Chapter 34

CHAPTER XXXIV.
ROBIN HOOD OF SHERWOOD FOREST. In this our spacious isle I think there is not one,
But he of ROBIN HOOD hath heard and Little John;
And to the end of time the tales shall ne'er be done
Of Scarlock, George a Green, and Much the miller's son,
Of Tuck, the merry friar, which many a sermon made
In praise of ROBIN HOOD, his outlaws and their trade.
DRAYTON. EVERY reader of "Ivanhoe," at the mention of Richard the Crusader,
will be reminded of Robin Hood, the noble outlaw of Sherwood Forest,
and his band of merry bowmen. With these we next concern ourselves,
and if the reader will pardon the dry outlines of the historian before
proceeding to the more interesting and imaginative story of the
ballad-singer, we will at first state what so careful an antiquary
as Mr. Ritson considers to be truly trustworthy in Robin Hood's
history.
Robin Hood was born at Locksley, in the county of Nottingham, in the
reign of King Henry II, and about the year of Christ 1160. His
extraction was noble, and his true name Robert Fitzooth, which
vulgar pronunciation easily corrupted into Robin Hood. He is
frequently styled, and commonly reputed to have been, Earl of
Huntingdon; a title to which, in the latter part of his life at least,
he actually appears to have had some sort of pretension. In his
youth he is reported to have been of a wild and extravagant
disposition, insomuch that, his inheritance being consumed or
forfeited by his excesses, and his person outlawed for debt, either
from necessity or choice he sought an asylum in the woods and forests,
with which immense tracts, especially in the northern part of the
kingdom, were at that time covered. Of these he chiefly affected
Barnsdale, in Yorkshire; Sherwood in Nottinghamshire, and, according
to some, Plompton Park in Cumberland. Here he either found or was
afterwards joined by a number of persons in similar circumstances, who
appear to have considered and obeyed him as their chief or
leader.... Having for a long series of years maintained a sort of
independent sovereignty, and set kings, judges, and magistrates at
defiance, a proclamation was published, offering a considerable reward
for bringing him in either dead or alive; which, however, seems to
have been productive of no greater success than former attempts for
that purpose. At length the infirmities of old age increasing upon
him, and desirous to be relieved, in a fit of sickness, by being let
blood, he applied for that purpose to the prioress of Kirkley
nunnery in Yorkshire, his relative (women, and particularly
religious women, being in those times somewhat better skilled in
surgery than the sex is at present), by whom he was treacherously
suffered to bleed to death. This event happened on