Robin Hood’s Merry England - May 1998 British Heritage Feature

 | British Heritage  | 0 comments  |  Print This Post  |  Email This Post

Robin Hood's Merry England

The tale of the notorious outlaw has lived on long after he and his band of merry men have gone, but in the counties of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, and Leicestershire, traces of the peoples’ bandit still bring him to life.

by Winsoar Churchill and Alan Klehr

To many people, Robin Hood belongs more to Hollywood than Sherwood. Numerous film adaptations, starring Douglas Fairbanks, Errol Flynn, Sean Connery, or, most recently, Kevin Costner, make it easy to forget that the story of Robin Hood is one of the most enduring legends in Great Britain. With roots reaching back to the 14th century, the tale of Robin Hood is nearly as ancient as the medieval romances of King Arthur and his knights.

The thorny question of whether or not Robin Hood ever really existed cannot be answered with absolute certainty. Three 15th-century historians–Andrew of Wyntoun, Walter Bower, and John Major–each attempted to discover the ‘real’ Robin Hood, and all three reached different conclusions, variously placing Robin’s actions from the late-12th to the late-13th centuries in both Yorkshire and Cumberland. Later historians have discounted all three conclusions.

As the years went by, Robin Hood’s birthplace became fixed at Locksley, and he was thought to be the rightful Earl of Huntingdon during the reign of Richard I. Others identified him with Robert Fitzooth, Lord of the manor of Loxley in Warwickshire during the reign of Henry III, whose family tree stretches back to one of William the Conqueror’s barons. The earliest written tales actually place Robin in Barnsdale, but as time wore on, Nottinghamshire became the more accepted setting for his activities, and today it is this part of England that claims him as its own.

In the past 100 years, several serious historians have searched court and church records and other historical documents and have found numerous people called ‘Robert Hood’, ‘Robyn Hode’, or ‘Robin Hood’, some of whom were in fact outlaws. None of these discoveries offer any conclusive evidence, but they do add to the scope and mystery of the legend.

On a recent journey to England we set out to confront the outlaw on his own turf. Harbouring no illusions that we would be able to unravel the mysterious origins of the legend, we instead visited places with Robin Hood associations, where his origins are less important than the legacy he left behind.

We began our quest in Nottingham and worked our way north, towards Edwinstowe and the Sherwood Forest Country Park. Arriving in Nottingham on a chilly afternoon, we headed straight for Nottingham Castle. Unfortunately, the Duke of Newcastle destroyed most of the fortifications in 1679 to make way for an elegant palace that now serves as a museum and art gallery. Only Edward’s Tower, the Black Tower, the Gatehouse, and parts of the ancient curtain wall and moat remain. Just outside the massive walls, we came upon a statue of Robin with his bow drawn and arrow fixed upon some unknown enemy. While this is a modern addition to the castle, its placement beneath the foreboding stone walls seems to put Robin Hood in an appropriate context.

According to the legend, Robin and his men only rarely visited Nottingham. On one of these occasions, Robin and a few of his supporters participated in an archery match, a scheme the Sheriff of Nottingham had cooked up to catch the cunning outlaw. Disguised in tattered clothes, Robin Hood won the competition and the sheriff unknowingly handed him the prize. In another instance, Robin Hood and his band swept into Nottingham just in time to rescue Will Stutely, one of his ‘merry men’, from the hangman’s noose.

Many Nottingham landmarks date back to the Middle Ages. Robin Hood was thought to have prayed at the medieval church of St. Mary, and to have visited the Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem Inn, which dates from 1189 and is built directly into the Castle Rock. The Sheriff and his men would surely have lifted a few pints of ale at this pub as they discussed ways to exact revenge on Robin and his followers. Subterranean passages (now closed) lead from the inn to the Castle.

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.