+Argument.+--For a jest, the king disguises himself and his men once
more, this time in Lincoln green, which he purchases off Robin Hood.
The whole party proceeds to Nottingham, where the appearance of so many
green mantles causes a general flight of the inhabitants. The king,
however, reveals himself, and after a feast, pardons the knight.
Robin dwells in the king's court for fifteen months, at the end of which
time he has spent much money, and has lost all his men except Little
John and Scathlock. He therefore begs the king's leave to go on a
pilgrimage to a shrine of St. Mary Magdalen in Barnsdale, and the king
consents, but allows him only seven nights' absence. Robin comes to the
greenwood, and shoots a great hart; and on blowing his horn, seven score
yeomen come and welcome him back, and he dwells two-and-twenty years in
the greenwood. In the end he was betrayed by his kinswoman, the Prioress
of Kirkesly Abbey, and her lover, Sir Roger of Doncaster.
It has been suggested (by Professor Brandl) that the episode of the
king's disguise in green is an intentional variation of the episode in
the Third Fytte, where the Sheriff of Nottingham is forced to wrap
himself in a green mantle. In any case it is probable that most of this
Eighth Fytte is the work of the compiler of the _Gest_; possibly even
the delightful verses (stt. 445-6) in which the joy of greenwood life
overcomes Robin.
One could wish the _Gest_ ended with st. 450; but it is clear that the
compiler knew of a ballad which narrated the death of Robin Hood, no
doubt an earlier version of the _Robin Hood's Death_ of the Percy Folio,
a ballad unfortunately incomplete (see p. 140).
Every famous outlaw of English tradition visits the king's court sooner
or later, and makes peace with the king; but Robin's independence was
too dear to him--and to the ballad-singers whose ideal he was--to allow
him to go to the king voluntarily. Therefore the king must come to
Robin; and here the compiler, perhaps, saw his opportunity to introduce
the king-in-disguise theme, and so evolved the two last fyttes of the
_Gest_.