Robin Turns Outlaw

Edward the Confessors Tomb.                              Village life in England

Life may have been good for Robin Hood's family as it was for most people during the reign of King Edward the Confessor, England had been at peace for two generations, the king had reduced taxes and people prospered. The weather was good with warm sunny summers and mild winters, society was well ordered and the feudal system operated to protect people from their enemies, people lived off the land, they hunted and fished out of necessity and in those days of low pollution most rivers were teeming with fish including salmon. Water mills commonly paid a tax of hundreds or even thousands of eels and the forest was full of game. In their spare time people went to church, the young men and women kept each other amused, adultery was illegal and the penalty for rape was castration. They played a kind of football and an early version of cricket and there were a variety of indoor games. Above all the villagers had an astonishing number of feasts which were a welcome diversion, there were the festivals of the church and the pagan festivals they had managed to preserve in spite of the church, giving them Christmas and the winter solstice, Easter and May Day, Whitsun, Rogation Day and Lammas, a harvest festival, a sowing festival and a ploughing festival. There were feasts on the appropriate saints' days and feasts on finishing haystacks, not to mention betrothals, weddings, and birthdays. They brewed great quantities of beer, and were uproarious drinkers. One of the principal pleasures of village life after recovering from one festival must have been looking forward to the next.  Courtesy of Wendlewulf Productions

After the death of Edward the Confessor the new king, William the Conqueror, took many of the English nobility, barons, and those popular with the English, including Waltheof the Earl of Huntingdon back to Normandy as hostages on pain of death to prevent the English rising up against the Conqueror. When the hostages returned to England William had gained sufficient control over the populace to be able to turn his attention to other interests and he created for himself the Royal Forest of the Peak giving his favourite son William Peveril, who was the Sheriff of Nottingham, sufficient money to build the castle at Castleton from which he could administer the Royal Forest, part of which came into the parish of Loxley which was on the road to Castleton. As the hunting seasons came round the countryside near Robin Hood's home would be thronged with knights and barons whose skills had been honed to perfection after many years of hunting and fighting and whose very lives depended on their prowess with sword, spear, staff, and bow. The air would be filled with excitement as they rose to the challenge of man over swift footed hare and deer with the wild boar in fearsome opposition. These men were hard, tough, and rough and in comparative safety they could enjoy the thrill of the hunt, the thrill of the chase, and the thrill of the kill which kept them fighting fit and later came the jousting tournaments at Peveril's Castle of the Peak as into this once quiet haven of peace the Normans settled, sometimes moving in with the widows of the men who had been killed at Stamford Bridge and Hastings until they were able to bring their wives and families over to England from Normandy. The area near Loxley Common is called Normandale to this day and it is here we are told Robin killed his step-father while at plough. Many of the nobility took land in the Royal Forest also and perhaps it was in and around Hallam in the Deer Parks of the Royal Forest that young Robin of Loxley, by watching and talking to these men as a young boy learnt his skill with bow and staff? The Sloane Manuscript speaks of him having other bows at Loxley.

They held tournaments at Peveril Castle and in the Geste we read of Robin Hood competing against the king in an archery contest and at its conclusion we are told, "At the king's command they bent their bows and forth they went shooting all together, toward the town of Nottingham, outlaws though they were, our king and Robin rode together.” (There is a road from Peveril Castle to Nottingham Castle) Then after the archery contest Robin and his men we are told went to live in the King's court but one by one missing their beloved Barnsdale Robin Hood's men drifted back until finally Robin Hood rejoined his band of men back in Barnsdale and celebrated by shooting one of the king's deer and having a feast with his men. (Did the ale flow?)

While remaining outwardly friendly to William, Waltheof who was the Earl of Huntingdon and a proud Saxon fought against the Conqueror and took York. It is likely Robin Hood and his men were doing something similar for on Robins tomb we have written: "Robert Earl of Huntingdon lies here his labour being done. No archer was like him so good his wildness named him Robin Hood. For thirteen years and something more these northern parts he vexed sore. Such outlaws as he and his men may England never know again.”As someone once said, “Don’t worry about your enemies, you know who they are, but you never know about your friends” and this was true of Waltheof and in those circumstances perhaps with Robert of Loxley, who like Waltheof, remained true to his own people.

Other "Freedom Fighters" included Edgar the Atheling, who many regarded as the lawful King of England after the death of Harold II. Hereward the Wake was another freedom fighter and so was Eadric the Wild. For this reason the Normans branded them as "outlaws" along with the dispossessed English who lived in tents in the forest, and also those families who hunted for food in order to survive. 

The Geste of Robin Hood printed in 1489AD appears to be a retelling of earlier events that has survived in a reduced form with details that were either never written or were removed (torn pages). As Hereward the Wake, Eadric the Wild, and Waltheof, the earl of Huntingdon were real people who achieved fame in their lifetime there are surprisingly few documents about them also and all we have of Robin Hood are the remaning ballads and the comments by Roger Dodsworth and the Sloan Manuscript that speak of Robin Hood as a real person plus the Scotch Chronicles dated 1266 that say, “In that year also the disinherited English barons and those loyal to the king clashed fiercely; amongst them Roger de Mortimer occupied the Welsh Marches and John d’Eyville occupied the Isle of Ely; Robert Hood was an outlaw amongst the woodland briars and thorns.” As that was written in 1266 perhaps Robin Hood was already active in 1262AD when William the son of Robert Le Fevre is renamed William's Robehod. Whatever the truth of the matter there was someone called Robin Hood who was active in 1266AD although there is no way of knowing if he was the man of legend. As King Edward is mentioned in the Geste we can say with a fair degree of certainty that Robin Hood was active between the reigns of Edward the Confessor (died 1066) and Edward I who came to the throne in 1272 with most people placing him around the time of King John.

Whatever the case, those early days were dire when people were oppressed on all sides by the Norman sheriffs and churchmen who levied taxes and governed with a rod of iron. They inflicted harsh laws on the populace while the nobility were dispossessed of their land and property that was given to the supporters of William the Conqueror. There was many a skirmish between the Anglo Saxons and the invaders who had "stolen" England and this may be the setting of the Robin Hood legend which culminated with Robert-de-Lockesley perhaps around the time of King Richard and King John. Robin it is said took from the rich, the thieving invaders, and gave back to the poor to whom it had belonged to in the first place. This may be the origin of the ballads which are a celebration of some of the many minor victories that were won from the ruling classes during the intervening years with the Geste of Robin Hood being printed as a collection of ballads in the late 1400's based on those earlier events.