Basdeo Stephen - Robin Hood

THE LIFE AND LEGEND OF AN OUTLAW

Dedicated to Joseph and Deborah Basdeo, and my cat, Robin, named after Robin Hood.

THE LIFE AND LEGEND OF AN OUTLAW

Stephen Basdeo

First published in Great Britain in 2019 by

PEN AND SWORD HISTORY

an imprint of

Pen and Sword Books Ltd

Yorkshire - Philadelphia

Copyright Stephen Basdeo, 2019

Hardback ISBN 978 1 52672 981 1

Paperback ISBN 978 1 52675 758 6

eISBN 978 1 52672 982 8

Mobi ISBN 978 1 52672 983 5

The right of Stephen Basdeo to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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There are always too many people to thank in this section of a book. First and foremost I would like to thank my former supervisors who are the best mentors any aspiring graduate student could hope to have, Professor Paul Hardwick, Professor Rosemary Mitchell, and Dr Alaric Hall. I thank you for guiding me through my PhD and helping to develop my skills as a historian. And Paul, I think that I have remembered to say the text says instead of the text said. I still cant quite get the hang of it but if you see me falling into my old ways, dont judge! (Hopefully these will have been ironed out by the editor anyway!) Special mention always goes to my family: Debbie and Joseph Basdeo, Jamila Garrod, her husband Ped, and my two nieces, Mya and Alexa. And of course to the three men in my life: Richard Neesam, Chris Williams, and Sam Dowling.

Obviously, the constraints of writing a popular history book mean that I get very little space to include footnotes and citations to relevant secondary sources. However, it would be criminal of me not to give some brief mentions to fellow scholars whose work has helped, informed, and inspired me in writing this book. First there is my good friend, Allen Wright. His website was very useful to me when I was a young graduate student cobbling together a doctoral research proposal on Robin Hood, and I still find his site an excellent and trustworthy place for when I need to quickly check a fact.

Special thanks must go to Professor Alexander Kaufman and Dr Valerie Johnson. I met them in 2015 at the Robin Hood Studies conference, and since then, although they work in the USA, they have given me a lot of positive feedback and constructive criticism on various Robin Hood articles and website posts I have written. The help I have received from them over the years has enhanced my own knowledge of Robin Hood and of course helped me to develop my own profile as a researcher.

Dr Lesley Coote was the external examiner for my PhD entitled The Changing Faces of Robin Hood, c. 1700c. 1900. To Lesley I say thank you for not only being my external examiner but also giving me the opportunity to speak at the Robin Hood conference and the panels at various other conferences. And of course to Dr Mark Truesdale, with whom Ive spent time at conferences and via email talking about all things Robin Hood! And no, Mark, there was no way in hell that I would even consider including in this book a discussion of the horrendous Robin Hood kung-fu movie, Robin Hood, Arrows, Beans, and Karate , that we watched in a drunken haze the evening before the Medieval Congress in Leeds in 2017. Some things are best left in the archive!

There are several researchers whom I have never met but whose work has informed both my PhD research and this book. Such people include Stephen Knight, Thomas Hahn (with whom I have had a few brief email exchanges over the past couple of years), Thomas Ohlgren, Graham Seal, even if I do disagree with them upon some points on Robin Hood related things. Where these researchers have raised specific points they are always credited by name in the text. Special thanks, of course, goes to the lovely people at Pen and Sword Books for commissioning me to write this one. Jon Wright and Laura Hirst have been wonderful, putting up with many proof changes and edits. And thank you to my editor, Karyn Burnham, for constructive feedback on this manuscript.

I would like to point out here that all of the images in this book are from antiquarian and first edition works in my personal collection, and there are, therefore, no museums or galleries to thank at this time. Such is the absurdity of current licensing rules and regulations that it is often cheaper for authors to spend around 20 or 30 on an old eighteenth- or nineteenth-century book or print containing the out-of-copyright images that you need, rather than pay excessive licensing fees from museums and archives. To use just one image, a friend of mine was quoted 200 recently. Surely this cannot be right? It amounts to a tax paid by researchers upon the dissemination of knowledge. And no, the publishers themselves cannot reimburse authors for these drastically high costs due to their own publishing costs. If they did, it would mean that publishers would not be as willing to take chances on books such as this, which are outside of the usual Tudors and World War Two popular history repertoire. In a book about Robin Hood, who is said to have fought against unjust taxes and costs, the brunt of which was felt by the common people, I felt it fitting that I at least air.

The merry pranks he playd, would ask an age to tell,

And the aduentures strange that Robin Hood befell,

When Mansfield many a time for Robin hath bin layd,

How he hath cosned them, that him would have betrayd;

How often he hath come to Nottingham disguisd,

And cunningly escapt, being set to be surprizd.

In this our spacious Isle, I thinke there is not one,

But he hath heard some talke of him and little Iohn;

And to the end of time, the Tales shall ner be done,

Of Scarlock, George a Greene, and Much the Millers sonne,

Of Tuck the merry Frier, which many a Sermon made,

In praise of Robin Hood, his Out-lawes, and their Trade.

Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion (161222)

The adventurous life of the gallant outlaw, Robin Hood, has long been a favourite theme of song and story in England. True, the historian must often ask in vain for documents verifying the wild doings of the famous robber. But there is a mass of legend referring to our Hero which bears the seal of genuineness upon its face and throws a flood of light on the manners and customs of his epoch.