Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 27.djvu/266

 Roger of Doncaster. Although many places mentioned in the 'Gest' can be identified in the West Riding and its neighbourhood, the topography is vague throughout. In many later ballads Robin Hood is located in Sherwood Forest, and more rarely in Plumpton Park, Cumberland, and there are signs that the compiler of the 'Gest' had carelessly combined extracts from ballads which are no longer extant connecting the hero with Sherwood and Plumpton. Numerous additions were made to the Robin Hood literature in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Broadside ballads, a few of which show traces of a late mediæval origin, recklessly amplified the legends and adapted adventures from the biographies of semi-historical personages, such as Fulk-Fitzwarine, Hereward the Wake, and Wallace. Finally, Robin was represented as of noble descent, and was raised to the peerage as Earl of Huntingdon. But scepticism on the subject was prevalent even among sixteenth-century men of letters, and 'a tale of Robin Hood' was often used as a synonym for a fabulous story (cf., Rede me, 1525; Harington, Orlando, 1590, p. 391; and other references in Ritson, xvii, xcii, sq.) In Shakespeare's 'As You Like It,' on the other hand, the old duke is said to live in the forest of Arden with 'a many merry men,' 'like the old Robin Hood of England (act ii. sc. i.)

The dramatists continued the balladmakers' work. A rude dramatic manuscript fragment, dated in 1475, and belonging to Dr. W. Aldis Wright of Trinity College, Cambridge, deals with Robin Hood's adventures with Guy of Gisborne. At the end of Copland's edition of the 'Geste' is 'The Playe of Robyn Hode,' which recites the story of the hero and the potter. Peele, in his 'Edward I' (1593), introduces a dramatic device based on the same story (Works, ed. Bullen, i. 140 sq.) 'A Pleasant conceited Comedie of George-A-Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield,' printed in 1599, is partly constructed out of the ballad of 'Robin Hood and the Pinder of Wakefield.' 'The Downfall of Robert, Earl of Huntington, afterward called Robin Hood of Merrie Sherwood' (1601), by Anthony Munday, and ' The Death of Robert, Earl of Huntington, otherwise called Robin Hood of Merrie Sherwood' (1601), by Munday and Chettle, wildly travesty historical legends, and make Robin Hood a rival with King John for the hand of Maid Marian, who is absurdly identified with Matilda, daughter of Robert Fitzwalter [q. v.] (cf., Old Plays, 1874, viii. 210 sq.) Munday, in 1615, again utilised the Robin Hood legends in 'Metropolis Coronata,' a pageant prepared for the lord mayor's induction into office. Nine other similar dramatic pieces, dating between 1600 and 1784, are enumerated by Ritson (lxvlxxii.) About 1632 Martin Parker published 'A True Tale of Robin Hood' in verse, which he professed to have 'carefully collected out of the truest writers of our English chronicles.' In 1670 a new collection of ballads, entitled 'Robin Hood's Garland,' first appeared, and was afterwards frequently reprinted. In 1678 'The Noble Birth and Gallant Achievements of that Remarkable Outlaw Robin Hood,' retold in prose all that had been previously stated in verse, and its information was repeated in numberless chapbooks. One little volume (1752) combined accounts of Robin Hood and James Hind [q.v.] as 'two noted robbers and highwaymen.'

Late historians and antiquaries take Robin Hood's career very seriouslv. A prose life in Sloane MS. 780, ff. 46-8, constructed from the ballads in the seventeenth century, and printed in Thoms's 'English Prose Romances' (ii. 124-37), states that Robin Hood was born about 1160 'at Lockesley in Yorkeshyre, or after others in Notinghamsh.' Loxley has been discovered to be the name of a very small hamlet near Sheffield, and Robin Hood's fame is said to be locally great there; but the biography is clearly unauthentic and uncorroborated. Major, who acknowledged that Robin Hood was only known to him as a ballad-hero ('Rebus huius Roberti gestis tota Britannia in cantibus utitur'), first suggested that he lived in Richard I's time. This suggestion has been adopted by Grafton, Holinshed, Stow, and the author of the Sloane MS., while according to an obiter dictum of Sir Edward Coke (3 Institutes, 197), based on such authorities, 'this Robin Hood lived in the reign of King Richard the first.' Leland was of opinion that Robin Hood was of noble lineage (Collectanea, i. 54), and Grafton adds, on the authority 'of an olde and auncient pamphlet,' that he was created an earl. Fuller includes him in his 'Worthies of Nottinghamshire ' (1662). Dr. Stukeley, credulously accepting the legend, found or fabricated an absurd pedigree making Robin Hood grandson both of Ralph Fitz-othes or Fitzooth, a Norman companion of William the Conqueror and of Geoffrey of Mandeville [q. v.] (, Palœographia Britaunica, No. i. 115). Francis Peck (1692-1743), who always spells the surname Whood, prepared a new edition of the 'Garland' about 1735 (cf. Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 28638), and was not more critical than Stukeley. Martin Parker, in his 'True Tale' (1632?), first suggested a date of death (4 Dec. 1198), and concocted an epitaph which (he stated) was formerly to be read at Kirklees. Thoresby,in his 'Ducatus Leodensis' (1715),