This Sceptred Isle: Trollheart's History of England

[Trollheart]

Back to the newly-crowned Richard the Lionheart. He had religious fervour and wanted to go on the Third Crusade, as his father had not, and to support this Henry II had levied a huge tax on the English people, called the Saladin Tithe: This year each man shall give in alms a tenth of his revenues and movables with the exception of the arms, horses and garments of the knights, and likewise with the exception of the horses, books, garments and vestments, and all appurtenances of whatever sort used by clerks in divine service, and the precious stones belonging to both clerks and laymen." Significantly, anyone who joined the crusade was exempt from the tax, which encouraged some hitherto-undiscovered piety in a lot of people. In the end, it seems this money was frittered away by Henry on his war with Philip of France, but Richard collected more, and that summer set off for the Holy Land. I'm sure the people of London would have been gratified indeed to hear his claim that he would have sold the capital city to finance the crusade, had he been able to find a buyer.

And so, from 1190 to 1194 Richard disappears from English history. This is, of course, not remotely true, but for the purposes of my journal, it is. He spent his time in various European locations, and then of course in the Holy Land, where, though he distinguished himself and took the towns of Acre and Jaffa, and fought against the famous Muslim leader Saladin, he was actually unable to take Jerusalem, the whole point, surely, of the damned crusade? As it happens, I watched a series on the Crusades very recently, and it turns out the Richard could have taken the Holy City, as Saladin was preparing to withdraw, but neither knew the plans of the other, and so a golden opportunity to win himself perhaps even a place in Heaven (if you believe in such things) and be the Pope's golden boy was passed up, and Richard headed for home, managing to be captured and imprisoned along the way, first by Duke Leopold of Austria and then handed over to the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry VI.

I say all this because I want it to be clear that I am not ignoring the most famous period of the Lionheart's rule, but properly speaking it does not as such impact upon the history of England, and as I said, I'm trying to avoid any foreign entanglements or adventures that do not specifically involve or affect that story. So really, we need to look more at the reign of his brother, who, though certainly not yet a king, ruled as one in all but name, and was the arch-enemy of the man who would go down in English folklore as perhaps the first real legend the country spawned. Richard, for his part, would never again set foot in England after being re-crowned at Westminster in 1194, nor would he see the thirteenth century dawn. He immediately set off for France, where he waged war until a crossbow bolt brought him down, the wound turning gangrenous, and he died and was buried in various parts of France (his heart at Rouen, his entrails where he died at Châlus and the rest of his body interred with Henry II at Anjou).

Which brings us, as I say, to John.

You might say that everything Richard the Lionheart was, his younger brother was not. You would not, for instance, find Prince John heading off to the Holy Land to do battle with saracens and heathens for the glory of God. He had no sense of justice or mercy, was cruel and grasping, and had no military strategic sense at all.

John (1166 - 1216)

Much of what we - well. I - know about Prince/King John comes from the story of Robin Hood, so it will be interesting to see if that stacks up, or if it's again all TV producers and Hollywood taking liberties with the truth. Certainly, from an early age it does seem John was the favourite son of King Henry II, though that could simply be a case of his being "the baby". We've already heard how his dad taking three castles from Henry the Young King did not go down well with the expected future ruler of England, but perhaps the then-king was trying to make up for the fact that his youngest son had been given no territories, castles or domains to inherit, leading Henry II to refer to him as "John Lackland", a tag that would stick with him through his life, even when he became king on the death of his brother, Richard.

To give him what credit he is due, John was said to be a great reader, fond of music and a connoisseur of jewels, as well as wine, and like probably most of the men who sat in the big chair, he had his good and bad points, being described variously as "genial, witty, generous and hospitable" and "jealous, over-sensitive and prone to fits of rage." Despite having no lands, John does not appear to have joined in the Great Revolt when his brothers Richard, Henry and Geoffrey rose against their father. Perhaps as a reward for his loyalty, the king began to find lands and territories to give to John. It's also probable, of course, that John being a mere seven years old at the time of the Great Revolt, he could hardly have been expected to have joined his brothers, but maybe it's the thought that counts. He was certainly made Lord of Ireland at the tender age of ten.

His attempts to have him crowned King of Ireland however ran into serious opposition from Pope Lucius II (and presumably the Irish weren't too gone on the idea either!) and in fact he quickly made enemies of the Irish lords, laughing at their appearance. He was eighteen at this stage, so really should have known better. Nevertheless, perhaps seeing an opportunity, Eleanor, the now-released late King Henry's wife, John's mother, convinced her kingly son to allow John to rule in his stead while he was away converting heathens - converting them into piles of bones, that is - and England's sorrow began. Hmm. Actually, the political situation in England, and the matter of who was in charge, is a little more complicated than that. John would have been, let's see, 24 by the time the king left for the Holy Land, but either Richard didn't trust him or trusted others more, as he left two bishops and an earl in charge. Still, as is often the case when power-sharing is initiated, struggles for supremacy broke out, and when the earl, with staggeringly bad timing, died almost before the king's sails were out of sight over the horizon, one bishop refused to work with the other, and so John was able to exploit this divide to his own ends.

Securing the fealty of the city of London he was recognised as Richard's heir, and regent, and then basically king in all but name, though he dared not take the title of course, and remained, until his brother's death, Prince John. As the years wound on though and his brother did not return, John began putting about the idea (and no doubt harboured the hope) that Richard had been killed in the Holy Land, pushing himself closer to being recognised as king. At this point, the Lionheart was probably languishing in one cell or another, and hoping for a ransom to be paid to get him released. Just in case it was, and he was (it was, and he was) John thought he might just pop over to France and see if the king fancied an alliance against Richard, which he certainly did. And so in effect, though not exactly, John kicked off a new civil war in England, as his supporters fought those of Richard.

[Trollheart]

It was about this time, of course, that the man in green steps into the picture.

Robin Hood, Robin of Loxley or Just Robbin' the Rich? History or Legend?

It's easy to say that in times of crisis, a hero will either spring up or be invented. It's seldom that legends are born when there is peace and prosperity; people usually need someone to appeal to, someone to, as it were, answer their prayers, someone to take on their oppressors and fight for them, fight for right, fight for truth, fight for justice, and possibly (though not in England obviously) the American way. Whether this is a comic-book hero, a fairy tale, a quasi-historical figure like Prester John or someone who may have existed, kind of really doesn't matter. As long as the idea is there, the man (or woman) is seen to have existed, and that's fine for those who are suffering under whatever particular yoke they're suffering under at the time. But for us amateur historians and journal writers, we do actually need to sort the fact from the fantasy, the legend from the logic, and the real from the unreal.

So let's try to do that.

With not exactly much in the way of the chronicling of his deeds (the Normans, as rulers, were hardly likely to, as it were, give an enemy column inches, and they pretty much wrote anything that was to be written around this time) we have to rely on one of the oldest delivery systems of news or events, the ballad. Around this time, the only way many people would have of getting information was from travelling singers called troubadours or minstrels, who would sing of events and to perhaps some degree act as a strolling, more musical town crier. It's from one of these that we have the first mention of the outlaw, in the ballad "Robin Hood and the Monk". This is, then, of course, the first time we hear the name that would be given to the famous wolfshead. It's believed to have been penned around 1450, so nearly two and a half centuries after the rule of Prince John (and the life of the eponymous outlaw) and it contains already many of the ingredients of the tale which would go forward into his mythology.

Little John is there, as is the Sheriff of Nottingham, and Much, the son of the miller. As it's written, the ballad is of course an adventure, in which Robin is taken prisoner and his men have to free him, but not by force of arms; they use trickery, fooling the Sheriff and thereby setting the seal on the relationship between him and the outlaw for all time. The whole text isn't shown, but a synopsis tells me that Robin fights well before being captured (as you'd expect) but with a sword rather than his traditional longbow. This might be not too surprising, as if he was fighting a close quarters, perhaps Errol Flynn-like, Robin would not be able to use his bow and a sword would make much more sense. Whereas this is a single story, A Gest of Robyn Hode seems to be the first collected anthology of all the tales about the outlaw. Though the text is believed to date from about 1400 (and therefore predates "Robin Hood and the Monk") it appears to be set not in the twelfth but the thirteenth century, during the reign of King Edward I. This could, I suppose, be an instance of writer's licence, the author transposing the hero into a time that better suits his style, maybe like The War of the Worlds being moved to 1950s America, or Sherlock Holmes existing in a more modern era.

Much more of a building block to the legend than the ballad, this collection codifies many of the tropes we now associate with Robin Hood, including his being a "good" outlaw, his opposition to the Sheriff of Nottingham, Little John being his loyal right-hand man, his devotion to the Virgin Mary (it says here), and of course, his robbing the rich and giving to the poor. It also sets down for the first time the story about Robin winning the archery contest, his contempt for the corrupt Norman clergy, his on/off relationship with the king (loyal to the crown but always a wild outlaw) and his eventual betrayal and death. In many ways, this seems like it could also be titled The Life and Death of Robin Hood, and it seems everything you need to know about the young outlaw is here.

Yes, yes, Trollheart you old bore, I hear you say (well, some word beginning with "b" anyway), we all know the stories. What we want to know - and what you promised us you would tell us - is whether or not the guy existed? And before you think of it, don't start with that "the opinion of historians is divided" guff! You did say guff, didn't you? Well anyway, sorry to disappoint you, but it's actually the case. See, the thing is, both names were very common back in the Middle Ages - Robin as a first (Christian) name was everywhere, apparently, being a diminutive of Robert, one of the favourite names brought by the Normans from their native country,  and Hood, well, that just referred to anyone who wore or made hoods. So, like, car mechanics, yeah? Well no: I mean actual hoods, like the type you wear on your head. Back then, people were named after what they did, so if you made barrels you were Cooper, if you made arrows you were Fletcher and if you thatched cottages you were a heartless bitch with no soul who hated the poor. You get the idea. So since there were no such things as umbrellas, and England being prone to the odd spot of rain, those who made hoods were always in demand, so plenty of Hood, Hoode, Hode and so forth.

Where historians first start when they trace what they call, with astonishing lack of originality, the historicity of someone or something - i.e., did they/he/she/it actually exist - is through the name, and of course with, as we have seen, such predictability in naming people (witness the many many Matildas, few of whom may have actually waltzed, the Henrys, Williams and Edwards in English history) often makes it hard to know if this is the right person we're talking about, or if he just happens to have the same name. But in Robin Hood's case, there are far too many men who could have had that name, for entirely legitimate and occupational reasons, who never set foot in a forest, never mind Sherwood, that pinning down a real, live historical figure is about as easy as nailing jelly to the wall.

Robert Hood and Robin Hood do come up in historical records - and some of these men are recorded as having been on the wrong side of the law - but there's no way to know for sure if we're talking about the famous one, if he even existed. And as if that wasn't confusing enough, there are those who believe the very word hood itself is a mistranslation, and should be wood. Which, if you think about it, makes more sense. Robin is noted, in "Robin Hood and the Monk", as doffing his hood, but that may not mean what we think it means, and if the outlaw used Sherwood as his base, then Robin Wood would fit better. And of course, wouldn't you know it, this time period is crawling with Robin Woods, any of whom could be, or may not be, our man.

[Trollheart]

(I'm not entirely sure why Robin appears to be shooting with, rather than at, a man in an animal costume in the above picture - which is titled "Robin Shoots with Sir Guy", presumably referring to his other arch-nemesis, Guy de Gisborne - perhaps the earliest version of a furry?)

Whether they refer to him or not, the earliest mentions of Robin Hood come from court records, where they're used as a kind of a description of criminals and outlaws. I guess something similar to if someone were to call every train robber a Jesse James or a Ronnie Biggs. But the first real (or possibly real) historical mention of Robin Hood comes to us from about the right time we would expect it to, the thirteenth century, and though the name is not the same, the historical work The Scotichronicon (sounds like a native of Aberdeen with itchy balls to me!) mentions him as having fought on the side of Simon de Montfort, sixth Earl of Leicester, who led the revolt against King Henry III.

Roger Godberd (123? - 129?)

First point in his favour, other than his inconveniently being named Roger and not Robert, is that he was an outlaw, or seen as one. He travelled the country committing crimes with a bunch of men - though history does not record whether or not they could be characterised as merry - and he lived in the thirteenth century, though he did live in Leicestershire and not Nottinghamshire. Still, they appear quite close to each other (about thirty miles) and these days a bus ride of less than an hour will take you between the two. One thing against his being Robin Hood is that he is said to have been a travelling outlaw, not basing himself anywhere, certainly not in a forest. Interestingly though he was linked with Nottingham, serving in the garrison at Nottingham Castle, which may have provided some of the tales of his struggle against the Sheriff, though it does seem as if, conversely, Roger worked for him, not against him. Well, let's see.

He did fall foul of the law and absconded, and there are suggestions (based on what, I don't know, perhaps only wish-fulfilment) that he settled in Sherwood Forest with his men. He was captured by the sheriff and imprisoned in Nottingham Castle, and helped escape by a knight, Sir Richard Foliot, who sounds rather like Sir Richard, the "Sorrowful Knight" in one of the tales collected in that anthology, who did help the mythic figure. Godberd did attack at least one abbey, in keeping with the legendary figure's contempt for the Norman Church. He is said to have been pardoned by King Edward I, returning from crusade, which mirrors the supposed pardon given Robin Hood by the returning King Richard I - though conflicting accounts of his life also have him dying in Newgate Prison.

Personally, I would say that yes, there are some factors here which line up with the legend of Robin Hood, but there are also some differences, such as his propensity to wander, his working at the castle and no mention of his helping the poor folk. Not really a skeleton, more a few random bones collected and assembled in a sort of haphazard manner. It's 1521 before John Major (not that one!) mentions his aversion to violence and his desire to help the underprivileged. What evidence he offers for this, I don't know, but Major also has Robin living in the era we best know him for, the time of King Richard and Prince (later King) John. Another writer, Richard Grafton, mentions him as being a member of the gentry and raised to the status of an earl.

But if we're looking for an actual Robin Hood, then Robert Hod comes close, and he was an outlaw. In 1227 he became known as Hobbehod and also Robert Hood, so we could be getting closer. His goods were confiscated in 1226 as part of a debt he owed the Abbey, so that could also explain in part why the historical/legendary Robin Hood had such a problem with the Church. Apart from the fact that they had outlawed and decimated his own religion. There's also John and Robert Deyville, who, again, fought for Simon de Montfort. When Henry III defeated him, John was pardoned but it seems his brother was not, and he lived, coincidentally or not, at Hood Hill. There's even a grave for a man who may never have existed, at Kirklees Abbey in West Yorkshire, supposedly the place the dying Robin wished to be buried, having shot an arrow into the air, and it having landed there. On the inscription carved on the grave it mentions "Robert, Earl of Huntingdon... and people called Robin Hood"

Which opens up a whole new can of worms.

[Trollheart]

My name is not Earl: Robert of Huntingdon, W.ne

You probably never saw those letters after anyone's name before, and there's a very good reason for that: I just made them up. They stand for "Who Never Existed", and here's the deal. There never was a Robert, Earl of Huntingdon. Oh, there were Earls of Huntingdon, all right: more earls than you can count, earls for all occasions, wall-to-wall earls. But no Roberts. Around the time of Richard I and King John's reign, the earl was David, and he lived till 1219, (so popped his clogs just after lunch) and was succeeded by his son, John, who kicked around till his thirtieth birthday, joining daddy in the great hereafter in 1239. Incidentally, David was married to yet another fucking Matilda!

David, Earl of Huntingdon (where the hell is that anyway? I'll check) spent, it seems, all of his life in Scotland wrestling with the things Scottish nobility wrestle with, and probably wouldn't be able to find Nottingham on a map, never mind Sherwood Forest. He did in fact have a son called Robert, but he died too young (doesn't say what age, just "died young", so I assume as a child) to be able to be romping around forests merrily or otherwise. Like any noble worth his salt, the earl was not particular with his affections, and had three bastards, but neither of the two male ones were named Robert: two Henrys. As for his son, John, well as I say he died aged 30, and while that would still qualify him to some degree as being able to fill Robin Hood's shoes, there's no historical record of his ever being in England, the closest he seems to have come, like his father, being Chester, where he married his wife, thankfully not another Matilda.

So, far from being the grave of Robin Hood, this can't even be the grave of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon, as he never existed. As for the place? Okay well it's in Cambridgeshire, a long way from Chester and a much longer way from Scotland, and in fact over 70 miles from Nottingham, so I'm not sure why there would be any sort of claim for its earl being a candidate for the true identity of Robin Hood, assuming he existed. Right, well apparently it was down to artistic licence, when a playwright called Anthony Munday wrote a play called The Downfall of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon in 1598, while a researcher and clergyman called William Stuka Dive-Bomber sorry William Stukely decided to try to all but create the myth of Robert, never willing to let the facts get in the way, and here's how he did it.

According to our Bill, there were in fact two Earls of Huntingdon, or at least, two claimants for the title, the other being a descendant of Waltheof, of whom we've heard before (think he was a bishop? Not important really) and was called Robert Fitztooth. According to Billy, this meant that the second part of his name (bear with me) "tooth" got corrupted over time into "ooth" then "Odo" and then, somehow "Hood". Not only is this a bit of a reach, to say the least, but Bill claims this lad lived to the extremely ripe old age of 87! This at a time when kings were dropping like flies, young men met their end almost every Friday night down the local hunt, and disease, poor hygiene, bad eating habits and, oh yes, wars, meant most men were lucky to see their fifties.

Let's do a little check. Richard I we know died abroad at the age of 41, his brother John outlasted him by a mere 8 years, missing my arbitrary cut-off point of 50 (and he hadn't even been to war), Henry II lasted just past that limit, turning up his toes at 56, the start of the Plantagenet line, Geoffrey of Anjou, never even got to his forties, dying at age 38, and the granddaddy of them all, the man who started it all off, William the Conqueror, almost made it into his sixties, an old, old man when he died at 59.

Nowhere can I see, in a quick scan obviously, any man living into his eighties. Even now, people don't often live that long. And to suggest that someone pursuing the less-than-safe occupation of outlaw could not only outwit and stay one step ahead of the authorities, but end up retiring with a grey beard is stretching the bounds of credulity to almost breaking point. I mean, if you're going to invent someone, at least have them die at a generally accepted age for the time.

At any rate, this idea was then picked up by an English novelist, Sir Pierce Egan the Younger, nearly two hundred and fifty years after Munday and a century after Stukely had both more or less created this character out of thin air, and he elaborated on the reasons why Robert of Huntingdon should or could have existed, if only for literary and fictional purposes. He postulated that Robert Fitztooth's rightful claim to the earldom had been thwarted by his granduncle Philip, who wanted the position for himself, and labelled Robert a bastard, whereafter he was raised by Gilbert Whitehand, who is apparently referred to in the tales of Robin Hood, but who never survived into the folklore as one of the Merry Men.

Well, whatever, before we get too bogged down with fictional characters, let's just draw a line under the possibility of Robert Earl of Huntingdon having been the model for Robin Hood, as he clearly did not exist.

But did the outlaw? Well, as I think we probably all knew from the beginning, that's not a question we can answer definitively, if indeed at all. What is striking is that his legend, as such, seems to have begun at what could be described as England's greatest time of need. Richard I may have been a good king, he may not (I suspect the latter, as I already mentioned, his fame and exploits based on his adventures in the Holy Land) but what's certainly true is that he left his realm in the hands of a real, to use the English term, rotter. Nobody liked King John - his nobles feared and distrusted him (and in private probably mocked him), hating to have to serve a prince as all but a king while their sire was out teaching the heathens a thing or two about Norman justice. The Anglo-Saxons really hated him, though I would question why, if they did, that Robin Hood the legendary figure is always portrayed as being loyal to King Richard? He was a Norman too, a Frenchman, and surely then Robin should have been as much against him, as an unwelcome invader in a long line of invaders of his country, but he seems to have been well-disposed towards him, Richard always held up as the "good king" while John is the archetypal "bad king".

From what I can read, Richard spent a total of maybe half a year of his total ten-year reign in England, and didn't seem to care much for it, as I noted earlier, quite happy to sell London to finance his crusade. Whether that's an actual quote or something anecdotal I can't say, but if true, it shows how little England meant to him. It's quite possible that, had he died in obscurity on the crusade and won no victories, he would just be remembered by history as an absentee king. John, of course, is known for his mismanagement and bungling of the royal finances, eventually losing all the Angevin territories, and for his mistreatment of the Anglo-Saxons. I suppose the lesser of two evils, but I still find it hard to see how Richard gets such a whitewash job. After all, he abandoned his responsibilities as English king (if he ever accepted them or paid them any mind) to head off and kill for Christ in a foreign land, leaving the realm at the mercy of his younger brother.

Be all that as it may, England under John was, as the movies would have it, crying out for a hero. With their king gone to do God's work in the Holy Land, there was nobody to fight their corner (assuming Richard would have done so, had he been there, but maybe they created an idealised image of the absentee monarch) and so it's possible they just had to invent one. As I noted before, heroes and saviours don't appear in a time of peace and plenty - they're not needed then. It's when men and women are at their lowest, when death and deprivation stalk the land like two giant stalking things, that heroes rise. If they don't exist, they can be created.

There's great comfort in the idea that someone out there is fighting for you, even if they're just stories, and as we all know, stories have a way of taking on a life all of their own, and people who never existed, or perhaps even did so but only on a written page, become real. Witness the many readers in England who wrote letters, not to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but to Sherlock Holmes, believing the character to be real. Once people have an idea fixed in their minds, it's hard to change that mindset. So through ballads and plays and songs and word of mouth, the exploits of Robin Hood, real or imagined or even fictionalised to try to give the people of the time something to cling onto, spread the legend, and in later centuries, when there was really no pressing need for such a hero, he passed into the realm of legend and people still wrote about him. Today, he's probably the most famous outlaw in history, and everyone knows his name.

While there is no mention, so far as I can see, in the ones I've read anyway, of the practice, now endemic to the Robin Hood legend, of his robbing the rich and then giving to the poor, it seems this is a concept that only originated as late as the end of the eighteenth century, when Joseph Ritson published a collection of all the tales, but added his own political slant on it, thereby creating Robin's sense of philanthropy and his identification with, and sympathy for the poor. We can probably, then, take it as read that in the original legends this was not something Robin Hood was said to do, and that it was completely an invention of Ritson's, used, it seems from his response to the question as to who gave Robin Hood licence to do such things, as a way of showing how unfair and unbalanced the idea of levying taxes on people was by kings and queens: "That same power which authorises kings to take it where it can be worst spared, and give it where it is least wanted."

Ritson also held that Robin Hood had been real, and more, was a revolutionary and a radical, his (Ritson's) views seen through the prism of the French Revolution, of which he was a supporter. He seems to have latched onto Stukely's idea of Robin being the Earl of Huntingdon, and living to an age of 87, however unlikely that was. Although he's still seen as an important scholar on the Robin Hood legend, it seems to me that all he was doing was retreading and rehashing the fictional narratives and outright lies about the outlaw's supposed heritage, while clearly ignoring the facts, i.e., that there was no Robert, Earl of Huntingdon in history.

And then, there's Sir Walter Scott.

[Trollheart]

This comes as something of a surprise to me, but it appears that, other than the Sheriff of Nottingham (and presumably also Guy of Gisburne) and the Norman clergy, the original tales and ballads did not pit Anglo-Saxon against Norman. This was mostly fictionalised by the great novelist in his greatest novel, Ivanhoe, published in 1818. Scott makes Robin Hood into a cheerful, principled and lovable rogue who fights on behalf of the dispossessed Anglo-Saxon people against the occupying Normans, and, as with all great works of fiction, once an idea is planted it is taken up. This version of Robin Hood, along with that touted by Ritson, became the model for Hollywood and the modern version of the wolfshead on television, in movies and in books. According to those eminent historians, and providing quite the kick in the pants for me, there was actually no strained relationship between the Anglo-Saxons and the Normans by the time of Richard (and John)'s reigns, that they had all kissed and made up - literally, intermarrying - and that everyone thought of themselves as English only. So the Hollywood and TV tales of Robin Hood we all grew up on are about, it would seem, as dependable and as accurate a depiction of the times as is, say, Braveheart or just about any movie about the Wild West. That's me told, then.

As for his Merry Men? Well, we have this perhaps to thank for that.

The first story published about the outlaw for children, The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood of Great Renown in Nottinghamshire hit the shelves in 1883, and was written by, of all things, an American. Howard Pyle was an illustrator and author who took the tales of Robin Hood laid out in the ballads and scripted them into a fine adventure story for kids. He introduced modern audiences, especially children (and, possibly, their parents, as one assumes these were read to them) to the tale of Robin's contest with Little John above the river with staffs, his being bested by Friar Tuck, and other stories now consistent with what we know of Robin Hood.

What about the others though? His so-called Merry Men (and one woman)? The core group seems to consist of the two most famous, Little John and Friar Tuck, his love interest Marian (often referred to as Maid Marian). To these are added Will Scarlet, Much, Nasir and Allan-a-Dale, but did any of these people exist? Is there any historical evidence for their having been real people, and if so, can they be tied to the outlaw as part of his band? The original tales only mention specifically three people, one of whom you would expect, as he has gone down in legend as the outlaw's right-hand man.


Little John

Though later adaptations tried to make out that his name was in fact backwards, and that his name was John Little (which actually makes sense) there is no historical evidence for this. It does, however, give me an opening to annoy you with yet another Black Adder reference. In a scene evoking the recruitment of the Magnificent Seven or Seven Samurai, Edmund Blackadder puts together a band of the most evil and despicable men in the land, to try to take the throne from his father. One of these is a midget, called Jack Large. Over a few tankards of ale, Edmund tells him "I shall call you Large Jack." The midget frowns. "Why?" he asks. Edmund explains with a grin "Because you are so little." His brow clouding further, Jack asks "Then, why not Little Jack?" Becoming slightly uncomfortable now, Edmund says "Well, because it is so much funnier." Jack frowns, looks around. "Is it?" he warns, asking for opinions from his companions, who all kind of shrug and look away - Jack Large is known to be, well, a bit of a psycho. Edmund, seeing he is on his own, gives in. "Very well!" he agrees. "Little Jack it is!" And promptly finds a dagger held at his throat, as Jack rumbles "You making fun of my size?"

I guess, again, you had to be there, but it does show how John Little could easily have evolved into Little John, the irony being the size of the man. However contemporary accounts (always got to refer to those contemporary accounts) seem to suggest he was in fact called Reynold Greenlefe - which you have to admit, is a hell of an appropriate name for someone who is going to spend most of his life hiding in, and striking from, a forest!

Even so, there is again no historical evidence that such a man ever lived, or if he did, that he lived at that time or had anything to do with Robin Hood. There is a grave, supposedly his, in Hathersage in Derbyshire, but that doesn't prove anything. It helps the tourism of the area, I'm sure, but anyone can say anyone is buried anywhere, and after eight hundred years, even if the grave was exhumed you're not getting any DNA from those remains!

The general agreed characteristics of Little John, prevalent in most if not all of the stories, is that he was said to be huge, about seven feet tall, very brave, dedicated to his wife and to Robin Hood, and fought with a quarterstaff, his weapon when he first challenges Robin on the bridge at their first meeting. He is also said to be the only one of the band present when his leader is supposed to have died.

Much, the miller's son

Although I believed, rather angrily (oh, you know me) that he had been an unnecessary addition to the band in the series Robin of Sherwood, as I had never heard of him in any other tale I had watched about the outlaw, Much, also called Moche or Midge, is in fact one of the early Merry Men. However in that series he is said to be Robin's brother, or half-brother, and well, as he never existed, what does it matter? The idea of his having been a miller's son might be, I would suggest, to show that even the lowliest worker could rise up against the tyranny of the Norman Prince John and fight for freedom.

Will Scarlet

He has many names - Scathelock, Scadlock, Shacklock, Scarlock, Padlock (okay, not the last) - and is the third of the band who appears to have been there from the start. He's one of the few who have a generally agreed origin story, where Robin comes across him shooting deer in Sherwood Forest, and asks him to join his band. As you do, they fight first, but eventually they become friends and Scarlet joins up. Although apparently originally called Young Gemmwel, he is renamed due to his penchant for wearing red silk and for his fiery temper. He is said to be the best swordsman in the band, and is believed to be buried in Blidworth in Nottinghamshire, though again there is no evidence he ever existed.


Friar Tuck

It's tempting to think Tuck was only introduced in the legends as a way of telling people that God was on the side of the outlaws, that the Norman bishops and monks who were part of the apparatus of the oppression of England were the bad guys, and that the honest and somewhat slightly irreverent Friar Tuck was a sign of God's blessing on the enterprise. In reality though, wandering monks or friars were not at all common in England at this time, and would not have left the monastery or abbey unaccompanied. Friar Tuck seems to have evolved from the tradition of May Games that were practiced in Anglo-Saxon England (and no doubt frowned upon by the Norman clergy as "heathen pastimes" - look, I know what it said about them all being buddies by now, but I can't imagine there weren't, if not some enmities, then at least a sense of supercilious superiority and moral disdain for these games, which after all were pagan in origin), however there is a historical record of a man with that name. It's believed he may have taken it from the tales, but Robert Stafford, a chaplain serving in Sussex, took the name in 1417, though he spelled it "Frere Tuk".


Maid Marian

Every good hero needs his love interest, and so we have Marian (also, for the love of all that's holy, save me, known as Matilda!) who originated again in the May Games. She does not appear in the original ballads, and seems only to have been added in the 17th century, probably because, as Ade Edmondson put it in Bottom, "Ya got to have somethin' for the birds, don't ya?" When the tales began making their way into plays, naturally the women wanted to have someone to cheer, and Marian was the figure around which the female interest coalesced (those who weren't making moon eyes at Robin, that is). Long before this, though, there is a Marian, though she's of French origin and appears in a tale with her lover Robin, both of them sheep-herders. There's no actual evidence for it, but it's possible that Marion (spelled with an "o") of the French tale and her Robin got mixed up with the figures in the May games (the Marian there supposed to have been a representation of the Virgin Mary, which opens up all sorts of ethical questions to me) and the two then linked in the legend of Robin Hood.

Although we've checked him out as a possible source for the legend, but not proven it (as if we could), Robert Hood did marry a woman called (sigh) Matilda, who then changed her name to Marian when she joined him in Barnsdale Forest (hey, close enough!) in 1322. That, of course, puts both of them long beyond the time of Richard I or John, both of whom were by that time dead over two hundred years, but most accounts prefer to place Robin Hood in the time of one of the Edwards, take your pick, all of which ruled in the 14th century, so he could be closer to being our man, and it's vaguely possible that she existed, which makes her the first of the band to attain that honour.

The upshot then of all this is that, rather unsurprisingly, and with the possible exception of Marian if Robert Hood is anything to do with the outlaw, none of the Merry Men ever lived, or can be proved to have done so. Most came into the story through the old ballads, some from the May Games and others, such as Nasir or any Moor or Saracen, were added with absolutely no historical or even fictional basis, perhaps as a kind of affirmative action on the part of producers and writers, what with everyone else being white. The term merry man, for the record, was not coined by Howard Pyle (though used by him) but was a title given to anyone who joined a band of men, followed a knight or outlaw. Not exactly sure why they were called merry, but it may have had a different meaning back then to what it does now.

[Saulaac]

The spelling of Friar Tuck caused all sorts of problems over the years..

Was the Sceptred Isle going so badly that you decided to change your avatar into Everton or Ipswich colours? 

[Trollheart]

Not quite. A) I got tired of looking at Trump's ugly mush and B) I saw that painting on the telly last night and just loved it. What do you see when you look at it? The answer will surprise and shock you...

[Trollheart]

No friend to Rome either, King John may have been the first English king to have been excommunicated, though I can't find out right now. He had a problem with what he saw as the rights of choice of nomination of the Archbishop of Canterbury being usurped by the Pope, and His Holiness appointed a man with whom he disagreed so strongly that he actually refused him entry to England. He also seized his lands and, for good measure, any papal territory he could get his hands on. The pope raised his hands and said "Hey, I'm Innocent, man!" And so he was. Pope Innocent II then decided to prohibit services in England, in what is or was known as an interdict; priests were not allowed to hold masses, apart from baptisms (can't have these babies being heathens now can we?), confessions (but only for those on their death bed) and last rites. Where that left funerals and marriage, I don't know, but this lasted from 1208 to around 1213.

John, in his typical restrained fashion, took this as a declaration of war by Rome, and proceeded to do what he normally did in a fit of pique, he seized lands. Those of the pope himself, those of clergy who obeyed the interdict - and thereby were seen to be siding with Rome against him - and those of the clergy who had fled the country. When he saw the king was digging his heels in and would not obey, Innocent excommunicated him. It looks as if this was the biggest weapon in the papal arsenal, but John, being not all that bothered about this God stuff, took it somewhat in his stride, until he found out His Holiness had a plan to replace him by supporting the French King Philip II. That was a weapon he couldn't survive, with his popularity already in the toilet, so he made peace and accepted the pope's terms, whereupon Innocent presumably sent hot-foot messengers to the French king to advise him the invasion was off. "Non, non, votre majestie! Nous sommes tout amis maintenant!" Or something. Anyway, without papal backing - in fact, with Rome directly now set against an invasion of England, Philip had to sigh "Put zem back in zair box, mes amis," and perhaps wonder if Spain or Holland was due a good bout of invading.

Having kissed and made up with the pope, though, John was now free to turn the tables on Philip and invade France, free to try to get back his ancestral lands, the territories of the Angevin kings, and, it turned out, free to fail utterly and lose them all. His problems with his own barons, who had risen against him in 1212, and the local Angevin nobles, who probably didn't like him much either, and thought he spent far too much time in England than was good for a Norman king, left John isolated when he tried to retake Normandy. Now, before anyone gets on my back about it, I know I said I wouldn't go into foreign entanglements unless they directly affected the history of England, but here they very definitely do. John would be the last of the line of Angevin kings, losing all their lands, and leading to the demarcation between the Plantagenet kings who were also Angevins, and those who, after John, were not.

If nothing else, the loss of the Angevin lands shows John up, not so much for being a shit commander, which he kind of was, but as a rather nasty case of chickens coming home to roost. Had he cultivated favour among his barons and nobles, dealt with them fairly and not tried to browbeat, tax and landgrab them into submission, he might have had a better chance of winning his war. As it was, they seem to have seen it as a chance both to humiliate him and to make a statement about how they had been treated. Remember, a king is nothing without his nobles; they in effect make and can very easily break him, a lesson John perhaps ignored until it was too late. His entire campaign lasted less than eight months, and he returned to England dejected and beaten.

And worse was to come.

On his return, and with his failed enterprise, John ran into a full-scale revolt by the barons, who quickly and decisively took London, Lincoln and Exeter, and John was forced to sue for peace terms, as Pope Innocent II's successor, the imaginatively named Pope Innocent III, couldn't be bothered to get off his arse and support the English king, at least not before he had finished his tiffin. After all, despite John's declaration (sincere or not) to join one of the crusades, the English Crown had not been a friend to Rome during his predecessor's time, as we've seen. While he waited for support from the Holy City, John was forced to sign what has become known in history as almost the English version of the American Constitution or the Bill of Rights.

[Trollheart]

Fanfare for the common man: Magna Carta is signed

Supposedly removing the divine rights of kings, through which the monarch basically ruled through the grace of God, and let nobody stand in his way, Magna Carta (the Great Charter) was really not as far-ranging as it may have seemed at the time, but it was the first time the rights of ordinary folk were codified in a legal document. Essentially a peace treaty between John and the barons, it ensure the protection of the rights of the Church, promised none of the barons would be imprisoned without cause, guaranteed swift and impartial justice and limited feudal payments to the Crown.

Like most treaties, it was largely ignored or subverted, as it served the interests of neither party, and was, literally, just a piece of paper, as useful as the one a British Prime Minister would enthusiastically wave around at an airport seven hundred years later as he bleated about peace in our time. What Magna Carta attempted - unsuccessfully, for the most part - to do was to show that even kings were not above the law, that there was a way for them to be held accountable, and to this end there was a virtual "25th Amendment" included, which said that if the king did not comply with the terms of the charter, a council of barons were authorised to seize his lands and properties until he had done the right thing. If nothing else, what Magna Carta sought to do was place limits on what we might term today executive power; the monarch now had to obtain permission/acceptance by the council before he could levy new taxes, and the rights of free men and serfs were for the first time delineated.

Magna Carta, for all its flaws, is looked upon as the first real assertion of the rights of men in Europe, perhaps the world, and is seen as a turning point in English history, when the unrestricted rule of the king was  challenged. It would be referred to - accurately or not - and used in legal arguments for the next five hundred years, until finally abolished in the nineteenth century. Magna Carta is seen as a flash point in English history, where a sitting king was forced by his nobles to sign a treaty he did not want, but which persisted - despite hardly any of it being adhered to by either side - well into the modern age. In many ways, two of the most significant dates in English history are 1066 and 1215, two seismic events that shook the course of England and reverberated throughout Europe and beyond.

The Pope was none too pleased. He had no love for John, but the charter impinged on his rights to control the English king, and he weren't having that. "To Hell with you all!" he shouted, and fired off a round of excommunications at the barons, and war were declared.

The First Barons' War

It had been inevitable anyway; as I say, neither side had any real intention of abiding by the rules of the charter, and when the barons refused to give London back by the specified date, possibly sticking their tongues out and crowing "Come and take it if you think you're hard enough, Lackland!" John did just that. Or tried to anyway. Mere months after returning, shagged-out from being roundly beaten by the French, the unhappy and unpopular king was at war again.

And of course, it was with them damn frogs again.

Unpopular he may have been, and a defeated king returning with his royal tail between his legs, but John still paid the soldiers' salary and so the army was his to command. In addition, perhaps, Innocent III's warning that anyone who abided by Magna Carta was looking to get themselves excommunicated would have kept the army loyal to the king, if only for the sake of their souls, and possibly their wallets too. No matter how many barons you have, and how many men each baron has, it was never going to be enough against the English army plus some mercenaries John had tucked away for a rainy day as he began to see which way the wind was blowing, so as ever, his enemies turned to his enemy, so to speak, and the French Louis VIII was only too happy to lend his aid to the rebels, no doubt remembering how his dad had smarted when Pope Innocent II had put the kibosh on his plans to invade England a couple of years ago. Broke the old man's heart, it had, but his son, the heir apparent, was ready to go where daddy had not been allowed by His Holiness.

When John saw a host of ships appear on the horizon hoisting the Fleur-de-lis, he did what any smart ruler would have done in his position, and fucked off to Winchester, leaving London, still in the hands of the barons, open to the advancing French troops, who hardly had to leave any bodies along the streets of London before their leader was proclaimed King of England. The Scots, seeing an opportunity to stick it to the English, did not waste the chance, Alexander II rumbling "Ah, sure ye ma' be a dirty garlic-eatin' frog an' all, but ye're a gang sight better than yer mawn John, so ye are! Ye've got mah vote!" John's supporters, loyal as a pack of jackals, switched sides to be on what they saw as the winning one, and swore fealty to the new king, mais non?

Louis, declaring June 6 as D-Day possibly, set off from London to capture John, and set the seal on his great victory. But when he reached Winchester, trailing barons of all colours and stripes as well as hangers-on, erstwhile John cheerleaders and the odd Scot who had probably tagged along just for the fun of it, he found to his considerable annoyance that


Yes, the youngest brother of Richard the Lionheart had taken to his heels, and of King John there was no sign. Moving on to Dover Castle (taunted, for some reason, by his father, go figure: you'd think the old man would have been proud of his son, but there you go. Frenchies, eh?) Louis encountered the first stiff resistance since he had arrived, and had to place the castle under siege. After three months of getting nowhere, Louis decided "Fuck zis for ze game of soldiaires! I am for London, mes braves!" And back he went to the stronghold of the barons, possibly wondering if there was a crown going spare that he could borrow? One does have to keep up appearances, you know, and a king without a crown is, well, just a man proclaimed king. Not the same thing at all.

John, it turned out, was not long for this world, and, holed up in Newark Castle (which is nowhere near Jersey and is in fact in Nottinghamshire) died a hero's death, a bout of dysentery doing for him at the ripe old age of 49. With him went most of the grievances of the barons, who now suddenly began looking suspiciously at Louis. The heir to the French throne had seemed a good bet when they were trying to take down John, but now his nine-year-old son Henry was in line for the English one, and what harm could a kid do, unless he broke a castle window with his slingshot or pushed someone into a river? So the child seemed the better choice (always preferable to have an english arse on the throne than a French one, they thought, conveniently forgetting that both John and Richard, and now John's son, were all technically French too, being of Norman stock) and the barons began to muster support against the man who had helped them rid England of King John.

In times of crisis, even Englishmen fighting each other come together if there's a common enemy, especially if he's French, and so most of Louis' support began to melt away as Henry was crowned King Henry III of England. Too young to officially rule, power was handed to his regent, William Marshall, 1st Earl of Pembroke, and it was he who led the battle against Louis. After two years of this, the heir apparent to the French throne realised that what he needed more than anything was more Frenchmen on his side, and so he legged it back across the channel to pick up a few boatfulls of troops who would fight for him. Dover Castle again stood in his way. It had not fallen the first time by siege, and this time a trap had been laid for his fleet and it got kind of burned a little, Louis expending so much of his forces on the second siege that he lost Lincoln Castle and was soon to lose his capital as rebels (well, maybe you'd call them loyalists now? I mean, who were they rebelling against?) marched on London.

After having a sandwich, sorry, losing most of his fleet in the ensuing Battle of Sandwich and Battle of Dover, it was all over for Louis, who had to sue for peace, shrug to his allies in Scotland and Wales that "It's all over lads, lay them weapons down now, there's good fellas" and fuck off back to France, undertaking never to invade England again. Oh, and we'll have that crown while we're at it. What? You don't have a crown? Fair enough then: hoppit, before we decide we like the look of Calais and do some invading of our own. Bon voyage and all that bollocks.

So ended the reign of King John, in pretty much what you'd have to describe as ignominy and defeat. He had, in his time, in addition to becoming one of the most hated and incompetent Kings of England, lost his people's ancestral lands in Anjou, kicked off a civil war, risked losing his crown to a French prince, and been forced to sign a document that would guide English monarchs for the next few centuries. His reign ended, as it had begun, deep in shit, and his reputation has never recovered from that tarnishment, with him being described by some historians as "the worst king to ever rule England."

Before I close, a humorous note (well, I find it funny): John's wife, Isabella, kept in prison during his reign, was released in 1214 and remarried twice before dying three years later! I mean, I understand her desire to squeeze all she could of out life after having been in pokey for so long (can't find out exactly how long, but I reckon about 14 years), but two husbands in three years! You've also got to feel sorry for her: only three years out of the slammer and she's dead. What an anti-climax. Well, not with two more hubbies, but you know what I mean. Mind you, all that time in a cell couldn't be good for your health, especially in the not-exactly-hygienic 13th century.

I will give John points: he "set aside" Isabella of Gloucester in order to marry his second wife, Isabella of Angouleme. Well, it sorts out the problem of accidentally calling out the name of the first wife when making love, doesn't it? Smart man, in that if nothing else. 

Oh, and that promise to become a crusader? Like the end of his life, turned out to be a crock of shit.