of which Doctor Johnson, who set about
explaining that author with a very inadequate stock of information,
was perfectly ignorant.
(30) —“_his songs have been preferred, not only on the most
solemn occasion to the psalms of David, but in fact to the New
Testament._”] [“On Friday, March 9th, 1733] was executed at
Northampton William Alcock for the murder of his wife. He never
own’d the fact, nor was at all concern’d at his approaching death,
refusing the prayers and assistance of any persons. In the morning
he drank more than was sufficient, yet sent and paid for a pint of
wine, which being deny’d him, he would not enter the cart before he
had his money return’d. On his way to the gallows he sung part of
an old song of Robin Hood, with the chorus, Derry, derry, down,[74]
&c., and swore, kick’d and spurn’d at every person {xcii} that laid
hold of the cart; and before he was turn’d off, took off his shoes,
to avoid a well-known proverb; and being told by a person in the
cart with him, it was more proper for him to read, or hear some
body read to him, than so vilely to swear and sing, he struck the
book out of the person’s hands, and went on damning the spectators,
and calling for wine. Whilst psalms and prayers were performing at
the tree, he did little but talk to one or other, desiring some to
remember him, others to drink to his good journey; and to the last
moment declared the injustice of his case” (Gentleman’s Magazine,
vol. iii. P. 154).
To this maybe added, that at Edinburgh, in 1565, “Sandy Stevin
menstrall [_i.e._ musician] was convinced of blasphemy, alledging,
That he would give no moir credit to The new testament, then to
a tale of Robin Hood, except it wer confirmed be the doctours of
the church” (Knox’s Historie of the Reformation in Scotland, Edin.
1732, p. 368).
William Roy, in a bitter satire against Cardinal Wolsey, intitled,
“Rede me and be nott wrothe For I saye nothynge but trothe,”
printed abroad, about 1525, speaking of the bishops, says:
“Their frantyke foly is so pevisshe,
That they contempne in Englisshe,
To have the new testament;
But as for tales of Robyn Hode,
With wother jestes nether honest nor goode,
They have none impediment.”
To the same effect is the following passage in another old libel
upon the priests, intitled “I playne Piers which can not flatter, a
plowe-man men me call,” &c. b. l. n. d. printed in the original as
prose:
“No Christen booke,
Maye thou on looke,
Yf thou be an Englishe strunt, {xciii}
Thus dothe alyens us loutte,
By that ye spreade aboute,
After that old sorte and wonte.
You allowe they saye,
Legenda aurea,
Roben Hoode, Bevys, & Gower,
And all bagage be syd,
But God’s word ye may not abyde,
These lyese are your churche ‘dower.’”
See also before, p. lxxii.[75]
So in Laurence Ramsey’s “Practise of the Divell” (n. d. 4to, b. l.):
“Exclude the scriptures, and byd them reade the storie
Of Robin Hood, and Guye, which was both tall and stout,
And Bevis of Southampton, to seeke the matter out.”
(31) “_His service to the Word of God._”] “I came once myselfe,”
says Bishop Latimer (in his sixth sermon before King Edward VI.),
“to a place, riding on a jorney homeward from London, and I sent
worde over night into the towne that I would preach there in
the morning, bicause it was a holy day, and methought it was an
holydayes worke. The churche stode in my way; and I tooke my horse
and my company and went thither (I thought I should have found a
great companye in the churche), and when I came there, the churche
dore was faste locked. I taried there half an hower and more; at
last the keye was founde; and one of the parishe commes to me, and
sayes, Sir, this is a busie day with us, we cannot heare you; it is
Robin Hoodes daye. The parishe are gone abroad to gather for Robin
Hoode, I pray you let them not. I was fayne there to geve place
to Robin Hoode. I thought my rochet shoulde have bene regarded,
thoughe I were not; but it woulde not serve, it was fayne to geve
place to Robin Hodes men. {xciv}
“It is no laughyng matter, my frendes, it is a weepyng matter, a
heavy matter, under the pretence for gatherynge for Robin Hoode,
a traytour[76] and a theefe, to put out a preacher, to have
his office lesse esteemed, to preferre Robin Hoode before the
ministration of God’s worde, and all this hath come of unpreaching
prelates. Thys realme hath bene ill provided for, that it hath had
suche corrupte judgementes in it, to preferre Robin Hoode to God’s
worde. If the bishoppes had bene preachers, there shoulde never
have bene any such thing,” &c.
(32) —“_may be called the patron of archery._”] The bow and arrow
makers, in particular, have always held his memory in the utmost
reverence. Thus, in the old ballad of London’s Ordinary:
“The hosiers will dine at the Leg,
The drapers at the sign of the Brush,
The fletchers to Robin Hood will go,
And the spendthrift to Beggar’s-bush.”[77]
The picture of our hero is yet a common sign in the country, and,
before hanging-signs were abolished in London, must have been still
more so in the City; there being at present no less than a dozen
alleys, courts, lanes, &c., to which he or it has given a name.
(See Baldwin’s New Complete Guide, 1770.) The Robin Hood Society,
a club or assembly for public debate, or school for oratory, is
well known. It was held at a public-house, which had once borne the
sign, and still retained the name of this great man, in Butcher
Row, near Temple Bar.
It is very usual in the North of England for a publican whose name
fortunately happens to be John Little to have {xcv} the sign
of Robin Hood and his constant attendant, with this quibbling
subscription:
“You gentlemen, and yeomen good,
Come in and drink with Robin Hood;
If Robin Hood be not at home,
Come in and drink with Little John.”[78]
An honest countryman, admiring the conceit, adopted the lines, with
a slight, but, as he thought, necessary alteration, viz.:
“If Robin Hood be not at home,
Come in and drink with—Simon Webster.”
Drayton, describing the various ensigns or devices of the English
counties at the battle of Agincourt, gives to
“Old Nottingham, an archer clad in green,
Under a tree with his drawn bow that stood,
Which in a chequer’d flag far off was seen;
It was the picture of old Robin Hood.”
(33) —“_the supernatural powers he is, in some parts, supposed to
have possessed._”] “In the parish of Halifax is an immense stone
or rock, supposed to be a Druidical monument, there called Robin
Hood’s pennystone, which he is said to have used to pitch with at a
mark for his amusement. There is likewise another of these stones,
of several tons weight, which the country-people will tell you he
threw off an adjoining hill with a spade as he was digging. Every
thing of the marvellous kind being here attributed to Robin Hood,
as it is in Cornwall to King Arthur” (Watson’s History of Halifax,
p. 27).
At Birchover, six miles south of Bakewell, and four from Haddon, in
Derbyshire, among several singular groups of rocks, are some stones
called Robin Hood’s stride, being two {xcvi} of the highest and
most remarkable. The people say Robin Hood lived here.
(34) —“_having a festival allotted to him, and solemn games
instituted in honour of his memory_,” _&c._] These games, which
were of great antiquity and different kinds, appear to have been
solemnised on the first and succeeding days of May, and to owe
their original establishment to the cultivation and improvement
of the manly exercise of archery, which was not, in former times,
practised merely for the sake of amusement.
“I find,” says Stow, “that in the moneth of May, the citizens of
London, of all estates, lightlie in every parish, or sometimes
two or three parishes joyning together, had their severall
mayinges, and did fetch in Maypoles, with divers warlike shewes,
with good archers, morrice-dancers, and other devices for pastime
all the day long: and towards the evening they had stage-playes
and bonefires in the streetes. . . . . These greate Mayinges and
Maygames, made by the governors and masters of this citie, with the
triumphant setting up of the greate shafte (a principall Maypole in
Cornhill, before the parish church of S. Andrew, therefore called
Undershafte) by meane of an insurrection of youthes against alianes
on Mayday 1517, the ninth of Henry the Eight, have not beene so
freely used as afore” (Survey of London, 1598, p. 72).
The disuse of these ancient pastimes, and the consequent “neglect
of archerie,” are thus pathetically lamented by Richard Niccolls,
in his London’s Artillery, 1616:
[Sidenote: A description of one drawing a bow.]
“How is it that our London hath laid downe
This worthy practise, which was once the crowne
Of all her pastime, when her Robin Hood
Had wont each yeare, when May did clad the wood,
With lustie greene, to lead his yong men out,
Whose brave demeanour, oft when they did shoot,
Invited royall princes from their courts,
Into the wilde woods to behold their sports!
Who thought it then a manly sight and trim,
To see a youth of cleane compacted lim,
Who, with a comely grace, in his left hand
Holding his bow, did take his stedfast stand,
Setting his left leg somewhat foorth before,
His arrow with his right hand nocking sure, {xcvii}
Not stooping, nor yet standing streight upright,
Then, with his left hand little ’bove his sight,
Stretching his arm out, with an easie strength,
To draw an arrow of a yard in length.”[79]
The lines,
“Invited royall princes from their courts
Into the wild woods to behold their sports,”
may be reasonably supposed to allude to Henry VIII., who appears
to have been particularly attached, as well to the exercise of
archery as to the observance of May. Some short time after his
coronation, says Hall, he “came to Westminster with the quene, and
all their traine: and on a tyme being there, his grace therles of
Essex, Wilshire, and other noble menne, to the numbre of twelve,
came sodainly in a mornyng into the quenes chambre, all appareled
in short cotes of Kentish Kendal, with hodes on their heddes, and
hosen of the same, every one of them his bowe and arrowes, and a
sworde and a bucklar, like outlawes, or ‘Robyn’ Hodes men; whereof
the quene, the ladies, and al other there were abashed, aswell for
the straunge sight, as also for their sodain commyng: and after
certayn daunces and pastime made thei departed” (Hen. VIII. fo.
6, b). The same author gives the following curious account of “A
maiynge” in the 7th year of this monarch (1516): “The kyng & the
quene, accompanied with many lordes & ladies, roade to the high
grounde on Shoters hil to take the open ayre, and as they passed
by the way they espied a company of tall yomen, clothed all in
grene, with grene whodes & bowes and arrowes, to the number of ii.
C. Then one of them whiche called hymselfe Robyn Hood, came to the
kyng, desyring hym to se his men shote, & the kyng was content.
Then he whisteled, and all the ii. C. archers shot & losed at
once; and then he whisteled again, and they likewyse shot agayne;
their arrowes whisteled by craft of the {xcviii} head, so that
the noyes was straunge and great, and muche pleased the kyng, the
quene, and all the company. All these archers were of the kynges
garde, and had thus appareled themselves to make solace to the
kynge. Then Robyn Hood desyred the kyng and quene to come into the
grene wood, and to se how the outlawes lyve. The kyng demaunded
of the quene and her ladyes, if they durst adventure to go into
the wood with so many outlawes. Then the quene said, if it pleased
hym, she was content. Then the hornes blewe tyll they came to the
wood under Shoters-hill, and there was an arber made of bowes,
with a hal, and a great chamber, and an inner chamber, very well
made and covered with floures and swete herbes, which the kyng
muche praised. Then sayd Robyn Hood, Sir, outlawes brekefastes
is venyson, and therefore you must be content with such fare
as we use. Then the kyng and quene sate doune, and were served
with venyson and vyne by Robyn Hood and his men, to their great
contentacion. Then the kyng departed and his company, and Robyn
Hood and his men them conduicted: and as they were returnyng, there
met with them two ladyes in a ryche chariot drawen with v. horses,
and every horse had his name on his head, and on every horse sat
a lady with her name written . . . . and in the chayre sate the
lady May, accompanied with lady Flora, richely appareled; and they
saluted the kyng with diverse goodly songes, and so brought hym
to Grenewyche. At this maiyng was a greate number of people to
beholde, to their great solace and confort” (fo. lvi. b).
That this sort of May-games was not peculiar to London appears
from a passage in Richard Robinson’s “Third assertion Englishe
historicall, frendly in favour and furtherance of English
archery:”[80] {xcix}
“And, heare because of archery I do by penne explane,
The use, the proffet, and the praise, to England by the same,
Myselfe remembreth of a childe in contreye native mine, (1553)
A May-game was of Robyn Hood, and of his traine that time, (7. E. 6.)
To traine up young men, stripplings, and eche other younger childe,
In shooting, yearely this with solempne feast was by the guylde
Or brotherhood of townsmen don, with sport, with joy, and love,
To proffet which in present tyme, and afterward did prove.”
The games of Robin Hood seem to have been occasionally of a
dramatic cast. Sir John Paston, in the time of King Edward IV.,
complaining of the ingratitude of his servants, mentions one who
had promised never to desert him, “and ther uppon,” says he, “I
have kepyd hym thys iii yer to pleye seynt Jorge, and Robyn Hod and
the sheryf off Notyngham,[81] and now when I wolde have good horse
he is goon into Bernysdale, and I withowt a keeper.”
In some old accounts of the churchwardens of St. Helen’s at
Abingdon, Berks, for the year 1556, there is an entry For setting
up Robin Hoodes Bower; I suppose, says {c} Warton, for a parish
interlude. (See History of English Poetry, ii. 175.)[82] {ci}
In some places, at least, these games were nothing more, in
effect, than a morris-dance, in which Robin Hood, Little John, Maid
Marian, and Frier Tuck were the principal personages; the others
being a clown or fool, the hobby-horse (which appears, for some
reason or other, to have been frequently forgot[83]), the taborer,
and the dancers, who were more or less numerous. Thus Warner:
“At Paske began our morrise, and ere penticost our May,
Tho Roben Hood, liell John, frier Tuck, and Marian deftly play,
And lard and ladie gang till kirke with lads and lasses gay.”[84]
Perhaps the clearest idea of these last-mentioned games, about the
beginning of the 16th century, will be derived from some curious
extracts given by Mr. Lysons in his valuable work intitled “The
Environs of London” (vol. i. 1792, p. 226), from the contemporary
accounts of the “churchwardens of the parish of Kingston upon
Thames.”
“Robin Hood and May-game.
“23 Hen. 7. To the menstorell upon May-day 0 0 4
―― For paynting of the mores garments and for
sarten gret leveres[85] 0 2 4 {cii}
―― For paynting of a bannar for Robin Hode 0 0 3
―― For 2 M. & ½ pynnys 0 0 10
―― For 4 plyts and ½ of laun for the mores
garments 0 2 11
―― For orseden[86] for the same 0 0 10
―― For a goun for the lady 0 0 8
―― For bellys for the dawnsars 0 0 12
24 Hen. 7. For little John’s cote 0 8 0
1 Hen. 8. For silver paper for the mores
dawnsars 0 0 7
―― For Kendall for Robyn Hode’s cote 0 1 3
―― For 3 yerds of white for the frere’s[87] cote 0 3 0 {ciii}
―― For 4 yards of kendall for mayde Marian’s[88]
huke[89] 0 3 4
―― For saten of sypers for the same huke 0 0 6
―― For 2 payre of glovys for Robin Hode and
mayde Maryan 0 0 3
―― For 6 brode arovys 0 0 6
―― To mayde Maryan for her labour for two
years 0 2 0
―― To Fygge the taborer 0 6 0
―― Rec^d for Robyn Hod’s gaderyng 4
marks[90] {civ}
5 Hen. 8. Rec^d for Robin Hood’s gaderyng at
Croydon 0 9 4
11 Hen. 8. Paid for three broad yerds of rosett
for maykng the frer’s cote 0 3 6
―― Shoes for the mores daunsars, the frere and
mayde Maryan at 7^d a payre 0 5 4
13 Hen. 8. Eight yerds of fustyan for the mores
daunsars coats 0 16 0
A dosyn of gold skynnes for the morres[91] 0 0 10
15 Hen. 8. Hire of hats for Robynhode 0 0 16
―― Paid for the hat that was lost 0 0 10
16 Hen. 8. Rec^d at the church-ale and Robyn-hode
all things deducted 3 10 6
―― Paid for 6 yerds ¼ of satyn for Robyn
Hode’s coyts 0 12 6
―― For makyng the same 0 2 0
―― For 3 ells of locram[92] 0 1 6
21 Hen. 8. For spunging and brushing
Robyn-hode’s cotys 0 0 2
28 Hen. 8. Five hats and 4 porses for the
daunsars 0 0 4½
―― 4 yerds of cloth for the fole’s cote 0 2 0
―― 2 ells of worstede for mayde Maryans kyrtle 0 6 8
―― For 6 payre of double sollyd showne 0 4 6
―― To the mynstrele 0 10 8
―― To the fryer and the piper for to go to
Croydon 0 0 8
29 Hen. 8. Mem. Lefte in the keping of the
wardens nowe beinge.
A fryers cote of russet and a kyrtele of worstyde weltyd with red
cloth, a mowrens[93] cote of buckram, and 4 morres {cv} daunsars
cotes of white fustian spangelyd and two gryne saten cotes and a
dysardd’s[94] cote of cotton and 6 payre of garters with bells.”
These games appear to have been discontinued at Kingston, as
a parochial undertaking at least, after the above period, as the
industrious inquirer found no further entries relating to them.
Some of the principal characters of the morris seem to have
gradually disappeared, so that at length it consisted only of the
dancers, the piper, and the fool. In Mr. Tollet’s window we find
neither Robin Hood nor Little John, though Marian and the frier
are still distinguished performers.[95] But in the scene of one,
introduced in the old play of Jacke Drum’s Entertainment, first
printed in 1601, there is not the least symptom of any of the
four.[96] “The taber and pipe strike up a morrice. A shoute within:
A lord, a lord, a lord, who![97]
_Ed._ Oh, a morrice is come, observe our country sports,
’Tis _Whitson tyde_,[98] and we must frolick it.
{cvi}
_Enter the morrice._
The song.
Skip it, and trip it, nimbly, nimbly,
Tickle it, tickle it lustily,
Strike up the taber, for the wenches favour,
Tickle it, tickle it lustily.
Let us be seen, on Hygate greene,
To dance for the honour of Holloway.
Since we are come hither, let’s spare for no leather,
To dance for the honour of Holloway.
_Ed._ Well said, my boyes, I must have my lord’s livory: what
is’t? a maypole? Troth, ’twere a good body for a courtier’s
impreza, if it had but this life, Frustra florescit. Hold, cousin,
hold.
[_He gives the fool money._
_Foole._ Thankes, cousin, when the lord my father’s audit comes,
wee’l repay you againe. Your benevolence too, sir.
_Mam._ What! a lord’s sonne become a begger!
_Foole._ Why not? when beggers are become lord’s sons. Come, ’tis
but a trifle.
_Mam._ Oh, sir, many a small make a great.
_Foole._ No, sir, a few great make a many small. Come, my lords,
poore and neede hath no law.
_S. Ed._ Nor necessitie no right. Drum, downe with them into the
celler. Rest content, rest content; one bout more, and then away.
_Foole._ ‘Spoke’ like a true heart: I kisse thy foote, sweet
knight.
_The morrice sing and dance and exeunt._”
It is therefore highly probable, as hath been already suggested,
that the _May-game of Robin Hood_ and the _morris-dance_ had
originally no sort of connection; that the performers had united
their forces, because their joint efforts proved more successful,
lucrative, or agreeable; and that, in fine, the latter gradually
shook off companions from whose association they no longer derived
any advantage.[99]
An old writer, describing a country bridal show exhibited before
Queen Elizabeth at Kenilworth Castle in 1575, {cvii} mentions
“a lively moris dauns, according too the auncient manner, six
daunsers, mawd Marion, and the fool.”
Stubbs’s chapter, upon “Lords of mis-rule” (Anatomie of Abuses,
1583) contains a singular description of a grand parochial
morris-dance, which is worthy of perusal.
It is observable that, in the sham second part of _Hudibras_,
published 1663, this place is said to be
“Highly famed for _Hocktide games_.”
(Grey’s edition of _Hudibras_, ii. 90.) Of what nature these were
(at Kingston) we are not informed. See Plot’s Natural History of
Oxfordshire; Leland’s Collectanea, v. Roas.
_Hocktide_ or _Hock-day_ was the Tuesday fortnight after Easter.
Two falsehoods are asserted of this festival: one, that its
celebration was owing to the general joy excited by the death of
Hardecnute, which in fact took place on the 8th of June: the other,
that it was the anniversary of the general slaughter of the Danes
in 1042; which Henry of Huntingdon and others expressly fix on St.
Brice’s day, being the 13th of November.
It plainly appears, by these extracts, that _Robyn Hode_, _Little
John_, _the frere_, and _mayde Maryan_ were fitted out at the same
time with _the mores daunsars_, and, consequently, it would seem,
united with them in one and the same exhibition.[100]
“Also it was said, that the ladie hir selfe, the same daie hir
husband and she should be crowned, said that she feared they
should prove but as a summer king and queene, such as in countrie
townes the yoong folks choose for short to danse about maipoles”
(Holinshed, at the year 1306).
As to the original institution of May-poles, or king and queen
of May,—in a word, of the primitive purpose and celebration of a
popular festival at that season,—nothing {cviii} satisfactory or
consequential can be discovered. The curious reader, at the same
time, may consult Spelman’s Glossary, _voce_ MAIUMA, and Ducange,
_vv._ MAJUMA, MAIUS.
In an old manuscript music-book given lately by Mr. Dalziel to the
Advocates’ Library are the following scraps of songs about Robin
Hood:
“First when Robin good bow bare,
Was never bairne so bold,
Doune, doune, berrie, doune, doune.”
“Now will ye hear a jollie jest,
How Robin Hood was pope of Rome,
And Wallace king of France.”
“Jolly Robin goe to the green wood to thy lemman.”
“The nock is out of Johnes bow, Joly, joly,” &c.
Much curious matter on the subject of the morris-dance is to be
found in “Mr. Tollet’s opinion concerning the Morris-dancers upon
his Window.” (See Steevens’s Shakespeare, v. 425, edition 1778,
or viii. 596, edition 1793. See also Mr. Waldron’s notes upon the
Sad Shepherd, 1783, p. 255.) Morris-dancers are said to be yet
annually seen in Norfolk,[101] and make their constant appearance
in Lancashire.[102]
In Scotland, “The game of Robin Hood was celebrated in the month
of May. The populace assembled previous to {cvix} the celebration
of this festival, and chose some respectable[103] member of the
corporation to officiate in the character of Robin Hood, and
another in that of Little John his squire. Upon the day appointed,
which was a Sunday or holyday, the people assembled in military
array, and went to some adjoining field, where, either as actors
or spectators, the whole inhabitants of the respective towns were
convened. In this field they probably amused themselves with a
representation of Robin Hood’s predatory exploits, or of his
encounters with the officers of justice [rather, perhaps, in feats
of archery or military exercises].
“As numerous meetings for disorderly mirth are apt to engender
tumult, when the minds of the people came to be agitated with
religious controversy, it was found necessary to repress the
game[104] of Robin Hood by public statute. The populace were by no
means willing to relinquish their favourite amusement. Year after
year the magistrates of Edinburgh were obliged to exert their
authority[105] in repressing this game; often ineffectually. In the
year 1561, the mob were so enraged at being disappointed in making
a Robin Hood, that they rose in mutiny, seized on the city gates,
committed robberies upon strangers; and one of the {cx} ringleaders
being condemned by the magistrates to be hanged, the mob forced
open the jail, set at liberty the criminal and all the prisoners,
and broke in pieces the gibbet erected at the cross for executing
the malefactor. They next assaulted the magistrates, who were[106]
sitting in the council-chamber, and who fled to the Tolbooth for
shelter, where the mob attacked them, battering the doors, and
pouring stones through the windows. Application was made to the
deacons of the corporations to appease the tumult. Remaining,
however, unconcerned spectators, they made this answer: ‘They
will be magistrates alone; let them rule the people alone.’ The
magistrates were kept in confinement till they made proclamation
be published, offering indemnity to the rioters upon laying down
their arms. Still, however, so late as the year 1592, we find the
General Assembly complaining of the profanation of the sabbath, by
making[107] of Robin Hood plays” (Arnot’s History of Edinburgh, p.
77).
Notwithstanding the above representation, it is certain that these
amusements were considerably upon the decline before the year
1568. This appears from a poem by Alexander Scot, preserved in the
Hyndford MS. (in the Advocates’ Library, compiled and written in
that identical year), and inaccurately printed in The Evergreen:
“In May quhen men zeid everichone
With Robene Hoid and Littill Johne,
To bring in bowis and birkin bobbynis:
Now all sic game is fastlingis gone,
But gif it be amangis clovin Robbynis.”
(35) —“_His bow, and one of his arrows, his chair, his cap, and one
of his slippers were preserved till within the present century._”]
“We omitted,” says Ray, “the sight of Fountain’s Abbey, where Robin
Hood’s bow is kept” (Itineraries, 1760, p. 161).
“Having pleased ourselves with the antiquities of ‘Notingham,’
we took horse and went to visit the well and {cxi} ancient chair
of Robin Hood, which is not far from hence, within the forest of
Sherwood. Being placed in the chair, we had a cap, which they say
was his, very formally put upon our heads, and having performed
the usual ceremonies befitting so great a solemnity, we receiv’d
the freedom of the chair, and were incorporated into the society
of that renowned brotherhood” (Brome’s Travels over England, &c.,
1700, p. 85).
“On one side of this forest [sci. of Sherwood] towards Nottingham,”
says the author of “The Travels of Tom Thumb over England and
Wales” (_i.e._ Robert Dodsley), “I was shewn a chair, a bow, and
arrow, all said to have been his [Robin Hood’s] property” (p. 82).
“I was pleased with a slipper, belonging to the famous Robin Hood,
shewn me, fifty years ago, at St. Ann’s well, near Nottingham, a
place upon the borders of Sherwood forest, to which he resorted”
(Journey from Birmingham to London, by W. Hutton, Bir. 1785, p.
174).
(36) —“_Not only places which afforded him security or amusement,
but even the well at which he quenched his thirst, still retain his
name._”] Robin Hood’s Bay is both a bay and a village on the coast
of Yorkshire, between Whitby and Scarborough. It is mentioned by
Leland as “a fischer tounlet of 20. bootes caullid Robyn Huddes
bay, a dok or bosom of a mile yn length” (Itinerary, i. 53). “When
his robberies,” says Master Charlton, “became so numerous, and
the outcries against him so loud, as almost to alarm the whole
nation, parties of soldiers were sent down from London to apprehend
him: and then it was, that fearing for his safety, he found it
necessary to desert his usual haunts, and, retreating northward, to
cross the moors that surrounded Whitby [one side whereof happens,
a little unfortunately, to lie open to the sea], where, gaining
the sea-coast, he always had in readiness near at hand some small
fishing vessels, to which he could have refuge, if he found himself
pursued; for in these, putting off to sea, he looked upon himself
as quite secure, and held the whole power of the English nation
at defiance. The chief place of his resort {cxii} at these times,
where his boats were generally laid up, was about six miles from
Whitby, to which he communicated his name, and which is still
called Robin Hood’s Bay. There he frequently went a fishing in the
summer season, even when no enemy appeared to annoy him, and not
far from that place he had buts or marks set up, where he used to
exercise his men in shooting with the long-bow.”[108]
Near Gloucester is “a famous hill” called “Robin Hood’s hill,”
concerning which there is a very foolish modern song. Another
hill of the same name exists in the neighbourhood of Castleton,
Derbyshire.
“Over a spring call’d Robin Hoods well (3 or 4 miles [on] this side
[_i.e._ north] of Doncaster, and but a quarter of a mile only from
2 towns call’d Skelbrough and Bourmallis) is a very handsome stone
arch, erected by the Lord Carlisle, where passengers from the coach
frequently drink of the fair water, and give their charity to two
people who attend there” (Gent’s History of York. York, 1730, p.
234).[109] {cxiii}
Though there is no attendance at present, nor is the water
altogether so fair as it might and should be, the case was
otherwise in the days of honest Barnaby.
“Veni Doncaster, &c.
Nescit sitis artem modi,
Puteum Roberti Hoodi
Veni, & liquente vena
Vincto[110] catino catena,
Tollens sitim, parcum odi,
Solvens obolum custodi.”
“Thence to Doncaster, &c.
Thirst knowes neither meane nor measure,
Robin Hood’s well was my treasure;
In a[111] common dish enchained,
I my furious thirst restrained:
And because I drunk the deeper,
I paid two farthings to the keeper.”
{cxiv}
He mentions it again:
“Nunc longinquos locus odi,
Vale fons Roberti Hoodi.”
“Now I hate all foreign places,
Robin Hood’s well, and his chaces.”
A different well, sacred either to Robin Hood or to St. Ann, has
been already mentioned.
“Not far [off Bitham, in Lincolnshire] is _Robyn Huddes cros_, a
_limes_ of the shires” (Leland’s Itinerary, i. 25).
(37) —“_conferred as a singular distinction upon the prime minister
to the king of Madagascar._”] The natives of this island, who
have dealings with our people, pride themselves, it seems, in
English names, which are bestowed upon them at the discretion or
caprice of the sailors: and thus a venerable minister of state,
who should have been called Sir Robert Walpole or Cardinal Fleury,
acquired the name of Robin Hood. Mr. Ives, by whom he is frequently
mentioned, relates the following anecdote:—
“The reader will excuse my giving him another instance . . . .
which still more strikingly displays the extreme sensibility of
these islanders, in respect to their king’s dignity. Robin Hood
(who seemed to act as prime minister, and negotiate most of the
king’s concerns with our agent-victualler) was one day transacting
business with another gentleman of the squadron, and they happened
to differ so much about the value of a certain commodity, that high
words arose, and at length Robin Hood in the greatest agitation
started from the ground where he was sitting, and swore that
he would immediately acquaint the king of Baba with what had
passed. Our English gentleman, too much heated with this threat,
and the violent altercation which had preceded it, unguardedly
replied, ‘D―n the king of Baba.’ The eyes of Robin Hood flashed
like lightning, and in the most violent wrath he retorted, ‘D―n
King George.’ At the same instant he left the spot, hurrying away
towards the Madagascarian cottages. Our countryman was soon struck
with the impropriety of his behaviour, followed and overtook the
disputant, and having {cxv} made all proper concessions, the affair
was happily terminated.”[112]
(38) “_After his death his company was dispersed._”] They and their
successors, disciples, or followers are supposed to have been
afterward distinguished, from the name of their gallant leader,
by the title of Roberdsmen. Lord Coke, who is somewhat singular
in accusing him of living “by robbery, burning of houses, felony,
waste and spoil, and principally by and with vagabonds, idle
wanderers, night-walkers, and draw-latches,” says that “albeit he
lived in Yorkshire, yet men of his quality took their denomination
of him, and were called Roberdsmen throughout all England.
Against these men,” continues he, “was the statute of Winchester
made in 13 E. 1. [c. 14], for preventing of robbery, murders,
burning of houses, &c. Also the statute of 5 E. 3. [c. 14], which
‘recites’ the statute of Winchester, and that there had been
divers manslaughters, felonies, and robberies done in times past,
by people that be called Roberdsmen, wasters and draw-latches;
and remedy [is] provided by that act for the arresting of them.
At the parliament holden 50 E. 3.,” he adds, “it was petitioned
to the king that ribauds and sturdy beggars might be banished out
of every town. The answer of the king in parliament was, touching
ribauds: The statute of Winchester and the declaration of the same
with other statutes of Roberdsmen, and for such as make themselves
gentlemen, and men of armes, and archers, if they cannot so prove
theirselves, let them be driven to their occupation or service,
or to the place from whence they came.” He likewise notices the
statute of 7 R. 2. [c. 5], by which it is provided “that the
statutes of Roberdsmen and draw-latches be firmly holden and kept”
(3 Inst. 197).
These Roberdsmen are mentioned in Pierce the Ploughman’s Crede,
written about 1400:
“And right as Robartesmen raken aboute.”[113]
{cxvi}
Mr. Warton, who had once thought that the friers Robertines were
here meant, observes that “the expression of Robin Hoode’s men,
in Bishop Latimer’s sermon, is not without an allusion to the bad
sense of Roberdsmen” (H. E. P. ii. additions, sig. d. 4). It does
not, however, appear that the latter word has been ever used in a
good one; nor is there, after all, sufficient ground for concluding
that these people were so named after Robin Hood.
(39) —“_the honour of Little John’s death and burial is contended
for by rival nations._”] I. By England.—At the village of
Hathersage, about six miles from Castleton, in Derbyshire, is
Little John’s grave. A few years ago some curious person caused it
to be opened, when there were found several bones of an uncommon
size, which he preserved; but, meeting afterwards with many unlucky
accidents, he carefully replaced them; partly at the intercession
of the sexton, who had taken them up for him, and who had in like
manner been visited with misfortunes: upon restoring the bones
all these troubles ceased. Such is the tradition at Castleton. E.
Hargrove, in his “Anecdotes of Archery,” York, 1792, asserts that
“the grave is distinguished by a large stone placed at the head,
and another at the feet, on each of which are yet some remains
of the letters I. L.” (p. 26).[114] II. By Scotland.—“In Murray
land,” according to that most veracious historian Maister Hector
Bois, “is the kirke of Pette, quhare the banis of lytill Johne
remanis in gret admiratioun of pepill. He hes bene fourtene fut
of hycht[115] with square membris effering thairto. Vi. zeris,”
continues he, “afore the cumyng of this {cxvii} werk to lycht
we saw his hanche-bane, als mekill as the haill bane of ane man:
for we schot our arme in the mouth thairof. Be quhilk apperis
how strang and square pepill grew in our regioun afore thay were
effeminat with lust and intemperance of mouth.”[116] III. By
Ireland.—“There standeth,” as Stanihurst relates, “in Ostmantowne
greene an hillocke, named little John his shot. The occasion,” he
says, “proceeded of this.
“In the yeare one thousand one hundred foure score and nine, there
ranged three robbers and outlaws in England, among which Robert
Hood and Little John weere cheefeteins, of all theeves doubtlesse
the most courteous. Robert Hood being betrayed at a nunrie in
Scotland called Bricklies, the remnant of the crue was scattered,
and everie man forced to shift for himselfe. Whereupon Little
John was faine to flee the realme by sailing into Ireland, where
he sojornied for a few daies at Dublin. The citizens being doone
to understand the wandering outcast to be an excellent archer,
requested him hartilie to trie how far he could shoot at random;
who yeelding to their behest, stood on the bridge of Dublin, and
shot to that mole hill, leaving behind him a monument, rather
by his posteritie to be woondered, than possiblie by anie man
living to be counterscored. But as the repaire of so notorious a
champion to anie countrie would soone be published, so his abode
could not be long concealed: and therefore to eschew the danger of
[the] lawes, he fled into Scotland, where he died at a towne or
village called Moravie.”[117] Thus Stanihurst, who is quoted by Dr.
Hanmer in his Chronicle of Ireland, p. 179, but Mr. Walker, after
observing that “poor Little John’s great practical skill in archery
could not save him from an ignominious fate,” says, “it appeared,
from some records in the Southwell family, that {cxviii} he was
publicly executed for robbery on Arbor Hill, Dublin.”[118]
(40) —“_some of his descendants of the name of Nailor_,” _&c._] See
the preface to the History of George a Green. As surnames were by
no means in general use at the close of the twelfth century, Little
John may have obtained that of Nailor from his original profession.
(“Ye boasted worthies of the knuckle,
To Maggs and to the Nailor truckle.”)
But however this, or the fact itself may be, a bow, said to have
belonged to Little John, with the name of Naylor upon it, is now,
as the editor is informed, in the possession of a gentleman in the
West Riding of Yorkshire.
The quotation about whetstones is from the Sloane MS. Those,
indeed, who recollect the equivocal meaning of the word may think
that this production has not been altogether confined to the grave
of Little John.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES TO “NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS”, pp. xiv–cxviii
[4] See Part II. Ballad 1.
[5] All three mention a Loxley in Warwickshire, and another in
Staffordshire (“near Needwood forest; the manor and seat of the
Kinardsleys”).
[6] It is 1100 in the original, but that is clearly an error of the
press.
[7] King Edward, it is true, is introduced in the “Lytell Geste,”
&c., but the author has unquestionably meant the _first_ of that
name.
[8] Thus, likewise, in a much earlier version from the same
immortal bard (_Homer a la mode_, 1664), we read of
“――greate Apollo, who’s as good
At pricks and buts as _Robin Hood_.”
[9] _Alias_ R. G., the scurrilous and malignant editor of that
degraded publication.
[10] The authority cited by Grafton in 1569 as then “olde and
auncient” must have been at least of equal antiquity with the most
ancient poems that Dr. P. is acquainted with.
[11] Stukeley’s Palæographia Britannica, No. II. p. 115. In an
interleaved copy of Robin Hood’s Garland formerly belonging to Dr.
Stukeley, and now in the possession of Francis Douce, esquire,
opposite the second page of the first song, is the following note
in his own hand:
“Guy earl of Warwick.
George Gamwell Joanna =
of Gamwell hall _magna_ │ Fitz Odoth
esq. │
│
+─────────────────────+
│
Robin Fitz Odoth
Gamwell the king’s forester in Yorkshire,
mentioned in Camden.
See my answer, No. II. of Lady Roisia,
where is Robin Hood’s true pedigree.”
The Doctor seems, by this pedigree, to have founded our hero’s
pretensions on his descent from Roisia, sister of Robert
Fitzgilbert, husband of Alice, youngest daughter of Judith,
Countess of Huntingdon, which, whatever it might do in those times,
would scarcely be thought sufficient to support such a claim at
present. Beside, though John the Scot died without issue, he left
three sisters, all married to powerful barons, either in Scotland
or in England, none of whom, however, assumed the title. It is,
therefore, probable, after all, that Robin Hood derived his earldom
by some other channel.
Dr. Stukeley, whose learned labours are sufficiently known and
esteemed, was a professed antiquary, and a beneficed clergyman
of the Church of England. He has not, it is true, thought it
necessary to cite any ancient or other authority in support of
the above representations; nor is it in the editor’s power to
supply the deficiency. Perhaps, indeed, the Doctor might think
himself entitled to expect that his own authority would be deemed
sufficient: upon that, however, they must be content to rest. _Sit
fides penes auctorem!_ Mr. Parkin, who published “A reply to the
peevish, weak, and malevolent objections brought by Dr. Stukeley in
his Origines Roystonianæ, No. 2” (Norwich, 1748, 4to), terms “his
pedigree of Robin Hood, quite jocose, an original indeed!” (See pp.
27, 32.)
Otho and Fitz-Otho, it must be confessed, were common names among
the Anglo-Normans,* but no such name as Othes, Ooth, Fitz-Othes,
or Fitz-Ooth, has been elsewhere met with. Philip de Kime, also,
was certainly a considerable landholder in the county of Lincoln in
the time of King Henry II., but it nowhere appears, except from Dr.
Stukeley, that his surname was Fitz-Ooth.
The Doctor likewise informs us that the arms of Ralph Fitz-Ooth,
and consequently of our hero, were “g. two bendlets engrailed, o.”
――――
* “Filius Roberti filii Odonis est in custodia Domini Regis, et
est vj annorum, et ipse est heres decime partis unius militis, et
vix possunt inde habere victum suum ipse et mater sua.” Rotulus de
vidius, &c. (31 H. 2) MSS. Har. 624.
[12] Grafton’s Chronicle, p. 85.
[13] Collec. i. 54.
[14] See Robin Hood’s Progress to Nottingham, part ii. ballad 2.
[15] Plompton Park, upon the banks of the Peterill, in Cumberland,
was formerly very large, and set apart by the kings of England
for the keeping of deer. It was disafforested or disparked by
Henry VIII. See Camden’s Britannia, by Bishop Gibson, who seems to
confound this park with Inglewood forest, a district of sixteen
miles in length, reaching from Carlisle to Penrith, where the kings
of England used to hunt, and Edward I. is reported to have killed
200 bucks in one day (_Ibid._)
[16] _Anno 1194_] _Vicesima nona die mensis martii_ Richardus
rex Angliæ _projectus est videre_ Clipestone, & _forrestas de_
Sirewode, _quas ipse nunquam viderat antea: & placuerunt ei multum,
& eodem die rediit ad_ Notingham (R. de Hoveden, Annales, p. 736).
Drayton (Polyolbion, song 26) introduces Sherwood in the character
of a nymph, who, out of disdain at the preference shown by the poet
to a sister-forest,
“All self praise set apart, determineth to sing
That lusty Robin Hood, who long time like a king
Within her compass liv’d, and when he list to range,
For some rich booty set, or else his air to change,
To Sherwood still retir’d, his only standing court.”
[17] It occurs in “Tarlton’s Newes out of Purgatory,” 1630, 4to
(entered on the Stationers’ books in 1590).
[18] It likewise gives the proverb noticed in a preceding page thus:
“Were he as good as George a Greene, I would strike him sure.”
[19] There is an edition in 1706, 8vo.
[20] Scotish Poems, i. 122.
[21] Surely the “lady” alluded to in the old May-game cannot be
our Maid Marian. The earliest notice of her occurs in Barclay’s
_Egloges_, about 1500, where she is evidently connected with Robin
Hood. See Note 26.
[22] Without “the ancient songs,” to which the Doctor refers,
are confined to his “old MS.,” he evidently asserts what he
would probably find it difficult to prove. As for the passage
he produces, it seems nothing to the purpose; as, in the first
place, it is apparently not “antient,” and, in the second, it is
apparently not from a “song of Robin Hood.”
[23] Mr. Warton, having observed that “The play of Robin and Marian
is said to have been performed by the school-boys of Angiers,
according to annual custom, in the year 1392: The boys were
deguisiez, says the old French record; and they had among them un
fillette desguisee (Carpent. Du Cange, v. Robinet-Pentecoste),”
adds, “Our old character of Mayd Marian may be hence illustrated”
(His. En. po. i. 245). This, indeed, seems sufficiently plausible;
but unfortunately the Robin and Marian of Angiers are not the Robin
and Marian of Sherwood. The play is still extant. See Fabliaux
ou Contes, Paris, 1781, ii. 144. There are, likewise, some very
ancient pastoral ballads on the subject of these two lovers. See
La Borde, _Essai sur la Musique_, ii. 163, 215. But, in fact,
the names of _Robin_ and _Marion_ seem to have been used by the
_chansonniers_ of antiquity like those of _Colin_ and _Phœbe_, &c.
[24] In 1592, Richard Jones, stationer, entered on the Company’s
books, “A plesant fancie, or merrie conceyt, called the passion et
morrys, daunst by a crue of 8 couple of wores.
[25] “The quarry from whence King Wolfere fetched stones for his
royal structure [_i.e._ Peterborough] was undoubtedly that of
Bernach near unto Stamford . . . . And I find in the charter of
K. Edward the Confessor, which he granted to the abbot of Ramsey,
that the abbot of Ramsey should give to the abbot and convent of
Peterburgh 4000 eeles in the time of Lent, and in consideration
thereof the abbot of Peterburgh should give to the abbot of Ramsey
as much freestone from his pitts in Bernack, and as much ragstone
from his pitts in Peterburgh as he should need. Nor did the abbot
of Peterburgh from these pits furnish only that but other abbies
also, as that of St. Edmunds-Bury: in memory whereof there are
two long stones yet standing upon a balk in Castor-field, near
unto Gunwade-ferry; which erroneous tradition hath given out to be
draughts of arrows from Alwalton churchyard thither; the one of
Robin Hood, and the other of Little John; but the truth is, they
were set up for witnesses, that the carriages of stone from Bernack
to Gunwade-ferry, to be conveyed to S. Edmunds-Bury, might pass
that way without paying toll; and in some old terrars they are
called S. Edmund’s stones. These stones are nicked in their tops
after the manner of arrows, probably enough in memory of S. Edmund,
who was shot to death with arrows by the Danes” (Gunton’s History
of the Church of Peterburgh, 1686, p. 4).
[26] “In this relation,” Mr. Walker observes, “the Doctor not only
evinces his credulity, but displays his ignorance of archery; for
the ingenious and learned Mr. Barrington, than whom no man can be
better informed on the subject, thinks that eleven score and seven
yards is the utmost extent that an arrow can be shot from a long
bow” (Archæologia, vol. viii.) According to tradition, he adds,
Little John shot an arrow from the Old-bridge, Dublin, to the
present site of St. Michael’s church, a distance not exceeding, he
believes, that mentioned by Mr. Barrington (Historical Essay on the
Dress of the Ancient and Modern Irish, p. 129).
What Mr. Barrington “thinks” may be true enough, perhaps, of the
Toxophilite Society and other modern archers; but people should not
talk of Robin Hood who never shot in his bow. The above ingenious
writer’s censure of Dr. Hanmer’s credulity and ignorance, seems to
be misapplied, since he cannot be supposed to believe what he holds
not for truth, and actually leaves among the lyes of the land.
See also the old song, printed in the Appendix, No. 3. Drayton, who
wrote before archery had fallen into complete disuse, says—
“At marks full forty score they us’d to prick and rove.”
That Mr. Barrington, indeed, was very ill informed on the subject
is evident from a most scarce book in the editor’s possession,
intitled “Aime for the archers of St. George’s fields, containing
the names of all the marks in the same fields, with their true
distances according to the dimensuration of the line. Formerly
gathered by Richard Hannis, and now corrected by Thomas Bick and
others. London, Printed by N. Howell for Robert Minehard and
Benjamin Brownsmith, and are to be sold at the sign of the man in
the moon in Blackman street, 1664,” 16mo, where the distance from
_Alpha_ to _Bick’s memorial_ is 18 score 16 yards; and 11 score 7
yards (though there are inferior numbers, the lowest being 9, 12)
appears to be a very moderate shot indeed. Two of these marks are
_Robin Hood_ and _Little John_. See also Shakespeare’s _Second
Part of K. Henry IV._, act iii. scene 2, where it is said that
_Old Double_ “would have clapp’d i’ the clout at _twelve score_;
and carry’d you a forehand shaft a _fourteen_ and _fourteen and a
half_;” and the notes upon the passage in Steevens’s edition, 1793.
It is probable, after all, that the word _forty_ in Drayton is an
error, of the transcriber or pressman, for _fourteen_.
Whatever Robin Hood’s father might do, there can be no question
that the author of the old ballad in which he is mentioned (part
ii. song 1) has “shot in a lusty strong bow” when he speaks of
“Two north-country miles and an inch at a shot.”
[27] Warner’s Albion’s England, 1602, p. 132. It is part of the
hermit’s speech to the Earl of Lancaster.
[28] Sir Roger Williams, in his _Briefe discourse of warre_, 1590,
has a chapter “To prooue bow-men the worst shot vsed in these
daies.” Sir John Smythe, however, was of a different opinion. See
his “Discourses concerning the formes and effects of divers sorts
of weapons, &c. As also, of the great sufficiencie, excellencie,
and wonderful effects of archers,” 1590, 4to. See also a different
treatise by him upon the same subject in Num. 132 of the Harleian
MSS.
[29] “A prince who fills the throne with a disputed title dares not
arm his subjects, the only method of securing a people fully both
against domestic oppression and foreign conquest” (Hume’s _Essays_,
“Of the Protestant Succession”).
[30] Flemings.
[31] Breeches.
[32] Thus also in part ii. ballad 1:
“She got on her holyday kirtle and gown
They were of a light Lincolne green.”
[33] In the sign of The green man and still, we perceive a huntsman
in a green coat standing by the side of a still; in allusion,
as it has been facetiously conjectured, to the partiality shown
by that description of gentry to a morning dram. The genuine
representation, however, should be the green-man (or man who deals
in green herbs) with a bundle of peppermint or penny-royal under
his arm, which he brings to have distilled.
“And farewell all gaie garments now,
With jewels riche of rare devise:
Like Robin Hood, I wot not how,
I must goe raunge in woodmen’s wyse,
Cladde in a cote of greene or gray,
And gladde to get it if i maye.”
The workes of a young wyt, Done by N. B. Gent. 1577, 4to, b. l.
[34] There appears, however, to be a town of this name in Flanders,
which may be the place here meant. The above conjecture, therefore,
will be received for no more than it is worth.
[35] When Bulas, or Felix, the robber, was brought before Papinian,
the latter asked him why he gave himself up to robbing and
spoiling: “And why, sir,” was the answer, “are you ‘a governor’?”
See Dio Cassius in Severus.
“Because I do that,” said the pirate to Alexander, “with a single
ship which thou dost with a great fleet, I am called a thief, and
thou art called a king.”
[36] See Pennant’s Tour in Scotland MDCCLXXII. part i. p. 404. The
original reading, whether altered by mistake or design, is—
“—pacisque imponere morem.”
One might, to the same purpose, address our hero in the words of
Plautus (Trinummus, act iv. scene x):
“Atque hanc tuam gloriam jam ante auribus acceperam, et nobiles apud
homines,
Pauperibus te parcere solitum, divites damnare atque domare.
Abi, laudo, scis ordine, ut æquom’st,
Tractare homines, hoc dis dignum’st, semper mendicis modesti sint.”
“――I’ve heard before
This commendation of you, and from great ones,
That you were wont to spare the indigent,
And crush the wealthy.—I applaud your justice
In treating men according to their merits.—
’Tis worthy of the gods to have respect
Unto the poor.”
[37]
“Richard Cœur de Lyon cald a king and conquerour was,
With Phillip king of France who did unto Jerusalemm passe:
* * * * *
In this king’s time was Robyn Hood, that archer and outlawe,
And little John his partener eke, unto them which did drawe
One hondred tall and good archers, on whom foure hondred men,
Were their power never so strong, could not give onset then;
The abbots, monkes, and carles rich these onely did molest,
And reskewd woemen when they saw of theeves them so opprest;
Restoring poore men’s goods, and eke abundantly releeved
Poore travellers which wanted food, or were with sicknes greeved.”
(Third Assertion, &c., quoted elsewhere.)
[38] That this epitaph had been printed, or was well known, at
least, long before the publication of Mr. Thoresby’s book, if not
before either he or Dr. Gale was born, appears from the “True Tale
of Robin Hood” by Martin Parker, written, if not printed, as early
as 1631. (See _post_, p. 126.) That dates, about this period,
were frequently by _ides_ and _kalends_, see Madox’s _Formulare
Anglicanum_ (Dissertation), p. xxx. Even Arabic figures are
produced in some of still greater antiquity; see _Collectanea de
rebus Hibernicis_, ii. 331. Robert Grosthead, Bishop of Lincoln,
makes use of these figures about the year 1240. Astle’s _Origin of
Writing_, p. 188.
[39] In “The Travels of Tom Thumb over England and Wales” [by Mr.
Robert Dodsley], p. 106, is another though inferior version:
“Here, under this memorial stone,
Lies Robert earl of Huntingdon;
As he, no archer e’er was good,
And people call’d him Robin Hood:
Such outlaws as his men and he
Again may England never see.”
[40] In “a large folio volume of accounts kept by Mr. Philip
Henslowe, who appears to have been proprietor of the Rose theatre
near the Bankside in Southwark,” he has entered—
“Feb. 1597–8. The first part of Robin Hood, by Anthony Mundy.
The second part of the downfall of earl Huntington, sirnamed
Robinhood, by Anthony Mundy and Henry Chettle.”
In a subsequent page is the following entry: “Lent unto Robarte
Shawe, the 18 of Novemb. 1598, to lend unto Mr. Cheattle, upon the
mending of the first part of Robart Hoode, the sum of xs.;” and
afterwards—“For mending of Robin Hood for the corte.” See Malone’s
edition of “The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare,” 1790, vol.
i. part ii. (Emendations and additions.)
[41] That is, the inn so called, upon Ludgate Hill. The modern
sign, which, however, seems to have been the same 200 years ago,
is a bell and a wild man; but the original is supposed to have
been a beautiful Indian; and the inscription, _La belle sauvage_.
Some, indeed, assert that the inn once belonged to a Lady Arabella
Savage; and others, that its name, originally _The bell and
savage_, arose (like _The George and blue boar_) from the junction
of two inns, with those respective signs. Non nostrûm est tantas
componere lites.
[42] She is called the Widow Scarlet; so that Scathlocke was the
elder brother. In fact, however, it was mere ignorance in the
author to suppose the Scathlocke and Scarlet of the story distinct
persons, the latter name being an evident corruption of the former;
Scathlock, Scadlock, Scarlock, Scarlet.
[43] In “The booke of the inventary of the goods of my lord
admeralles men tacken the 10 of Marche in the yeare 1598,” are
the following properties for Robin Hood and his retinue in this
identical play:
“_Item_, . . . . i green gown for Maryan.
_Item_, vi grene cottes for Roben Hoode, and iiii knaves sewtes.
_Item_, i hatte for Robin Hoode, i hobihorse.
_Item_, Roben Hoodes sewtte.
_Item_, the fryers trusse in Roben Hoode.”
Malone’s _Shak._ II. ii. (Emen. & ad.)
[44] George a Greene and Wakefield’s pinner were one and the same
person. The shoemaker of Bradford is anonymous.
[45] Which, by the way, was termed a _hempen caudle_. See the
_Second Part of K. H. VI._, act iv. scene 7. Lord-Chancellor
Jeffries, at the revolution, was treated much in the same manner.
One day, during his confinement in the Tower, he received a barrel
of oysters, upon which he observed to his keeper, “Well, you see, I
have yet some friends left:” at the bottom of the barrel, however,
he found a halter; which changed his countenance, and is even
thought to have hastened his death.
[46] See the ballad of “The Jolly Pinder of Wakefield,” part ii.
num. iii.
[47] Fitzwater confounds one man with another; Harold Harefoot was
the son and successor of Canute the great.
[48] This tradition is referred to, and the inscription given,
in Ray’s Itineraries, 1760, p. 153:—“We rode through a bushet or
common called Rodwell-hake, two miles from Leeds, where (according
to the vulgar tradition) was once found a stag, with a ring of
brass about its neck, having this inscription:
When Julius Cæsar here was king,
About my neck he put this ring;
Whosoever doth me take,
Let me go for Cæsar’s sake.”
In The Midwife, or Old Woman’s Magazine (vol. i. p. 250), Mrs.
Midnight, in a letter “To the venerable society of antiquarians,”
containing a description of Cæsar’s camp on Windsor forest, has
the following passage: “There have been many extraordinary things
discovered about this camp. One thing, I particularly remember, was
a deer of about sixteen hundred years old. . . . . . This deer it
seems was a favourite of Cæsar’s, and on that account he bedecked
her neck with a golden collar and an inscription, which I shall by
and by take notice of; she had been frequently taken, but when the
hunters, the peasants, and poor people saw the golden collar on her
neck, they readily let her go again. However, as she continually
increased in strength and in bulk, as well as in age, after the
course of about fifteen or sixteen centuries, the flesh and skin
were entirely grown over this collar, so that it could not be
discover’d till after she was kill’d, and then to the surprise of
the virtuosi it appear’d with this inscription:
When Julius Cæsar reigned here,
Then was I a little deer;
If any man should me take,
Let me go for Cæsar’s sake.
“This collar, which is of pure gold, I am told weighs thirty
ounces, and as the blood of the creature still appears fresh upon
it, I believe it may be as valuable as any of your gimcracks;
however, there will be no harm in my sending of it to you; and if
I can procure it, you may depend on my taking the utmost care of
it.” As no notice is announced of this wonderful piece of antiquity
in the voluminous and important lucubrations of the above learned
body, it most probably never came into their possession; which
is very much to be lamented, as it would have been an admirable
companion for _Hardecnute’s chamber-pot_, _King Edward the first’s
finger_, and other similar curiosities.
Juvenal des Ursins gravely relates that in the year 1380 a hart was
taken at Senlis with a chain about his neck inscribed “_Cæsar hoc
me donavit_.”*
Upton, to be even with him, supposes a hart to have been taken at
Bagshot near Windsor, with a motto on the collar in the French
language, which proves the ancient Romans were familiar therewith
long before it existed:
“_Julius Cæsar, quant jeo fus petis,
Cest coler suz mon col ad mys._Ӡ
This _dictator perpetuo_, in fact, seems to have collared every
hart he took. The family of _Pompei_ in Italy use two harts for
their supporters on whose collars were the letters N. M. T., in
memory of one on whose collar were these words: “N_emo_ M_e_
T_angat_, _Cæsaris sum_.” Anstis, ii. 113.
The original of all these stories is to be found in Pliny, who
says: “It is generally held and confessed that the stagge or hind
live long; for an hundred yeer after Alexander the great, some
were taken with golden collars about their necks, overgrowne now
with haire and growne within the skin: which collars the said king
had done upon them” (Naturall Historie, by Holland, 1601, B. 8,
c. 32). Pausanias, moreover, speaking of one Leocydas, who fought
for the Megalopolitans, in conjunction with Lydiades, against
the Lacedæmonians (about the year 243 before Christ), says he
was reported to be the descendant in the ninth degree of that
Arcesilaus, who living in Lycosura saw that stag which is sacred to
the goddess Despoine worn out with old age. This stag, he adds, had
a collar on its neck with the following inscription:
Caught young, when Agapenor sail’d for Troy.
By which, he concludes, it is evident that a stag lives much longer
than an elephant (B. 8, c. 10).
――――
* Histoire de Charles VI.
† Upton de re militari, p. 119.
[49] Robin, in the old legend, expresses his regard for this order
of men (concerning which the reader may consult an ingenious
“Essay” in the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, vol. i., and
some “Observations” in a collection of ancient songs, printed in
1790):
“Whether he be messengere,
Or a man that myrthes can,
Or yf he be a pore man,
Of my good he shall have some.”
[50] This play is entered in Master Henslowe’s account-book with
the date of December 1600. See Malone’s Shakespeare, vol. ii. part
ii. (Emen. & ad.)
[51] “The Triumphes of Reunited Britannia. A pageant in honour of
Sir Leonard Holliday, lord mayor.” 1605.
[52] Henry Fitz-Alwine Fitz-Liefstane, goldsmith, first mayor of
London, was appointed to that office by King Richard I. in 1189,
and continued therein till the 15th of King John, 1212, when he
“deceased, and was buried in the priorie of the holy trinitie,
neare unto Aldgate” (Stow’s Survey, 1598, p. 418). His relationship
with Robin Hood is merely poetical, and invented by Mundy “for
the nonce;” though it is by no means improbable that they were
acquainted, and that our hero might have occasionally dined at the
Mansion-house on a Lord Mayor’s day.
[53] Jonson was led into this mistake by the old play of Robin
Hood. See before, p. lv.
[54] This play appears to have been performed upon the stage after
the Restoration. The prologue and epilogue (spoken by Mr. Portlock)
are to be found in num. 1009 of the Sloane MSS. It was republished,
with a continuation and notes, by Mr. Waldron, of Drury-lane
Theatre, in 1783.
[55] A most stupid pantomime on this subject, under the title of
“Merry Sherwood, or Harlequin, forester,” was performed in December
1795, at the Theatre-royal, Covent-garden.
[56] 1st edit. 1550, fo. xxvi. b. (Randolf is misprinted Rand
of.) Subsequent editions, even of the same year, reading only
“Randall of Chester.” Mr. Warton (History of English Poetry, ii.
179) makes this genius, whom he calls a frier, say “that he is
well acquainted with the rimes of Randall of Chester;” and these
rimes he, whimsically enough, conjectures to be the old Chester
Whitsun plays; which, upon very idle and nonsensical evidence,
he supposes to have been written by Randal Higden, the compiler
of the Polychronicon. Of course, if this absurd idea were at all
well founded, the rimes of Robin Hood must likewise allude to
certain Yorkshire or Nottinghamshire plays, written by himself.
The “Randolf erl of Chester” here meant is Randal Blundevile, the
last earl of that name, who had been in the Holy Land, was a great
warrior and patriot, and died in 1231.
The reading of the original edition is confirmed by a very old
manuscript in the Cotton Library (Vespasian, B. XVI.) differing
considerably from the printed copies, which gives the passage thus:
“I can nouzt perfiitli my pater-noster as a prest it syngeth:
I can rymes of Robyn Hood, of Rondolf erl of Chestre,
Ac of oure lorde ne of oure ladi the leste that ever was maked.”
(See also Caligula, A. XI.)
The speaker himself could have told Mr. Warton he was no frier:
“I have ben prieste & person passynge thyrty winter,
Yet can I nether solfe, ne singe, ne sayntes lyves read;
But I can find in a fielde or in a furlong an hare,
Better than in Beatus vir or in Beati omnes
Construe one clause well, & kenne it to my parishens.”
[57] “De quibus stolidum wigus hianter in comœdiis & tragædiis
prurienter festum faciunt, & super ceteras ‘romancias mimos &
bardanos cantitare delectantur” (Scotichronicon, à Hearne, p. 774).
Comedies and tragedies are—not dramatic compositions, but—poems of
a comic or serious cast. Romance in Spanish, and romance in French,
signify—not a tale of chivalry, but—a vulgar ballad, at this day.
[58] “Rebus hujus Roberti gestis tota Britannia in cantibus utitur”
(Majoris Britanniæ Historia, Edin. 1740, p. 128).
[59] Hystory of Scotland, Edin. 1541, fo. The word “waithman” was
probably suggested by Andrew of Wyntown (see before, Note 3).
It seems equivalent to the English vagabond, or perhaps outlaw.
Waith is waif; and it is to be remembered that, in the technical
language of the English courts, a woman is said to be waived, and
not outlawed. “In our auld Scottish langage,” says Skene, “ane
_Vothman_ is ane out-law, or ane fugitive fra the lawes” (_De
verborum significatione_, Edin. 1597). It is from þæðan, _venari_,
_fugare_. See Lye’s Dictionary. The passage above quoted does not
occur in Boise’s original work.
[60] Of this poem there have been at least five editions at London
or Westminster, and one at Edinburgh. In a list of “bookes printed
and . . . sold by Jane Bell, at the east end of Christ-church
[1655],” in company with Frier Rush, The frier and the boy, &c.,
is “a book of Robin Hood and Little John.” Captain Cox of Coventry
appears to have had a copy of some old edition: see Laneham’s
Letter from Killingworth, 1575.
[61] “Description of the Town of Tottenham-high-crosse,” &c. London
(1631, 4to), 1781, 8vo. The invaluable MS. alluded to has been
since discovered; and the entire poem, of which Mr. Ritson has here
given a fragment, will be found in the Appendix.—ED.
[62] The book, under the same title, printed by Wynken de Worde, in
1517, is a different translation in prose.
[63] Mr. Warton reads _Toby_; and so, perhaps, it may be in former
editions.
[64] Honest Barnaby, _i.e._ Richard Brathwayte, who wrote or
travelled about 1640, was well acquainted with our hero’s story.
“Veni Nottingham tyrones
Sherwoodenses sunt latrones.
Instar Robin Hood, & servi
Scarlet & Joannis Parvi;
Passim, sparsim, peculantur,
Cellis, sylvis deprædantur.”
“Thence to Nottingham, where rovers,
Highway riders, Sherwood drovers,
Like old Robin Hood and Scarlet,
Or like Little John his varlet;
Here and there they shew them doughty,
In cells and woods to get their booty.”
Whitlock relates that “the [parliament] committee who carried the
propositions of peace to Oxford, had the king’s answer sealed up
and sent to them. They, upon advice together, thought it not fit
for them to receive an answer in that manner . . . and made an
address to his majesty that they might know what his answer was,
and have a copy of it: to which his majesty replied, What is that
to you, who are but to carry what I send, and if I will send the
song of _Robin Hood and Little John_, you must carry it? To which
the commissioners only said, that the business about which they
came was of somewhat more consequence than that song” (_Memorials_,
p. 115).
[65] There is, in fact, such a place as Barnwood forest, in
Buckinghamshire; but no one, except Mr. Hearne, has hitherto
supposed that part of the country to have been frequented by our
hero. Barnwood, in the case reported by Yelverton, has clearly
arisen from a confusion of Barnsdale and green wood. “Robin Hood in
the greenwood stood” was likewise the beginning of an old song now
lost (see _post_, p. 197): and it is not a little remarkable that
Jefferies, serjeant, on the trial of Pilkington and others, for a
riot, in 1683, by a similar confusion, quotes the line in question
thus:
“Robin Hood upon Greendale stood” (State-trials, iii. 634).
A third corruption has taken place in Parker, p. 131 (King _v._
Cotton), though expressly cited from Yelverton, viz.
“Robin Hood in Barnwell stood.”
The following most vulgar and indecent rime, current among the
peasantry in the North of England, may have been intended to
ridicule the perpetual repetition of “Robin Hood in greenwood
stood:”
Robin Hood
In green-wood stood.
With his back against a tree;
He fell flat
Into a cow-plat,
And all besh—n was he
[66] It is possible that, amid these absurdities, there may be
other lines of the old song of Robin Hood, which is the only reason
for reviving them.
“O sleepst thou, or wakst thou, Jeffery Cooke?”
occurs, likewise, in a medley of a similar description, in Pammelia
1609.
[67] In “_Heraclitus ridens_, or a discourse between Jest and
Earnest,” a periodical paper against the Whigs, published in 1681,
and collected and republished in 1713 (No. 34), Jest begins singing:
“Bills, bows, and axes, quoth Robin Hood,
But I have not time to tell;
Yonder’s the sheriff and his company,
But I hope all will be well.
Hei, down, derry, derry, down;”
and says, “I hope I may sing of old Robin without offending a grand
jury, or being presented for disuniting Protestants.”
In The Gentleman’s Magazine for December 1790 is the first verse
of a song used by the inhabitants of Helston in Cornwall on the
celebration of an annual festivity on the 8th of May, called the
Furry-day, supposed Flora’s day, not, it is imagined, “as many
have thought, in remembrance of some festival instituted in honour
of that goddess, but rather from the garlands commonly worn on
that day.” (See the same publication for June and October 1790.)
This verse was the whole that Mr. Urban’s correspondent could then
recollect, but he thought he might be afterwards able “to send all
that is known of it, for,” he says, “it formerly was very long, but
is now much forgotten.” The stanza is as follows:
“Robin Hood and Little John
They are both gone to fair O;
And we will go to the merry green-wood,
To see what they do there O.
With hel an tow,
And rum-be-low,
And chearily we’ll get up,
As soon as any day O,
All for to bring the summer home,
The summer and the May O.”
“After which,” he adds, “there is something about the grey goose
wing; from all which,” he concludes, “the goddess Flora has
nothing to say to it.” She may have nothing to say to the song,
indeed, and yet a good deal to do with the thing. But the fact
is, that the first eight days of May, or the first day and the
eighth, seem to have been devoted by the Celtic nations to some
great religious ceremony. Certain superstitious observances of
this period still exist in the Highlands of Scotland, where it is
called the Bel-tein; Beltan, in that country, being a common term
for the beginning of May, as “between the Beltans” is a saying
significant of the first and eighth days of that month. The games
of Robin Hood, as we shall elsewhere see, were, for whatever
reason, always celebrated in May.—N.B. “Hel-an-tow,” in the above
stanza, should be heave and how. Heave and how, and Rumbelow, was
an ordinary chorus to old ballads, and is at least as ancient as
the reign of Edward II., since it occurs in the stanza of a Scotish
song, preserved by some of our old historians, on the battle of
Bannockburn.
To lengthen this long note: Among the Harleian MSS. (num. 367)
is the fragment of “a tale of Robin Hood dialouge-wise beetweene
Watt and Jeffry. The morall is the overthrowe of the abbyes; the
like being attempted by the Puritane, which is the wolfe, and
the politician, which is the fox, agaynst the bushops. Robin
Hood, bushop; Adam Bell, abbot; Little John, colleagues of the
university.” This seems to have been a common mode of satirising
both the old Church and the reformers. In another MS. of the same
collection (N. 207), written about 1532, is a tract entitled “The
banckett of John the reve, unto Peirs Ploughman, Laurens Laborer,
Thomlyn Tailyor, and Hobb of the Hille, with others;” being, as Mr.
Wanley says, a dispute concerning transubstantiation by a Roman
Catholic. The other, indeed, is much more modern: it alludes to the
indolence of the abbots, and their falling off from the original
purity in which they were placed by the bishops, whom it inclines
to praise. The object of its satire seems to be the Puritans; but
here it is imperfect, though the lines preserved are not wholly
destitute of poetical merit.—“Robin Hood and the Duke of Lancaster,
a ballad, to the tune of The Abbot of Canterbury,” 1727, is a
satire on Sir Robert Walpole.
[68] Chatterton, in his “Memoirs of a Sad Dog,” represents “Baron
Otranto” (meaning the honourable Horace Walpole, now Earl of
Orford), when on a visit to “Sir Stentor,” as highly pleased with
Robin Hood’s ramble, “melodiously chaunted by the knight’s groom
and dairy-maid, to the excellent music of a two-stringed violin and
bag-pipe,” which transported him back “to the age of his favourite
hero, Richard the Third;” whereas, says he, “the songs of Robin
Hood were not in being till the reign of Queen Elizabeth.” This,
indeed, may be in a great measure true of those which we now have,
but there is sufficient evidence of the existence and popularity of
such-like songs for ages preceding; and some of these, no doubt,
were occasionally modernised or new-written, though most of them
must be allowed to have perished.
The late Dr. Johnson, in controverting the authenticity of Fingal,
a composition in which the author, Mr. Macpherson, has made great
use of some unquestionably ancient Irish ballads, said, “He would
undertake to write an epick poem on the story of Robin Hood, and
half England, to whom the names and places he should mention in
it are familiar, would believe and declare they had heard it from
their earliest years” (Boswell’s Journal, p. 486).
[69] The following note is inserted in the fourth edition of the
Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, published in July 1795 (vol. i.
p. xcvii.):
“Of the 24 songs in what is now called ‘Robin Hood’s Garland,’
many are so modern as not to be found in Pepys’s collection,
completed only in 1700. In the [editor’s] folio MS. are ancient
fragments of the following, viz.—Robin Hood and the beggar.—Robin
Hood and the butcher.—Robin Hood and fryer Tucke.—Robin Hood and
the pindar.—Robin Hood and queen Catharine, in two parts.—Little
John and the four beggars, and “Robine Hood his death.” This last,
which is very curious, has no resemblance to any that have yet
been published; [it is probably num. xxviii. of part ii.], and the
others are extremely different from the printed copies; but they
unfortunately are in the beginning of the MS. where half of every
leaf hath been torn away.”
As this MS. “contains several songs relating to the civil war
in the last century,” the mere circumstance of its comprising
fragments of the above ballads is no proof of a higher antiquity;
any more than its not containing “one that alludes to the
Restoration” proves its having been compiled before that period; or
than, because some of these 24 songs are not to be found in Pepys’s
collection, they are more modern than 1700. If the MS. could be
collated, it would probably turn out that many of its contents have
been inaccurately and unfaithfully transcribed, by some illiterate
persons, from printed copies still extant, and, consequently, that
it is, so far, of no authority. See the advertisement prefixed.
[70] Mr. Warton has mistaken and misprinted this line so as to make
it absolute nonsense.
“Is not my reason good?
Good—even good—Robin Hood.”
(His. En. po. vol. ii.)
[71] Drayton’s Polyolbion, song 26, p. 122 (supra, p. vii.)
[72] In Churchyard’s “Replication onto Camel’s Objections” he tells
the latter:
“Your knowledge is great, your judgement is good,
The most of your study hath ben of Robyn Hood;
And Bevys of Hampton, and syr Launcelot de Lake,
Hath taught you full oft your verses to make.”
[73] See the original story, in which two brothers, of whom one had
wished for as many oxen as he saw stars, the other for a pasture
as wide as the firmament, kill each other about the pasturage of
the oxen (from Camer. oper. subscis. cent. 1, c. 92, p. 429), in
Wanley’s Little World of Man, edition of 1774, p. 426. Camerarius,
it seems, had the story from Scardeonius _de claris civibus
Patavinis_, whence it is also related in the notes to Upton _de
studio militari_; and an older, of the like kind, is in the Facetiæ
of Poggius.
[74] “Derry down is the burden of the old songs of the Druids sung
by their Bards and Vaids, to call the people to their religious
assemblys in the groves. Doire in Irish (the old Punic) is a grove:
corrupted into derry. A famous Druid grove and academy at the place
since called Londonderry from thence.”—MS. note by Dr. Stukeley,
in his copy of Robin Hood’s Garland. “Paul, Paul, thou art beside
thyself!”
[75] Mr. Boyd, the famous preacher in Childsdale, finding that
several of his hearers went away after the forenoon sermon, had
this expression in his afternoon prayers: “Now, Lord, thou seest
that many people go away from hearing thy Word; but had we told
them stories of Robin Hood or Davie Lindsay, they had stayed; and
yet none of these are near so good as thy Word that I preach”
(Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence, 1714, p. 156).
[76] The Bishop grows scurrilous. “I never heard,” says Coke,
attorney-general, “that Robin Hood was a traitor, they say he was
an outlaw.” (State Trials, i. 218.—Raleigh had said, “Is it not
strange for me to make myself a Robin Hood, a Kett, or a Cade?”)
[77] This ballad seems to have been written in imitation of a song
in Heywood’s Rape of Lucrece, 1630, beginning—
“The gentry to the King’s-head,
The nobles to the crown,” &c.
[78] In Arnold’s Essex Harmony (ii. 98) he gives the inscription,
as a catch for three voices, of his own composition, thus:
“My beer is stout, my ale is good,
Pray stay and drink with Robin Hood;
If Robin Hood abroad is gone,
Pray stay and drink with Little John.”
[79] This description is finely illustrated by an excellent
woodcut at the head of one of Anthony a Wood’s old ballads in the
Ashmoleian Museum. The frontispiece to Gervas Markham’s Archerie,
1634, is likewise a man drawing a bow.
[80] See “The auncient order societie and unitie laudable of prince
Arthure and his knightly armory of the round table . . . Translated
and collected by R. R. London, Imprinted by John Wolfe dwelling
in Distaffe-lane neere the signe of the Castle, 1583.” 4to, b. l.
It appears from this publication that on the revival of London
archery in Queen Elizabeth’s time, “the worshipfull socyety of
archers,” instead of calling themselves after Robin Hood and his
companions, took the names of “the magnificent prince Arthure and
his knightly traine of the round table.” It is, probably, to one of
the annual meetings of this identical society that Master Shallow
alludes in the _Second Part of King Henry IV._ “I remember,”
says he, “at Mile-end Green [their usual place of exercise],—I
was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur’s shew,” &c. (See also Steevens’s
Shakespeare, 1793, ix. 142.) The successors of the above “friendly
and frank fellowship” assumed the ridiculous appellations of Duke
of Shoreditch, Marquis of Clerkenwell, Earl of Pankridge, &c. See
Wood’s Bowman’s Glory, 1682.
[81] Meaning that his sole or chief employment had been in
Christmas or May games, Whitsun-ales, and such like idle
diversions. See Original Letters, &c., ii. 134.
In an old circular woodcut, preserved on the title of Robin Hood’s
Garland, 1670, as well as on that of Adam Bell, &c., printed at
Newcastle in 1772, is the apparent representation of a May-game,
consisting of the following personages: 1. A bishop. 2. Robin
Hood. 3. The potter (or beggar). 4. Little John. 5. Frier Tuck. 6.
Maid Marian. Figures 2 and 4 are distinguished by their bows and
different size. The frier holds out a cross; and Marian has flowing
hair, and wears a sort of coronet. But the execution of the whole
is too rude to merit a copy.
At Lord Fitzwilliams’s at Richmond there is, or lately was, a
curious painting by Vinckenbooms, representing old Richmond palace,
with a group of morris-dancers. It has been badly engraved by
Godfrey, who reduced the figures to too small a scale. Mr. Douce
has a tracing from the original picture with all the figures
distinctly marked. See a poem at the end of Hall’s Downfall of
May-games, 1661, 4to.
[82] The precise purpose or meaning of setting up Robin Hood’s
bower has not been satisfactorily ascertained. Mr. Hearne, in an
attempt to derive the name of “The Chiltern country” (ciltern,
Saxon) from silex, a flint, has the following words: “Certe
Silcestriam, &c. _i.e._ Certainly Silchester, in Hampshire,
signifies nothing but the city of flints (that is, a city composed
or built of flint-stones). And what is more, in that very Chiltern
country you may frequently see houses built of flints, in erecting
which, in ancient times, I suppose that many persons involved
themselves deeply in debt, and that, in order to extricate
themselves, they took up money at interest of I know not what great
men, which so far disturbed their minds that they would become
thieves and do many things in no wise agreeable to the English
government. Hence, the nobility ordered that large woods in the
Chiltern country should in a great measure be cut down, lest they
should conceal any considerable body of robbers, who were wont to
convert the same into lurking places. It concerns this matter to
call to mind that of this sort of robbers was that Robin or Robert
Hood, of whom the vulgar dayly sing so many wonderful things.
He (being now made an outlaw) before he retired into the north
parts, frequently robbing in the Chiltern country, lurked in the
thickets thereof on purpose that he should not be taken. Thence it
was that to us boys (exhilarating, according to custom, the mind
with sports) certain countrymen, with whom we had accidentally
some conversation, shewed us that sort of den or retreat (vulgarly
called Robin Hood’s bower) in Maydenhead-thicket; which thicket is
the same that Leland in his Itinerary called Frith, by which name
the Anglo-Saxons themselves spoke of thickets. For although frið
in reality signifies peace, yet since numerous groves with them
(as well as before with the Britons) were deemed sacred, it is by
no means to be wondered at that a great wood (because manifestly
an asylum) should, in the judgment of the Anglo-Saxons, be called
by no other name than fr ðes: and that Maydenhead-thicket was
esteemed among the greater woods Leland himself is a witness.
Rightly therefore did Robin Hood (as frið-bena) reckon himself to
abide there in security” (Chronicon de Dunstaple, p. 387). What he
means by all this is, doubtless, sufficiently obscure: the mere
name, however, of Robin Hood’s bower seems a very feeble authority
for concluding that gallant outlaw to have robbed or skulked in the
Chiltern hundreds.
It may seem, perhaps, from a passage in Browne’s _Britannia’s
Pastorals_ (Song 4), that _Robin Hood’s bower_ was prepared for the
reception of himself and his Marian, as king and queen of May. The
lines are these:
“As I have seene the lady of the May
_Set in an arbour_, on a holy-day,
Built by the May-pole, where the jocund swains,
Dance with the maidens to the bagpipe’s strains.”
[83] See Steevens’s Shakespeare, 1793, x. 186.
[84] Albion’s England, 1602, p. 121. It is part of the “Northerne
man’s speech against the friers.” He adds:
“At Baptis-day with ale and cakes bout bonfires neighbours stood,
At Martle masse wa turnd a crabbe, thilke told of Roben Hood,
Till after long time myrke, when blest were windowes, dares and lights,
And pails were fild, and hathes were swept, gainst fairie elves and
sprits:
Rock and plow Mondaies gams . . . with saint-feasts and kirk-lights.”
A very learned and ingenious gentleman conceives that the
enumeration of characters in the passage quoted in the text
belongs solely to the _May_, and has no relation whatever to the
_morrise_. That the two games, however, though essentially distinct
in their origin, got somehow or other blended together appears
unquestionable.
“As fit as a _morris_ for _May-day_” is one of the clown’s similes
in _All’s well that ends well_ (act ii. scene 2).
[85] “The word livery was formerly used to signify anything
delivered; see the Northumberland Household Book, p. 60. If it ever
bore such an acceptation at that time, one might be induced to
suppose, from the following entries, that it here meant a badge, or
something of that kind:
15 C. of leveres for Robin Hode 0 5 0
For leveres, paper and sateyn 0 0 20
For pynnes and leveres 0 6 5
For 13 C. of leverys 0 4 4
For 24 great lyvereys 0 0 4
We are told that formerly, in the celebration of May-games, the
youth divided themselves into two troops, the one in winter
livery, the other in the habit of the spring. See Brand’s Popular
Antiquities, p. 261.” This quotation is misapplied. Liveries,
in the present instance, are pieces of paper or sateyn with
some device thereon, which were distributed for money among the
spectators. So in a passage which will be shortly quoted from Jack
Drum’s Entertainment: “Well said, my boyes, I must have my lord’s
livory; what is’t? a May-pole?” See also Stubbs’s Anatomie of
Abuses, 1583, sig. M. 2 _b_, and Skelton’s Don Quixote, part ii.
chap. 22.
[86] “Though it varies considerably from that word, this may be a
corruption of orpiment, which was much in use for colouring the
morris garments.” How orseden can be a corruption of orpiment is
not very easy to conceive: it may as well be supposed to mean
worsted or buckram. Mr. Steevens thinks that this _orseden_ is the
_Arse-dine_ of old Joan Trash, in Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair, and
means _flame-coloured paint_, used to _hobby-horses_. The four
giants for the revived Midsummer shew at Chester, in 1668, were “to
be cullered _tinsille arsedine_” (MSS. Har. 2150, fo. 373, b.)
[87] “The friar’s coat was generally of russet, as it appears by
the following extracts . . . .” The coat of this mock frier would,
doubtless, be made of the same stuff as that of a real one.
[88] “Marian was the assumed name of the beloved mistress of
Robert, Earl of Huntingdon, whilst he was in a state of outlawry,
as Robin Hood was his. See Mr. Steevens’s note to a passage in
Shakespeare’s _Henry IV._ This character in the morris-dances was
generally represented by a boy. See Strutt’s View of Customs and
Manners, vol. iii. p. 150. It appears by one of the extracts, given
above, that at Kingston it was performed by a woman, who was paid a
shilling each year for her trouble.”
[89] “Mr. Steevens suggests, _with great probability_, that this
word may have the same meaning as howve or houve, used by Chaucer
for a head-dress; Maid Marian’s head-dress was always very fine:
indeed some persons have derived her name from the Italian word
morione, a head-dress.” Mr. Steevens was never less happy than he
is in this very probable conjecture. The word howve or houve, in
Chaucer, is a mere variation of hood: and Maid Marian’s head-dress
must, to be sure, have been “very fine” when made of four yards of
broad cloth! A huke is a woman’s gown or habit. (Huke, palla, toga,
palium Belgicis feminis usitatum.—_Skin._) Skelton mentions it in
his Elinour Rumming:
“Her _huke_ of Lyncole grene.”
“All women in generall,” says Moryson, speaking of the Netherlands,
“when they goe out of the house, put on a _hoyke_ or vaile, which
covers their heads, and hangs downe vpon their backs to their
legges,” &c. (Itinerary, 1617, part 3, p. 169).
Sir John Cullum seems to have mistaken Rose Sparkes’ “best hook”
for a “hook worn at the bottom of the stays, to regulate the
sitting of the apron” (History of Hawsted, p. 25). Morione,
in Italian, signifies a murrion or scull-cap; and though the
derivation alluded to appears to have the sanction of Blount’s
Glosographia, nothing can be more completely absurd. _Marian_ is
_Mary_.
“And _Marian’s_ nose looks rede and raw.”
[90] “It appears that this, as well as other games, was made a
parish concern.”
[91] “Probably gilt leather, the pliability of which was
particularly accommodated to the motion of the dancers.”
[92] “A sort of coarse linen.”
[93] “Probably a Moor’s coat; the word Morion is sometimes used to
express a Moor.—The morris dance is by some supposed to have been
originally derived from Moorish-dance. Black buckram appears to
have been much used for the dresses of the ancient mummers. One of
the figures in Mr. Tollet’s window is supposed to be a morisco.”
[94] “Disard is an old word for a fool.”
[95] In Ben Jonson’s Masque of the Metamorphosed Gipsies, presented
to King James in 1621 (the very date, by the way, which appears
on Mr. Tollet’s window), we have the following dialogue between
_Cockret_ and _Clod_:
“_Coc._ Oh the lord! what be these? . . .
_Clo._ They should be morris-dancers by their gingle, but they have
no napkins.
_Coc._ No, nor a hobby-horse.
_Clo._ Oh, he’s often forgotten, that’s no rule; but there is no
_maid Marian_ nor _friar_ amongst them, which is the surer mark.
_Coc._ Nor a _fool_ that I see.”—(_Tollet’s Memoir._)
[96] Neither is any notice taken of them, where the characters of
the morris-dance are mentioned, in _The Two Noble Kinsmen_, by
Shakespeare and Fletcher.
[97] This was a usual cry on occasions of mirth and jollity. Thus,
in the celebration of St. Stephen’s day in the Inner-Temple hall,
as we find it described in Dugdale’s Origines Juridiciales: “Supper
ended, the constable-marshall ‘presenteth’ himself with drums afore
him, mounted upon a scaffold, born by four men; and goeth three
times round about the harthe, crying out aloud, A lord, a lord, &c.
Then he descendeth and goeth to dance,” &c. (p. 156).
[98]
――“’Tis meet we all go forth,
To view the sick and feeble parts of France:
And let us do it with no show of fear;
No, with no more, that if we heard that England
Were busied with a _Whitsun morris-dance_.”
Shak. _K. Hen. V._, act ii. scene 4.
[99] Perhaps also, Robin Hood and his party had never appeared in
company with the morris-dancers but at one particular period, in
the beginning of May, whereas we find that _Whitsuntide_ was no
less devoted to the latter.
[100] It must be confessed that no other direct authority has been
met with for constituting _Robin Hood_ and _Little John_ integral
characters of the morris-dance. That _Maid Marian_, however, and
the _Frier_, were almost constantly such, is proved beyond the
possibility of a doubt; and why or how they should become so,
without Robin Hood, at least, is unaccountable.
[101] This county would seem to have been famous for their
exertions a couple of centuries ago. Will Kemp the player was
a celebrated morris-dancer; and in the Bodleian Library is the
following scarce and curious tract by him: “Kemp’s nine daies
wonder performed in a daunce from London to Norwich. Containing the
pleasure, paines and kind entertainment of William Kemp between
London and that city in his late morrice. Wherein is somewhat set
downe worth note; to reproove the slaunders spred of him, many
things merry, nothing hurtfull. Written by himself to satisfie
his friends. London, printed by E. A. for Nicholas Ling, 1600”
4to, b. l. On the title-page is a woodcut figure of Kemp as a
morrice-dancer, preceded by a fellow with a pipe and drum, whom
he, in the book, calls Thomas Slye his taberer.—See, in Richard
Brathwayte’s Remains after Death, 1618, some lines “upon Kempe and
his morice, with his epitaph.”
[102] “On Monday [July 30] the morris-dancers of Pendleton paid
their annual visit in Salford. They were adorned with all the
variety of colours that a profusion of ribbons could give them, and
had a very showy garland.”—_Star_, Aug. 9, 1792.
[103] “Council Register, v. 1, p. 30.”
[104] “Mary, parliament 6, c. 61, A.D. 1555.” “Anentis Robert Hude,
and abbot of Unreason. Item, It is statute and ordained, that in
all times cumming, na maner of person be chosen Robert Hude, nor
Little John, abbot of unreason, queenis of Maij, nor utherwise,
nouther in burgh, nor to landwart, in onie time to cum: and gif
ony provest, baillies, councell, and communitie, chuse sik ane
personage as Robert Hude, Little John, abbotis of unreason, or
queenis of Maij, within burgh, the chusers of sik sall tine their
freedome for the space of five zeires; and utherwise salbe punished
at the queenis grace will; and the acceptar of sik like office
sall be banished foorth of the realme; and gif ony sik persones
. . . . beis chosen out-with burgh, and uthers landward townes,
the chusers sall pay to our soveraine ladie ten poundes, and their
persones [be] put in waird there to remaine during the queenis
grace pleasure.” Abbot of unreason is the character better known
in England by the title of abbot or lord of misrule, “who,” says
Percy, “in the houses of our nobility presided over the Christmas
gambols, and promoted mirth and jollity at that festive season”
(Northumberland Household Book, notes, p. 441).
[105] “Council Register, v. 4, p. 4, 30.”
[106] “Knox’s History, p. 270.”
[107] “Book of Universal Kirk, p. 414.” See also Keith’s History of
Scotland, p. 216.
[108] History of Whitby, York, 1779, p. 146. “It was always
believed,” adds the worthy pedagogue, “that these butts had been
erected by him for that very purpose, till the year 1771, when this
popular notion was discovered to be a mistake; they being no more
than the barrows or tumuli thrown up by our pagan predecessors
on interring their leaders or the other persons of distinction
amongst them. However, notwithstanding this discovery, there is
no doubt but Robin Hood made use of those houes or butts when he
was disposed to exercise his men, and wanted to train them up in
hitting a mark.” Be that as it may, there are a few hillocks of a
similar nature not far from Guisbrough, which likewise bear the
name of Robin Hood’s butts; and others, it is imagined, may be met
with in other parts.
[109]
Epigram on Robin Hood’s well, “a fine spring on the road,
ornamented by Sir John Vanbrugh;” by Roger Gale, Esq. (Bib. Topo.
Britan. No. II. part iii. p. 427).
“Nympha fui quondam latronibus hospita sylvæ
Heu nimium sociis nota, Robine, tuis.
Me pudet innocuos latices fudisse scelestis,
Jamque viatori pocula tuta fero,
En pietatis honos! Comes hanc mihi Carliolensis
Ædem sacravit quâ bibis, hospes, aquas.”
The same author (Gent), in his “long and pathetick prologue,”
setting forth “the contingencies, vicissitudes or changes of this
transitory life,” “spoken, for the most part, on Wednesday and
Friday the 18th and 20th of February 1761, at the deep tragedy of
beautiful, eloquent, tender-hearted, but unfortunate Jane Shore,
. . . . uttered and performed at his benefit” . . . (being then
ætatis 70, and far declined into the vale of sorrow,*) has very
artfully contrived to introduce our hero and his famous well.
“The concave hall, ’mongst sources never view’d,
Nor heard the goddesses, in merry mood,
At their choice viands sing bold Robin Hood:†
Whose tomb at Kirkley’s nunnery display’d,
A false, hard-hearted, irreligious maid,
Who bled, and to cold death that earl betray’d.
But fame still lasts, while country folks display
His limpid fountain, and loud-surging bay.”
――――
* He died in 1778, aged 87.
† “Omnes agnovere deam; lætique receptant
Alcæum musæ comitem, ponuntur Iâcchi
Crateres; flaventque scyphis Cerealia vina:
Accedunt vultus hilares; festique lepores,
Et jocus, et risus: dulci testudine Naias
Pulchra modos variat; furtisque insignis et arcu
Hodi latronis, fluvios bene nota per istos,
Ludicra gesta canit: resonant laquearia plausu.”
[110]
“Viventes venæ, spine, catinusque catenæ,
Sunt Robin Hoodi nota trophæa sui.”
[111]
“A well, thorne, dish, hung in an iron chaine,
For monuments of Robin Hood remaine.”
[112] Voyage from England to India, 1773, p. 8. In a subsequent
page this great man is employed in a commerce of a more delicate,
indeed, but, according to European notions, less honourable nature,
which he manages with consummate address.
[113] They likewise seem alluded to in the Vision, fo. 1, b:
“And ryse wyth ribaudy as Rebertes knaves.”
[114] “On a loose paper, in Mr. Ashmole’s handwriting, in the
museum at Oxford, is the following little anecdote:—
“The famous Little John (Robin Hood’s companion) lyes buried in
Fethersedge churchyard, in the peak of Derbyshire, one stone at
his head, another at his feet, and part of his bow hangs up in the
chancell. Anno 1652.” H. E[llis]. European Magazine, October 1794,
p. 295.
[115] This seems the established size of an ancient hero. The
grave of Gawin, King Arthur’s nephew, discovered in the time of
William the Conqueror, was, according to Malmesbury, “_quatuor
decim pedes longum_” (De gestis regum, l. 3). Bois, from the above
circumstance, conceives our “Litil Jhon” to have been so called
“_per ironiam_.” See his original work, fo. ix.
[116] Historie of Scotland, translatit be Maister Johne Bellenden,
Edin. 1541, fo. The luxury of his countrymen will appear a strange
complaint in the mouth of a Scotishman of the 16th century, to such
as believe, with the late Dr. Johnson, that they learned to plant
kail from Cromwell’s soldiers, and that “when they had not kail
they probably had nothing” (Journey to the Western Islands, p. 55).
[117] Description of Ireland, in Holinshed’s Chronicle, 1587.
[118] Historical Essay, &c., p. 129. This allegation demands what
the lawyers call a _profert in curiam._ It is, however, certain
that there have been persons who usurped the name of Little John.
In the year 1502, “about mydsomer, was taken a felow whyche had
renued many of Robyn Hodes pagentes, which named himselfe Grenelef”
(Fabyan’s Chronicle, 1559). Therefore, beware of counterfeits!
ROBIN HOOD.
Part I.
[Illustration]
{1}
ROBIN HOOD.