In
his chronicle entitled History of Greater Britain (1520), John Major
became one of the first writers to place the story of Robin Hood at the turn of
the 12th century, the period with which it is now most commonly associated. As
Major told it, during the reign of King Richard the First there lived a pair of
famous robbers named “Robert Hood (Robertus Hoodus) and Little John [who]
spoiled of their goods only that were wealthy.” These outlaws “took
the life of no man unless…he attacked them or offered resistance in defense of
his property. Robert supported by his plundering one hundred bowmen, ready
fighters every one, with whom four hundred of the strongest would not dare to
engage in combat.” Robert Hood’s renown was that he “would allow no woman to suffer
injustice, nor would he spoil the poor, but rather enriched them from the
plunder taken from abbotts.”
Not
everyone was convinced of the time period as proposed by Major. Hector Boecius
(a.k.a. Boece, Boetius) had this to say in his Chronicles of Scotland (1531):
“King Hary & his son Edward had weir aganis Symon Norfort & otheris
sundry nobleis of Inglad…. About this
tyme was sy waithman Robert hode with his fallow litil Johne, of quho ar mony
fabillis & mery sportis song among the vulgar pepyil.”
Years
later, Boecius was the primary source for Raphael Holinshed and William
Harrison when they published their own speculations about “Robin Hood, that
notable and most famous outlaw” in their Chronicles (1587). They too
noted the “manie fables and merie jests devised and sung amongst the vulgar
people” about the legendary thief, and they perpetuated the belief that
Robin “with his fellow Little John” may have plied their trade sometime
between 1254 and 1270, during the reign of Henry III. They acknowledged,
however, that John Major “writteth that they lived (as he doth gesse) in the
dayes of King Richard I, 1198.”
John
Stowe followed the lead of Major instead of Boecius when he wrote his Annales
of England (1592). In Stowe’s account, there were “many robbers and
out-lawes” in England during King Richard’s reign, the most renowned of
whom were “Robert Hood and Little John.” While this pair of thieves “entertained
an hundred tall men, and good archers” to commit their crimes, they were
restrained by Robert Hood’s unwavering priniciples. “He suffered no woman to
be oppressed, violated or otherwise molested:
Poor men’s goods he spared, aboundantly relieving them with that which
by theft he got from Abbeys and the houses of rich Earls.” For these
reasons, Hood was esteemed among robbers and highwaymen as their “Prince,
and the most gentle Theefe.”
In
1632 Martin Parker wrote of Robin Hood
(“Instiled Earle of Huntington, Lord Robert Hood by name”) in his
influential tribute “A True Tale of Robbin Hood.” Here are a few excerpts from
that poetic work:
“In courtship and magnificence
His carriage won him praise
And greater favour with his prince
Than any in his days.
“In bounteous liberality
He too much did excell,
And loved men of quality
More than exceeding well.”
…
“Full 13 years and something more
these outlaws lived thus —
Feared of the rich, loved of the poor,
a thing most marvelous.”
The
wording of the final stanza above is drawn from an epitaph which supposedly
graced the outlaw’s gravestone, as recorded by Parker:
Decembris quarto die, 1198:
anno regni Richardii Primi
9.
Robert Earl of Huntington
Lies under this little stone
No archer was like him so good
His wildness named him Robin Hood
Full 13 years & something more
Such outlaws as he & his men
May England never know again