Robin Hood vs. Bell, Clim, and Cloudesley

by A. E. Chandler

A Wiltshire clerk listing members of parliament (and evidently thinking that his job could be more interesting if he used a little creativity) after the first eight names included the following: “Adam, Belle, Clyme, Ocluw, Willyam, Cloudesle, Robyn, hode, Inne, Grenewode, Stode, Godeman, was, hee, lytel, Joon, Muchette, Millersson, Scathelok, Renoldyn.” This was in 1432, and it is the first known textual mention of the outlaws Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and William of Cloudesley.

While Robin Hood stood in the greenwood of Sherwood Forest with Little John, Much the Miller’s son, Scarlok, and Reynold, we hear of the first three outlaws listed as members of parliament standing in Inglewood, a forest in Cumberland spanning from Penrith to Carlisle. Carlisle is where William of Cloudesley’s wife, Alice, and their three sons live. When he ventures into the city to visit them, he is betrayed by the old wife to whom the family has shown charity, having her live with them. The sheriff and justice assemble men to capture Cloudesley. Alice defends their door with a poleaxe as Cloudesley shoots from a window. The house is set on fire, and Cloudesley is at last captured. He will be hanged the next day. However, a swineherd’s boy, a friend of Cloudesley’s, runs to the forest and finds Adam Bell and Clim of the Clough.

These two outlaws rush to Carlisle, arriving on the morning of the execution, and tricking the porter at the gate into believing that they bear the king’s seal. When he permits them to enter the city, Bell and Clim wring the porter’s neck in two, taking his keys and tossing him into a dungeon. Heading to the marketplace, they string their bows, shooting and killing the sheriff and the justice. Cloudesley is freed, and the three friends fight their way out of Carlisle to reunite with Alice and the children in Inglewood.

The three outlaws then race south to crave pardon from the King before he hears of their fresh crimes. The King intends to hang them, but the Queen intervenes in her role as peace-weaver, and convinces her husband to grant the desired pardon. This done, the King receives a letter telling him that Bell, Clim, and Cloudesley have just battled their way out of Carlisle, slaying more than three hundred men. Cloudesley shows the King his skill at archery, first by splitting a hazel wand four hundred yards distant, then by cleaving an apple on top of his seven-year-old son’s head with a deadly broad arrow. Cloudesley is made the King’s bow-bearer and chief rider, his wife the Queen’s chief gentlewoman and governess of the nursery, and Bell and Clim yeomen of the Queen’s chamber. The former outlaws make confession and are absolved of all their sins.

This story is perhaps the most similar to Robin Hood’s in outlaw literature, and both likely grew out of the early to mid thirteenth century. The earliest surviving versions of Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and William of Cloudesley are in print, and no handwritten manuscript has been found to predate them (just as with A Gest of Robyn Hode). Possibly the oldest fragment dating from 1536, the earliest extant complete version comes from London, about 1560. The story was well-known in the early modern period, and Dobson and Taylor note that it was referenced in plays by William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson.

While J. C. Holt, the world’s leading expert on Robin Hood, does not rule out the possibility that Robin was based on a historical figure, he opines that the tale of Bell, Clim, and Cloudesley is entirely fictional. The events – betrayal, capture, rescue, archery, and royal pardon – are shared by medieval tales of Robin Hood, and many details are similar. Bell’s plot is most alike to Robin Hood and the Monk. Monk is one of the five surviving “ballads” of Robin Hood from the medieval period. In it, Robin and Little John quarrel over an archery contest and part ways. Robin then goes to St. Mary’s in Nottingham to pray, where a monk informs the sheriff of his presence. Robin kills twelve men before being captured. To rescue him, Little John and Much the Miller’s son intercept the monk travelling to the King. They kill the monk and his young page, going disguised to court in their places. Returning to Nottingham, they use the King’s seal to free Robin. Bell, Clim, and Cloudesley receiving pardon from the King is more like fytte seven of A Gest of Robyn Hode, another of the five surviving medieval “ballads,” when the King pardons Robin and his men. Robin agrees to serve at court, bringing along seven score and three of his men.

The characters also share similarities. A. J. Pollard points to Bell’s opening stanzas, where the three protagonists are named immediately after a description of the occupation of a walking forester. Throughout the medieval ballads, Robin touts his status as a yeoman. In fytte four of Gest we are given greater insight into the type of yeoman he was during a run-in between Little John and a monk. (Some have theorized that the latter could be the same one who turns Robin over to the sheriff in Monk.) When the monk hears that Little John’s master is Robin Hood, he calls the outlaw a strong thief. Little John objects, calling Robin instead “a yeoman of the forest.” This is not meant to be simply a euphemism, but a complete juxtaposition. “Yeoman of the forest” is a term meaning forester, and it is the foresters who enforce the forest law. Little John is essentially saying that Robin Hood is not a criminal, but a cop. This is attested to by the way in which Robin carries out his “crimes.” He does not steal, but rather exact payment, part of his duty as a forester. The monk might be forgiven for his mistake, as Robin’s exactions were overly zealous, and often not made within the confines of a forest, which was where forest law was supposed to be enforced. Robin, like Bell, Clim, and Cloudesley, is a northern outlaw and, though he visits Sherwood, he is based in West Yorkshire at Barnsdale.

Two of the most significant differences between the two legends are that William of Cloudesley is married and has children – a theme entirely missing from the surviving medieval Robin Hood stories (killing the monk’s page boy is about as close as it gets) – and the ubiquitous retelling of shooting an apple off someone’s head. The latter is most commonly identified with the legend of William Tell, but also present, Maurice Keen notes, in the Scandinavian stories of Weland the Smith and Hodr, as well as the German story of Dietrich von Bern, among others. Yet before Cloudesley orders that his son be tied to a stake in order to facilitate this feat, he has already won the King’s admiration for cleaving a hazel rod at four hundred paces. It is similar to when we hear in fytte seven of Gest of Robin twice cleaving a wand before the disguised King, who declares the mark too far away by fifty paces; or in Robin Hood and the Potter of the outlaw splitting a prick into three pieces before the sheriff. Skill at archery was essential for foresters. During the Hundred Years’ War, they were desirable recruits, as the English army depended upon good archers. William of Cloudesley and Robin Hood both show discernment in their tackle, Cloudesley choosing a bearing arrow for the hazel rod, better for distance, and a broad arrow for the apple, wide enough to split the fruit, and at one hundred twenty paces not too cumbersome to handle for a skilled archer paying attention to the wind. Meanwhile, in Potter, Robin is able to pull the string of the best bow amongst the sheriff’s men to his ear, proclaiming, “This is but right weak gear.”

There was ample reason for the Wiltshire clerk to think of Robin Hood and his men when he thought of Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and William of Cloudesley. A number of writers have sought to bring their legends closer together over the centuries, from the early modern ballad of Robin Hood’s Birth, Breeding, Valor and Marriage, to Paul Creswick’s 1902 The Adventures of Robin Hood, to my new novel The Scarlet Forest: A Tale of Robin Hood. These two groups of outlaws share more commonalities than differences.

Illustrations:

http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=30637
City of London
Royal 14 C VII  f. 2
Matthew Paris
England, S. (St Albans); 1250-59

http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=58821
Tristan at court
Additional 11619  f. 6
Unknown
England, S. E.? (London?); 2nd or 3rd quarter of the 13th century

http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=47348
archer among foliage and strawberries
Royal 17 F I  f. 14
Unknown
France, N. E. (Lille) and S. Netherlands (Bruges); late 15th century

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A. E. Chandler holds a Master of Arts with Merit from the University of Nottingham, where she wrote her dissertation on the social history behind Robin Hood. When not teaching or volunteering with the Glenbow Museum’s military collection, she writes historical fiction as well as contemporary fiction concerning history. Chandler has had stories, poetry, and articles published, in addition to a book of collected non-fiction entitled Into the World, and her new novel The Scarlet Forest: A Tale of Robin Hood.

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Roger Godberd of Swannington

by Chris Thorndycroft

In my previous post on a possible historical basis for the Robin Hood legend, I looked at Robert Hood of Wakefield; a man with the right name who lived in the right period within an arrow’s flight of Barnsdale (the main stomping ground of Robin Hood in the ballads). But there was one other figure of an earlier generation who, despite his name bearing no resemblance to Robin Hood, lived a life with several striking parallels to England’s famous outlaw.

Roger Godberd hailed from Swannington in Leicestershire and the records of his life come from a number of court rolls. Several people have tried to construct his biography from these tantalising scraps but the most readable is David Baldwin’s(1).

The first mention of Godberd is in 1250 where he makes a complaint that his mother and stepfather cut down sixty oaks on his land. He is noted as being underage at this time which would make his year of birth 1229 at the earliest. He appears to have later had a daughter called Diva who is mentioned in a court case in 1258 over disputed land.

Swannington was part of the manor of Whitwick until it became a manor in its own right in more recent times. There is evidence of a moated hall north of the village dating to the 12th century. Godberd appeared to be in charge of Swannington by 1259 as he is recorded handing it over to Jordan le Fleming for a period of ten years but then forcibly booting him off it a year later.

Godberd was a tenant of Robert de Ferrers, the 6th Earl of Derby. De Ferrers – a hot-headed and quarrelsome man – came of age in 1260 and immediately began a campaign to take back his lands which had been held in wardship by the Lord Edward (Longshanks, later to become Edward I, the ‘Hammer of the Scots’). One of these properties was Nottingham Castle of which Roger Godberd was a member of the garrison.

Roger seems to have run into some legal trouble during his time at Nottingham as a record included in The Sherwood Forest Book (a collection of legal documents from various sources) tells of an episode in 1264 where Roger and several companions are accused of poaching deer in Sherwood Forest(2). That this accusation arose in 1287 – twenty-three years after the fact – is perhaps indicative of the efficiency of the medieval judicial system.

The delay may have been partly caused by the outbreak of the Second Barons’ War; a civil war in which the barons, under Simon de Montfort, attempted to establish a parliament more sympathetic to their demands. Robert de Ferrers threw himself into the conflict but was more interested in pursuing his personal vendetta against the Lord Edward than supporting the baronial cause. He ultimately missed out on the Battle of Lewes which saw the barons’ victory over King Henry III.

With the king and the Lord Edward under house arrest, Simon de Montfort became ruler of England in all but name. But while squabbling broke out amongst his supporters, Edward escaped custody and rallied an army to his father’s cause. The resulting slaughter at the Battle of Evesham spelled the end for de Montfort’s movement (not to mention his life) and his followers found themselves disinherited.

The ruins of Kenilworth Castle; once one of England's strongest medieval
fortifications and the site of one of the longest sieges in English history

Pockets of resistance held out; rebels entrenched themselves on the Isle of Axholme in Lincolnshire and at Kenilworth Castle which endured one of the longest sieges in English history. Roger Godberd was apparently financially desperate and appears in the Close Rolls of 1266 for forcing the Abbot of Garendon to hand over the charters for the lands he had leased the abbey.

In October, 1266, Godberd was granted safe passage to attend the Dictum of Kenilworth; the king’s offer to the rebels to buy back their lands at rates according to their level of involvement in de Montfort’s rebellion. Eventually pardoned, Godberd appears to have moved north to begin a life of crime with his brother Geoffrey and others.

When he was finally brought to trial in 1276, the charges against him vary from burglary, homicide, arson and robbery in Leicester, Nottinghamshire and Wiltshire, the most heinous of which was the robbery of the monks of Stanley Abbey in 1270, one of whom was killed.

Reginald de Grey, Justice of Chester, was given money from Nottingham, Leicester and Derby to raise an army to hunt down the outlaws who were running rampant in those counties. De Gray had recently held the position of High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and the Royal Forests (Nottingham didn’t get its own sheriff until 1449). Interestingly, de Grey was also one of the accused Sherwood poachers of 1264 alongside Roger and Geoffrey Godberd suggesting that they had previously been comrades in the Nottingham Castle garrison and now operated on opposite sides of the law.

All this about Nottingham and Sherwood may sound more like the Robin Hood of later tradition, not the outlaw of Barnsdale in the earliest ballads. But even in those stories, it is the Sheriff of Nottingham who plays the part of the chief villain despite the fact that he would have been out of his jurisdiction pursuing outlaws in Barnsdale. Not only does this suggest that there were once two separate traditions – a Nottinghamshire one and a Yorkshire one that got blended at some point – but one of the first stories of Robin Hood includes an episode that bears a striking resemblance to what Roger Godberd did next.

In the ballad A Gest of Robyn Hode, Robin and his companions befriend a knight called Sir Richard who shelters them at his castle from an assault by the Sheriff of Nottingham. The Calendar of the Close Rolls of Henry III show that a knight called Richard Foliot was accused of sheltering Godberd and his companions at his castle of Fenwick. Richard was eventually forced to hand over his castle and son Edmund to the Sheriff of Yorkshire as surety until he stood trial for harbouring outlaws.

Sherwood Forest

There is also a record (unfortunately undated) in the Hundred Rolls of Edward I showing that Godberd and a number of his followers were captured at a grange owned by Rufford Abbey in Sherwood and imprisoned at Nottingham Castle. The man who captured them was Hugh de Babington, undersheriff at this time to Walter Giffard, High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire etc. and also Archbishop of York. Another record of Godberd’s capture has Reginald de Grey take him at Hereford before conducting him to Bridgenorth. This second arrest suggests that Godberd escaped custody (possibly from Nottingham Castle itself) only to be recaptured by de Grey.

While Godberd spent the next few years in various prisons, his followers remained active. There was an attempt to rescue him from Bridgenorth and Godberd’s brother Geoffrey attacked the servants of Lucy de Grey (Reginald’s step-mother) while they were en route to Leicester.

Stays at Hereford and Chester gaols are also recorded before Godberd was incarcerated at Newgate and brought to trial at the Tower of London in 1276. Inexplicably, King Edward I pardoned him and Roger Godberd wandered off the map of history.

So, we have a rebellious outlaw operating from Sherwood, robbing the clergy and defying the sheriffs and justices. He was sheltered by a knight called Richard and eventually pardoned by a king called Edward (just as Robin was the Gest ballad). Robert Hood of Wakefield may be an interesting candidate but there is no denying Roger Godberd’s possible influence on the legend. That the ballads alternately switch between Barnsdale in Yorkshire and Sherwood in Nottinghamshire suggest there may have been more than one source for the legend. Perhaps Godberd provided one part of the tale while another outlaw in Yorkshire provided the rest.

My recent novel Lords of the Greenwood focuses, in part, on the exploits of Roger Godberd and the Second Barons’ War. It also deals with Robert Hood of Wakefield who is outlawed a generation later and, inspired by tales of Godberd told to him by an old beggar who used to be one of Godberd’s band, sets up his own band of robbers who operate in Barnsdale.

Sources

For a fairly comprehensive list of all records pertaining to Roger Godberd, visit; http://www.robinhoodlegend.com/records-of-godberd/.

1.      David Baldwin. Robin Hood: The English Outlaw Unmasked. 2011

2.      Boulton, H. E. (ed). Sherwood Forest Book. Thoroton Society Record Series Volume XXIII. 1964

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Chris Thorndycroft is a British writer of historical fiction, horror and fantasy. His early short stories appeared in magazines and anthologies such as Dark Moon Digest and American Nightmare. His first novel under his own name was A Brother’s Oath; the first book in the Hengest and Horsa Trilogy. He also writes under the pseudonym P. J. Thorndyke.

His recent novel, Lords of the Greenwood, blends history with medieval ballads. This is the entwined saga of two men, separated by a generation and united by legend, who inspired the tales of England’s famous hooded outlaw. Lords of the Greenwood is available through Amazon.

For more information, please visit Chris Thorndycroft’s website. You can also find him on Twitter and Goodreads.

Robert Hood of Wakefield

by Chris Thorndycroft

Much has been written on the possible historical basis of the Robin Hood legends and the search is problematic to say the least. Even if we accept the idea that England’s famous forest-dwelling outlaw was a real person and not a literary character or a mythological archetype, the name Robin/Robert Hood was hardly an uncommon one in medieval England. To even be in the same ballpark we need to look for specific Robin Hoods whose lives bear at least a passing resemblance to the figure of the legends. And the search has turned up some interesting candidates.

First of all we need to reacquaint ourselves with the Robin Hood of the medieval ballads in which he makes his first appearance. Forget Prince John trying to usurp the throne while his brother King Richard the Lionheart is a prisoner on his way home from the crusades. The only king mentioned in the early ballads is an unspecified King Edward. There were three Edwards who ruled in succession in the Middle Ages which indicates a timeframe of 1272 to 1377; a good hundred years after the Lionheart’s reign. Sherwood Forest also has to go. The stomping ground of Robin Hood in the ballads is Barnsdale which once took up a sizable portion of West Yorkshire.

With the aforementioned facts in mind, a possible candidate has been put forward in the form of Robert Hood of Wakefield who lived during the reign of Edward II. Aside from his name and era, there is one other thing about him that makes him a possibility; his hometown.

Wakefield was a manor ruled by Earl John de Warenne until around 1317 when Earl Thomas of Lancaster took it from him as a result of a bitter feud. The previous spring Lancaster’s wife, Alice de Lacy, was purportedly abducted by de Warenne’s men (although rumour had it that she and de Warenne were lovers). Immensely powerful and more or less ruler of the north, Lancaster also had a falling out with his cousin, King Edward II. Lancaster drew support from the Marcher Lords who resented the king and his relationship with the hated royal favourites; the Desepnsers. What began as an attack on the Despensers’ lands soon turned into open rebellion and ended with the Battle of Boroughbridge in 1322 and the subsequent execution of Lancaster for treason.

It is interesting to find a Robert Hood living in Wakefield at this time because the forest of Barnsdale encroached upon that very manor and was a natural hiding place for any outlaw on the run. The antiquarian Joseph Hunter was the first to put Robert Hood forward as the real Robin Hood and his findings were largely culled from the Wakefield Court Rolls(1). Subsequent historians like J. W. Walker(2) and J. C. Holt(3) found additional entries and bolstered his brief biography. What follows is a basic outline of Robert Hood’s life according to Hunter, Holt and Walker.

• On Jan 25th, 1316 Robertus Hood, son of Adam Hood (who hailed from nearby Stanley and was a forester for Earl de Warenne) and his wife Matilda gave 2 shillings for leave to take one piece of the lord's waste on Bichill (the market place in Wakefield) between the houses of Phillip Damyson and Thomas Alayn.
• In 1316, Robert Hood's handmaid was fined for taking wood from Old Park. In the same year, Hood himself was fined 3d for not obeying Earl de Warenne’s summons to join the forces of Edward II's Scottish invasion.
• After the Battle of Boroughbridge and Lancaster’s execution in 1322, his followers were outlawed and their properties seized. One property seized in 1322 was a ‘building of five rooms of a new construction on Bichill, Wakefield’.

Hunter’s hypothesis is that Robert Hood was outlawed after taking part in Lancaster’s rebellion against the king and fled to nearby Barnsdale to begin his life of crime. But that’s not all. Hunter also found a ‘Robyn Hode’ serving in the chamber of King Edward II not long after. That these two people could be one and the same sounds highly unlikely were it not for the events in the earliest ballad; A Gest of Robyn Hode. In this story, King Edward travels to Nottingham and, furious at the poaching of the deer in his royal parks, tracks Robin and his companions down. Impressed by his honour and skill, the king takes Robin into his service where he remains at court for ‘twelve months and three’. Then, longing for the greenwood, Robin returns to Barnsdale and lives there for a further twenty-two years until his death at the hands of the treacherous Prioress of Kirklees.

King Edward II did indeed tour the north of England after the defeat of Lancaster’s rebellion and was particularly interested in the state of his forests such as Pickering and Knaresborough which had seen many trespasses during the war. He stayed at Nottingham in November, 1323 and Hunter remarks that from April, 1324, several payments were made to a porter of the chamber named Robyn Hode. On the 22nd November, 1324 – a year after the king visited Nottingham – Hode is given five shillings as a gift because he is ‘no longer able to work’ and nothing further is heard of him.

Later research by J. C. Holt shows that Robyn Hode was already in the king's service from June 27th, 1323, a good five months before the king arrived in Nottingham. This has weakened Hunter’s hypothesis in the eyes of many but it is interesting to note that on June 27th the itinerary of King Edward II places him at Chapel Haddlesey; a village roughly ten miles east of Barnsdale.

Hunter calculated the year of Hood’s death as 1347; twenty-two years after he left the service of the king. Interestingly there is a grave at Kirklees Priory (in the Wakefield manor) inscribed with Hood’s name and the date of 1247; exactly a century earlier than Hunter’s prediction. The grave is a relatively recent replacement for a previous monument and its inscription makes it clear that Robin Hood of legend is meant. That the date is a century earlier than Robert Hood of Wakefield’s death (according to Hunter) either means that the Robin Hood buried at Kirklees is not Robert Hood of Wakefield or, it is and a scribal error was made on the part of the engraver.

It’s tempting to consider Robert Hood of Wakefield (and possibly Robyn Hode of the king’s chamber) as the real life Robin Hood. After all, he has the right name and lived in the right place at the right time. However, not only is it pure conjecture that Robert Hood of Wakefeld and Robyn Hode of the king’s chamber are the same man but there is also no evidence that either were ever outlawed. Nevertheless, of all the possible candidates for the historical Robin Hood, Robert Hood of Wakefield provides both name, location and a tantalising correspondence to the Gest ballad in the appearance of a similarly named man in the chamber records of King Edward II who is also known to have been in the area at the right time. Coincidences maybe, but intriguing ones at that.

In my recent novel Lords of the Greenwood, Robert Hood of Wakefield, or more correctly, his son (also called Robert), is the Robin Hood of legend. Robert Hood the Elder (the one who was married to a Matilda in the Wakefield court rolls) was killed by the Scots at the Battle of Myton as a result of Lancaster’s treachery. His son, Robert the Younger, finds himself outlawed for murder and has only his bitter enemy Will Shacklock for company in the woods of Barnsdale (the Wakefield court rolls show a Schackelock family living at nearby Crigglestone at this time(4) and the name bears a similarity to the variants of Will Scarlet’s original surname in the ballads). Robert and Will learn to put aside their differences and begin recruiting a band of outlaws fleeing the chaos of Lancaster’s rebellion. Their actions eventually draw the attention of the king himself who comes to them with a proposition…
Sources

1. Joseph Hunter. The Great Hero of the Ancient Minstrelsy of England, “Robin Hood”: His Period, Real Character, Etc. Investigated, and Perhaps Ascertained. 1883
2. J. W. Walker. Robin Hood Identified in The Yorkshire archaeological journal vol. 36 (1944)
3. J. C. Holt. Robin Hood. 1982
4. P. Valentine Harris. The truth about Robin Hood : a refutation of the mythologists’ theories, with new evidence of the hero’s actual existence. 1952

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Chris Thorndycroft is a British writer of historical fiction, horror and fantasy. His early short stories appeared in magazines and anthologies such as Dark Moon Digest and American Nightmare. His first novel under his own name was A Brother’s Oath; the first book in the Hengest and Horsa Trilogy. He also writes under the pseudonym P. J. Thorndyke.

His recent novel, Lords of the Greenwood, blends history with medieval ballads. This is the entwined saga of two men, separated by a generation and united by legend, who inspired the tales of England’s famous hooded outlaw. Lords of the Greenwood is available through Amazon.

For more information, please visit Chris Thorndycroft’s website. You can also find him on Twitter and Goodreads.

The Truth Behind the Fiction: Two Brothers, Two Kings

by N.B. Dixon

When I began working on my Robin Hood series, I had to research the real characters in the story as well as the fictional. The two Kings most closely associated with the Robin Hood legend are King Richard I, also known as the Lionheart for his fearlessness in battle, and his brother John. Usually, Richard is portrayed as the chivalrous knight, a man of honour and decency, while John is the dastardly villain, a man greedy for wealth and power. But were things really as cut and dried as that?

It’s true that in many ways, Richard and John seemed to have been opposites. Richard was a warrior, a born soldier. He was never happier than when he was on a battlefield. During his ten year reign, he spent only four months on English soil.

John, being the youngest son, was never expected to amount to much. He seems to have favoured strategy and manipulation as his weapons of choice. When he did take to the battlefield, it was often disastrous. His brief spell in Ireland when he was in his late teens, is a study in mistakes. Far from bringing the Irish lords to accept English rule, he succeeded in alienating every one of them.

However, the two brothers do have more in common than is evident at a first glance. Firstly, neither of them was born to be King. They were the sons of Henry Plantagenet, later to become King Henry II, and his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine. Richard was the elder of the two, but he was the third son born to Henry and Elinor. His eldest brother William died in infancy. The next brother, Henry, did survive into adulthood. However, his life was a short, tempestuous one, mainly spent in rebelling against his father. His father outlived him. Between Richard and John, there was another brother, Geoffrey, as well as some sisters. Richard was, however, destined to rule from birth. His mother always intended him to take over the Duchy of Aquitaine at her death.

The ambition that Richard and John shared, was that of triumphing against their father. Richard joined his elder brother’s rebellion against King Henry. The rebellion did not succeed, and for a time, John’s star was in the ascendant as his father’s favourite son. However, when it became evident that the King was dying, John switched his allegiance to Richard. He was quick to renege on that almost as soon as Richard became King.

Richard was crowned King of England in September 1189. Almost immediately he set out preparing to go on crusade to the holy land. It was an oath he and several kings and princes had taken, to recapture Jerusalem from the Muslims and return it to Christian rule. Richard’s friend and ally, Philip of France, had also sworn to go on crusade. Richard fully expected Philip would keep his oath.

Richard was delayed in reaching his goal. First he was held up at Sicily, where he liberated his sister, the former Queen, who, on her husband’s death, had been taken prisoner by his bastard cousin, Tancred. Tancred had seized power, and Richard was held up as he attempted to bring peace to the region. This he eventually succeeded in doing, by suggesting that his brother Geoffrey’s young son Arthur could be betrothed to Tancred’s daughter, thus uniting their two families. Richard’s brother Geoffrey had died before his son was even born, and it is doubtful whether Richard ever intended to honour this agreement. Arthur was, at that time, his only heir Besides John.

In Cyprus, Richard wed his queen, Berengaria. He was a reluctant bridegroom, and spent as little time with his wife as possible.

By the time they reached Aker, the crusade was already well underway. Attempts had been made to breach the city, but they had been unsuccessful. Philip of France was ill. The climate was not agreeing with him. When Richard arrived and succeeded in doing what he had been trying and failing to do, Philip had had enough. He chose to return to France. Richard accused him of going back on his oath, and their friendship was broken.

It’s at this time that Richard did something that even the Robin Hood legends have been unable to gloss over. After the fall of acre in 1191, many of its citizens became prisoners of war. Richard agreed to return them to the enemy side in exchange for a large sum of gold. When Saladin refused to pay, Richard had nearly 3000 men, women and children beheaded. Saladin retaliated in kind. Despite this, there does seem to have been some respect between the two men. When Saladin heard that Richard was ill, he sent him a present of fruit.

Richard was never able to reclaim Jerusalem. Finally in 1192, a peace treaty was agreed. Jerusalem remained in Muslim hands, but Christians would be permitted to visit and worship at the holy sepulchre. Richard was ready to return home, but he’d made many enemies during his time in the holy land, and not all of them were those he’d come to fight.

In December 1192, Richard was captured in Vienna by Leopold of Austria and later handed over to Henry of Germany. There is a charming legend that his minstrel, Blondel, travelled from castle to castle, singing a song that both he and Richard knew well. When Richard heard him and answered, that was how Blondel was able to discover his location. In reality, Richard’s location was never a secret. The ransom demanded was a hundred thousand marks.

So what was John doing all this time? When Richard left for the Crusades, he left his mother Queen Elinor as regent. John, however, lost no time in capitalising on his brother’s absence. He said that he would be an English king for the people. Richard is rumoured not to have spoken a word of English. John had stayed in England all this time, not deserting his people the moment the Crown was on his head. There were some who rallied to his support. His greatest enemy, the Chancellor Longchamp, was eventually forced to flee the country.

John entered into negotiations with Philip of France, who was still smarting from his humiliation at Richard’s hands. It is rumoured that they wrote a letter to Henry of Germany, stating that they would pay twice the amount of money specified for Richard’s release, if he died in his prison cell and never came home at all. But John had reckoned without his mother. Somehow, despite the fact that England was already suffering owing to the amount of money Richard had demanded to fund his crusade, part of the ransom was raised. Promises were given that the rest would be paid, and Richard was released. He returned to England in 1194, but it was to find a divided country. Some declared for John.

Nottingham Castle refused to surrender to Richard, and a bloody battle ensued. The castle Gatehouse was burned down, and Richard hanged several rebels. Those left alive surrendered, and John’s hopes of seizing his brother’s throne came to nothing. He was loyal throughout the rest of Richard’s reign, but he didn’t have long to wait. Richard lived only five years after his release. Much of that time he spent in France, and he was killed in action.

John became king in 1199. However, he did face a threat to his own rule in the form of his nephew, Arthur of Brittany. There were many who felt that Arthur’s claim was just a strong as John’s. Arthur laid siege to the Castle of Mirabeau in France, where Queen Elinor was staying. John was forced to go to her rescue, and Arthur was captured. In 1203, he disappeared. Later a body was found washed up on the banks of the River Seine, but it was never positively identified as that of Arthur of Britany. It was widely believed that John had had the boy murdered. Philip of France had turned against John by this time, and he lost no time in vilifying him.

Like Richard, John made many enemies in his reign. Many of John’s barons turned against him, which eventually led to the signing of Magna Carta, a charter giving power to the barons, and restricting the King’s ability to pass laws without consulting them.

John ruled from 1199 to 1216. He was a lecher, and also cruel and vindictive. However, he did often give money to beggars if he came across them in the street, not something the Robin Hood legend would report.

Richard’s reign was short and eventful. He was generous to his friends, but murdered three thousand innocent people. To think of Richard as the good King and John as the evil one is perhaps to make things two black and white, but as the saying goes, there is no smoke without fire.

~~~~~~~~~~

N.B. Dixon is an author of historical fiction. Her love for the Robin Hood legend began in a neglected corner of the school library and has continued ever since. She is a self-confessed bookworm and also a musician.

She began work on the Outlaws Legacy Series in 2013, and was accepted by Beaten Track Publishing in 2016. Outlaws Legacy is a historical series based around the Robin Hood legend. The author describes it as Exciting Historical Adventure with GLBT romance. Knight of Sherwood is available now.

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Gamelyn vs. Robin Hood

By A. E. Chandler

The most famous English outlaw is Robin Hood, but he was by no means alone in the forest. Other outlaws, both fictional and real, can be traced throughout medieval England. Some of these outlaws influenced Robin Hood’s legend, whilst others have faded from history. Gamelyn’s story shares many similarities with Robin’s; it’s also its own kind of animal.

Image I - Sons robbing travellers in the forest

Gamelyn is the youngest son of a knight who bucks tradition and on his deathbed divides his land amongst his three sons, rather than giving all to the firstborn. Growing up as his eldest brother’s ward, Gamelyn develops incredible physical strength, though he must stand by and watch as his lands go to waste. At last he gains control over his inheritance following an argument with his brother. Soon after, Gamelyn competes in and wins a wrestling match, inviting everyone at the fair to follow him home to celebrate at his brother’s hall. When his brother bars the gate, Gamelyn is able to kick it in and break the defiant porter’s neck with one blow, throwing the body down the courtyard well. The other servants, knowing Gamelyn to be a friend to themselves and his tenants, don’t try to resist his wishes. The guests feast for seven days and nights, at the end of which Gamelyn’s brother manages to chain him up in the hall. The brother holds a feast for some wealthy churchmen, all of whom refuse to help Gamelyn. Instead he is freed by a servant named Adam the Spencer, and the two beat everyone with staffs, breaking the brother’s back and placing him in Gamelyn’s chains.

The sheriff gets involved and, after initially driving him off, Gamelyn and Adam flee to the woods where they meet the King of the Outlaws and his seven-score men. The brother heals, becoming the new sheriff. Gamelyn’s lands are confiscated, and he becomes King of the Outlaws when the former man is pardoned. At the shire court, Gamelyn is imprisoned, but his middle brother Ote comes and bails him out. Gamelyn returns to the forest, stealing from passing churchmen. On the day of the assize, the eldest brother declares that Ote will hang, as Gamelyn has not fulfilled his court date. Gamelyn then makes a dramatic entrance, freeing Ote and placing the corrupt sheriff, justice, and jury on trial, hanging them all. The King pardons Ote, Gamelyn, and all the outlaws, making Gamelyn Chief Justice of the Forest.

The historical note at the end of my novel, The Scarlet Forest: A Tale of Robin Hood, borrows from my academic research when it discusses why we can date the existence of Robin Hood’s legend to the early to mid thirteenth century, whilst the first written stories we have of him come from the fifteenth century. Gamelyn’s story was composed in the mid fourteenth century, in between Robin’s origin and his first known extant written tales. From the dialect used, Knight and Ohlgren have speculated that Gamelyn’s story was likely written in Leicestershire, or perhaps Lincolnshire, both of which are near Robin Hood’s territory of Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire, and both of which have connections to Robin’s legend.

The Tale of Gamelyn is found in twenty-five early manuscripts, whereas four of the five medieval tales we have of Robin Hood survive in only one. (The fifth, A Gest of Robyn Hode, survives in five fragmented copies, and these are all printed, rather than handwritten. No handwritten copy of Gest is known to exist.) Gamelyn owes this larger number to a vague association with Geoffrey Chaucer, suspected by some of intending to include a version of Gamelyn in The Canterbury Tales. As a side note, William Shakespeare later wrote the play As You Like It based on Thomas Lodge’s 1590 Rosalynde, which was in turn based on Gamelyn.

Image II - Decorated border& initial,
beginning of the Reeve's Tale

Some of the similarities between Gamelyn’s story and Robin’s are due to their shared genre of medieval outlaw literature, whilst some are due to one story influencing the other. Unfortunately, it is not always possible to tell which way the influence flowed, due to the scarcity of source material. One instance where we do know that it was Gamelyn’s story affecting Robin’s comes from the modern period. J. C. Holt, the leading expert on Robin Hood, has argued that Gamelyn is the inspiration for the character of Gamwell, who was added to early modern rhymes of Robin Hood. Gamwell merged with Will Scarlet, creating a relative of Robin’s who is on the run from the law after killing his father’s disrespectful steward with an overzealous blow to the head. The medieval Gamelyn’s vaunted strength, and the emphasis placed on his high-born familial ties seem to have been incorporated into Robin Hood’s legend in the person of Will Gamwell.

The early modern Robin Hood is closer to Gamelyn than the medieval Robin Hood, though whether this is due to direct influence by Gamelyn is up for debate. As Maurice Keen notes, Gamelyn is loved by the lower classes in his Tale - his tenants, servants, the spectators at the fair, the outlaws - and he in turn consistently earns this love. The medieval Robin Hood is more nuanced; when it comes to the lower classes he has allies, such as the uncle of Much the Miller’s son, as well as opponents (such as the potter, and fellow-outlaw Guy of Gisborne). In Gest when the people of Nottingham see Robin leading his band toward the city they try to flee, even old women on crutches, convinced they will all be massacred. The more universal love from the peasantry that Robin experiences in post-medieval tales comes after the idea of robbing the rich to feed the poor was introduced to his legend in the sixteenth century. The sixteenth century also saw Robin elevated to become the Earl of Huntingdon, which inevitably made him a landlord, like Gamelyn, with an automatic obligation of good lordship toward his peasants. The medieval Robin Hood is not a nobleman but himself a peasant, though anyone calling him that likely would receive a punch in the face, as he is a type of high-ranking peasant called a yeoman, and takes every opportunity to remind his audience of his status. The medieval Robin is fiercely proud to be a yeoman, and is just as disinclined toward raising his social status as he is toward lowering it. Gamelyn is constantly struggling to affirm his status, whereas Robin’s is always secure. As the son of a knight and as a landlord, Gamelyn’s station is much above the medieval Robin’s, and so the social issues dealt with in his tale are different.

Image III - scribe dipping his quill

Gamelyn and the medieval Robin Hood legend do, however, share much in common. One example lies in both Robin and Gamelyn rebelling against corruption, to fight for the preservation of the established social order. Gamelyn hits its audience (and not infrequently its characters) over the head with this theme, whilst in Robin’s tales it is used with greater skill. Gamelyn and his eldest brother are stuffed into the roles of outlaw king and sheriff respectively halfway through their story. At its climax, Gamelyn turns the officials of justice into the defendants at their own biased trial, convicting and hanging them as they had already intended to do to him. Robin Hood behaves like a corrupt forester, overzealously enforcing forest law where it should not exist. At the same time, he shows himself to be “the criminal who upholds justice better than the Sheriff . . . the robber who can be more generous than the gentry . . . the excommunicant who shows more devotion than the clergy . . . preserv[ing] what they claim to love by being [his] own hypocrite” as his wife tells him in The Scarlet Forest: A Tale of Robin Hood. In a similar vein, when Gamelyn is faced with cold-hearted clergymen, he simply attacks them at the first opportunity; the medieval Robin Hood is known to rob monks, but he is also extremely devout, especially with regard to the Virgin Mary, and is often shown praying and attending mass. He even (with disastrous results as it turns out) entrusts his life to a nun.

Whilst Gamelyn’s character is simplistic, the medieval Robin Hood’s is more complex. Perhaps this is why The Tale of Gamelyn is concluded to be fictional, whilst the truth about Robin’s tales is still up for debate.

Images (British Library) attributions: 

I , II, III

~~~~~~~~~~

A. E. Chandler holds a Master of Arts with Merit from the University of Nottingham, where she wrote her dissertation on the social history behind Robin Hood. When not teaching or volunteering with the Glenbow Museum’s military collection, she writes historical fiction as well as contemporary fiction concerning history. Chandler has had stories, poetry, and articles published, in addition to a book of collected non-fiction entitled Into the World, and her new novel The Scarlet Forest: A Tale of Robin Hood.

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Eustache the Monk - Medieval Outlaw or Hero?

by Lana Williams

As with many tales of old, whether the protagonist is an outlaw or hero depends on the view of the one telling the story. Such is the case with Eustache the Monk, a manuscript written in Old French between 1223 and 1284. While the author’s identity remains in question, the story is known to be based on a real person, Eustache Busquet, who was born in Northern France in 1170 and died in 1217.

Eustache lived an extraordinary life. He trained as a knight, then as a seaman, and traveled to Spain to study black magic, though no evidence technically supports this. The story embellishes his deeds, telling readers how Eustache and his companions got into a fight in a tavern and cast a magic spell and made the tavern keeper and her customers strip naked, straddle wine casts, and get a bit crazy. Or maybe that should be a lot crazy. Eustache continues his journey and casts another spell on a man driving a cart and makes the cart and horse appear to go backwards.

Soon after, he joined a Benedictine abbey at the age of 20 and wreaked havoc there by casting more spells. The monks eat when they should be fasting, go barefoot when they should wear shoes, and swear when they’re supposed to be silent. He also casts a spell on a side of bacon, changing it into an old ugly woman which frightens the cook. Eustache remained at the monastery until his father was murdered by a man named Hainfrois de Heresinghen.

As with any good son, Eustache left the monastery to demand justice from his father’s overlord, the Count of Boulogne, for his father’s murder. A judicial duel was arranged, but alas, Eustache’s champion lost. Apparently the count was impressed with Eustache, for he appointed him seneschal for an expedition with King Philip of France to win back territories in Normandy which King John of England held. Unfortunately, Eustache’s enemy, de Heresinghen, returned to the picture and accused Eustache of mismanaging the finances of the expedition, convincing the count as well.

Eustache suspected treachery and fled into the forests near Boulogne. The count, displeased with Eustache, seized his properties and burned his fields. That is when the story grows even more interesting. Eustache began to methodically harass the count, his allies, and his soldiers. The story tells of Eustache leading a band of up to 30 men, as well as operating alone, often in disguise. As the story progresses, Eustache moves from casting spells to using trickery and deception instead. While this period of outlawry was brief as it lasted only a year, it takes up the majority of the story. Not so different from the action movies at the theaters these days!

Leaving his homeland, Eustache wandered the English Channel where he acted as a pirate, eventually offering his services as a mariner to King John. As a reward, Eustache is given lands in Swaffham, Norfolk. Soon after, while he still served King John, he acted as English ambassador to the Count of Boulogne. That did not go well though, for as soon as King Philip learned of his return to France, he outlawed him.

In London in 1212, the Count of Boulogne was able to negotiate a charter of allegiance with King John. Again fearing treachery, Eustache fled, this time back to France where he joined King Philip. Nothing like changing allegiances as circumstances dictate. In 1214, King John was faced with a rebellion of his English barons, and Eustache was said to have supplied them with arms. Needless to say, King John was less than pleased and seized the lands he’d previously given Eustache in Norfolk.

Over the next few years, Eustache continued to control the English Channel and to support the English barons. He provided transport to Prince Louis of France to the Isle of Thanet during the Baron’s War. Alas, his ship was later attacked by four English ships. They captured him and beheaded him immediately in August of 1217.

Despite his time as an outlaw, Eustache was supported by his family and friends, suggesting he was worthy of loyalty, a heroic quality for certain. The story written about him tells of the code by which he lived. Following such rules is also a quality we can admire and suggests chivalric behavior. He rewarded those who were truthful and loyal to him. If someone betrayed him, they were killed but he did release some adversaries unharmed. If someone lied to him about the amount of money they had on their person, they were robbed. However, if a person told the truth about the amount of money they had, they were allowed to keep it.

There are similarities in Eustache the Monk’s story to Robin Hood and other ‘good outlaw’ legends. Eustache was of noble birth, he set out to avenge his father’s murder, and he lived by his own version of chivalry. However, the story also contains rather shocking cruelties which put the term ‘hero’ in question. He forces a young man to twist his own rope from which to hang. When several of his men have their eyes gouged out, he retaliates by chopping off the feet of four of the culprit’s men. He tortures another person in a mud pit. There’s also a passage in the story of Eustache disguising himself as a prostitute, humiliating the count’s man, and taunting him for trying to sodomize a monk. None of those acts seem heroic.

As with all great heroes and villains/outlaws, there are shades of gray in both characters and real people, some darker than others. Often it is how we authors tell the story as to what the reader decides.

For additional information on Eustache the Monk, I recommend: Ohlgren, Thomas H., Medieval Outlaws, Sutton Publishing, United Kingdom, 1998 and http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/eustache-the-monk-introduction


This post is an Editors' Choice post and was first published on 12th Sep 2013


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lana Williams is the author of medieval romances intertwined with mystery and a pinch of paranormal, including A Vow To Keep, Trust In Me, and Believe In Me, all part of The Vengeance Trilogy. More information about her books is on her website.
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Robin Hood: A Fictional Journey

By NB Dixon

Ever since his story first appeared, the folk hero, Robin Hood, has delighted and fascinated the minds of people all over the world. I remember as if it were yesterday when I first discovered it, tucked away in a corner of the school library. It captured my imagination and has stayed with me ever since. It’s a testament to his endurance that his story has survived for several centuries, and has undergone many different interpretations.

Douglas Fairbanks as Robin Hood with the sword
as depicted in older ballads 

The first written accounts of Robin Hood are in ballads. These ballads interestingly state his home in Barnsdale forest, not Sherwood, and set his story during the reign of King Edward II, rather than Richard the Lionheart, the King most closely associated with Robin. So, at what point did the story move from Barnsdale forest to Sherwood? When was Edward II replaced by Richard the Lionheart? Were these stories in fact based on real men? It seems we are destined not to know for sure, but these aren’t the only discrepancies in the Robin Hood legend. In the early ballads he is a peasant. In later versions of the story, he’s a nobleman who returns from the crusade to find his lands have been taken. This was actually a common practice. When knights were away on crusade, their lands were often seized by their enterprising neighbours. If the knight had not been heard from in seven years, he was considered to be dead. Often the poor men would return to find their homes were in the possession of another. They might appeal to the law for justice, but as the justice system moved slowly, they were often forced to turn to outlawry as a means of survival.

A knight named Fulk Fitzwarren lost his lands during a quarrel with King Richard’s brother, John, a king whom Robin Hood has a notoriously rocky relationship with. While Fulk Fitzwarren was indeed a real person who became an outlaw for a time and rebelled against King John before eventually having his lands returned to him and becoming a loyal servant to the King, a good deal of romance has sprung up around his story. There are parallels between it and the Robin Hood legend.

Robin becomes kinder once he is a nobleman. He steals only from the rich to give to the poor. Some sceptics have argued that this was nothing more than a piece of propaganda to make the peasant class think more kindly of the nobles who governed their lives.

The first book in which Robin Hood appears as the hero, though it is not in fact his first appearance in a novel, is Howard Pyle’s The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood. This book very much softens Robin Hood’s hard edges. He is a kind and cheerful man as opposed to a hardened thug. Many other novels have portrayed Robin with this “traditional image”, although modern interpretations have returned to the grittier, and some would argue, more realistic portrayal of a band of outlaws trying to survive the brutality that was life in medieval England.

There are what one might call traditions in the story. Most people know of Robin’s prowess with the bow. It’s even acknowledged in an inscription on the stone purportedly marking his grave. One of the most often told tales of Robin is how he entered an archery contest under the nose of the Sheriff of Nottingham and won a silver (or sometimes golden) arrow by splitting his opponent’s arrow in two. Two other adventures that crop up in most versions of the tail are Robin’s meeting with Little John, when they embark on a battle with quarterstaffs on a bridge halfway across a stream, which ends in Robin’s defeat and thereby seals the friendship between the two men. His meeting with the priest, Friar Tuck, where Robin forces the Friar to carry him across a stream and the Friar then orders Robin to do the same for him is also a recurring theme.

Robin and Little John with quarterstaffs

Some newer versions of the story of Robin Hood do stand out as brave interpretations, and can even be said to have influenced other authors. The TV series, Robin of Sherwood, first broadcast in the early 1980s, adds a fantasy element to the story. It combines the legend of the famous outlaw with actual historical events and characters and the pagan beliefs of the time. Robin Hood is in fact the servant of Hern the Hunter, a mythical spirit who dwells in the Forest. Since some theories have it that Robin is in fact a spirit or a green man rather than an actual human, perhaps it’s this that gave the creator of the series his idea. Robin of Sherwood remains one of the most loved of the recent interpretations of the legend.

More recently still, the radio series, simply entitled, Hood, turns the legend completely upside down. The Sheriff of Nottingham, usually Robin Hood’s arch enemy, is in fact the hero of the story. He is forced to take on the alias of Robin Hood, and it remains a millstone round his neck for the rest of the series.

As for Robin Hood’s sexuality, it was Professor Stephen Thomas Knight who first suggested that the legend of Robin Hood carried homosexual undertones. In Howard Pyle’s novel, the men embrace and sometimes kiss one another with no visible sign of awkwardness or embarrassment. Throughout every stage of Robin’s evolution as a character, the devotion to his men, and theirs to him, remains the focal point of the story.

In an ever-evolving culture such as ours, it was probably inevitable that someone would place a homosexual interpretation on the legend of Robin. The notion of a man who on the outside was the valiant hero and saviour of the poor, while struggling with inner demons, is intriguing.

In Medieval times, homosexuality was regarded not only as unnatural, but as a crime that could sometimes be punishable by death. It was considered an affront against nature and against God. Many men would have tried to conceal their nature, perhaps by getting married and locking away that part of themselves.

Marian has also evolved as a character. She isn’t in the earliest tales at all, and in many novels, is barely worthy of a mention. Recently, however, she has assumed a much more prominent part, even upstaging Robin on occasion. She has evolved from a weak damsel in distress to a feisty woman in her own right. There have even been some novels written from her perspective.

Robin and Marian

Robin continues to evolve as a character through the medium of novels, radio and TV. It is likely he will continue to fascinate us for many more years to come.

[all images are in the public domain via Wikipedia]

NB is giving away an e-book (worldwide) and a paperback (UK only) of Heir of Locksley. (Closes Sunday 9th April 2017)

~~~~~~~~~~

N.B. Dixon is an author of historical fiction. Her love for the Robin Hood legend began in a neglected corner of the school library and has continued ever since. She is a self-confessed bookworm and also a musician. She began work on the Outlaws Legacy Series in 2013, and was accepted by Beaten Track Publishing in 2016.

Outlaws Legacy is a historical series based around the Robin Hood legend, taking Robin through his life, rather than just concentrating on his time as an outlaw. What happened before and after? What made him the man he eventually became? This is the focus of Heir of Locksley, the first novel in the Outlaw’s Legacy series. It follows Robin through his childhood and teenage years, and, through a series of events, shapes the man he will become.

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NB Dixon is running a giveaway of Heir of Locksley - until Sunday 9th April 2017 there is a chance to win an e-copy (worldwide) or a paperback (UK only) HERE

Medieval Outlaws

by Steven A. McKay

Since the very beginning of time there have been those who chose to live a life of crime: outlaws, or, as they were often known in the middle-ages, wolf's heads. Obviously the most famous of them is the bold Robin Hood who stole from the greedy rich to give to the downtrodden poor. But, as I found out when researching my novels Wolf's Head and The Wolf and the Raven, there were plenty of others who, in their own day, were just as notorious as Hood and his mates and some of them might surprise you...

Back then, extortion and bribery were rife – you could be imprisoned on some trumped-up charge by a crooked sheriff or bailiff just so they could take money from you in return for your freedom, even if you hadn't actually broken any law! If you had committed some criminal act, even a minor one, you could expect a fine you'd struggle desperately to pay, or some other even more humiliating punishment like the pillory. This was a wooden board that held the criminal's head and hands while the crowd threw things at them. A butcher selling bad meat would be dragged through the streets on a hurdle before being locked in the pillory where he'd have the offending offal burnt under him.1
And if you were a woman caught stealing? You'd be taken to the nearest river and drowned!2

No wonder some people chose to go into hiding and become outlaws rather than face medieval justice...

The pillory (burning offal not shown)

With so many being forced into a life outside the law it wasn't unusual for well-organized criminal gangs to spring up and cause trouble for the unlucky people living in the villages and towns of England. John Fitzwalter, for example, who led a gang that besieged Colchester not once, but twice, holding the whole town to ransom. 3 Or the notorious Folvilles, a group of brothers who murdered a man and fled the country but were able to return – with pardons – in 1326, thanks to the help of Roger Mortimer. They robbed, raped and murdered their way around the country for the next couple of years before being captured. They simply joined Mortimer's army and were pardoned again whereupon they resumed their reign of terror. They continued in this way for many years before, finally, their luck ran out, the law caught up with them and this time they were beheaded.4

One of the bounty hunters employed to catch both the Folvilles and another murderous gang, the Coterel's, was Roger de Wensley. He managed to find the Coterels but rather than dispensing justice he joined them!5 The Coterels were, like the Folville's, 'gentlemen' who, as well as being vicious criminals, served in King Edward III's army, were bailiffs and even Members of Parliament.

The funny thing is, like Robin Hood, the Folville's eventually came to be celebrated rather than vilified by the common man. They kidnapped an apparently corrupt justice of the peace, killed a widely-hated judge and were, in the years after their death, generally seen as men who had righted wrongs. 6

Fulk Fitzwarine is another outlaw cum-folk-hero, this time from the thirteenth century and, although he was a recorded historical figure, he may have been the source of some aspects of the Robin Hood legend. Outlawed for treason, he rebelled against King John twice. Despite this the people of the time celebrated him in poetry and song, drawing in elements from Arthurian mythology - Merlin himself was supposed to have prophesied Fulk's exploits!7

Medieval England was a dangerous place, even if you were a law-abiding citizen. You might be accused of a crime you hadn't committed so some corrupt lawman could extort money for your release from jail, and, if you were a notorious, violent criminal you could be pardoned from the most heinous transgressions by making yourself useful to those in power. The sheriff in my novels, Henry de Faucumberg, was a real historical figure who had a criminal record for assault and, on more than one occasion, stealing wood before he found himself serving the crown as Sheriff of Nottingham and Yorkshire. 8 Justice? “...it is estimated that there were more outlaws at this time than at any other period in England's history.” 9 No wonder – it seems like you could get away with anything back then as long as you had money or well-connected friends to help you out.

What interests me the most about all these accounts is how the outlaw – a criminal after all – usually becomes a romantic hero to the common people. The Folvilles raped and murdered for years yet a generation after their death they were celebrated as heroes poking a finger in the eye of the ruling classes. The original ballads of Robin Hood portrayed an incredibly violent man whose followers murdered an innocent child (in Robin Hood and the Monk) while he himself beheads the honourable Sir Guy of Gisbourne, sticks the head on the end of his longbow and mutilates the face with his knife!10

What is it about these dangerous men that makes them so compelling, so heroic, to the common people, even when they're clearly operating outside the laws that supposedly hold our society together? I believe it's mostly down to the old idea of “sticking it to the man.” Everyone likes to get one over on those in charge, especially when the rulers are rich and you're barely able to afford a crust of bread to feed your starving children. The medieval ballads sprung up around the Folvilles, Clim of the Clough (who appeared in a story alongside Adam Bell  11) and Robin Hood because they prospered in the face of adversity and gave hope to the common people that they too might, one day, break out of their life of thankless servitude to their betters.

Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough and William Cloudesley

700 years later audiences still enjoy tales of anti-heroes within literature and film: Batman and Judge Dredd, for example, represent the ultra-violent face of modern fictional 'justice', yet both are miles away from our Western judicial systems in the way they deal with criminals.

It seems our fascination for justice outwith the judicial system continues to this day. Maybe, eventually, the lawmakers will get things right – crimes will be detected, the perpetrators will be dealt with fairly and proportionately, the little man will enjoy justice as much as the wealthy, and the likes of Eustace Folville, Robin Hood and Batman will no longer seem so romantic...

Aye, right!

Judge Dredd and Judge Anderson bringing justice to the lawless in Dredd 3D

Steven A. McKay is the best-selling author of the Amazon "War" chart number 1's Wolf's Head and The Wolf and the Raven. The third in the series, Rise of the Wolf, is nearing completion, while a spin-off novella, Knight of the Cross, has just been released. All his books are also available from Audible as audiobooks.

To find out more go to StevenAMcKay, Amazon UK, or Amazon US


1 Mortimer, Ian The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England, p95
2 Ibid, p219
3 Ibid, p240
4 Ibid, p240-242
5 Ibid, p241
6 Jones, Terry Medieval Lives, p63
7 Phillips, Graham and Keatman, Martin, Robin Hood – the man behind the myth, p115
8 http://midgleywebpages.com/shirereeve.html
9 John Paul Davis, Robin Hood – the Unknown Templar, p89
10 http://www.boldoutlaw.com/rhbal/bal118-gisborne.html
11 http://www.robinhoodlegend.com/adam-bell-clim-clough-william-cloudesly/