'Yes, fore God!' then said our king, 'Thy petition I grant thee, With that thou leave the greenwood, And all thy company;
'And come home, sir, to my court, And there dwell with me.' 'I make mine avow to God,' said Robin, 'And right so shall it be:
'I will come to your court Your service for to see.'
Accordingly, Robin left the greenwood and his company, entered the king's household, went with him to the court at London, and remained in his service for a year and three months. Having by that time become weary of this uncongenial mode of life, he obtained permission from the king to pay a visit to his old residence at Barnesdale. Here he resumes once more his former way of life 'under the greenwood-tree,' and becomes again chief of the outlaws of Barnesdale and Sherwood.
Now if, among the adventures ascribed to Robin by the old ballads, there is one far more improbable than all the rest, and one which an ordinary commentator would set down at once as a pure fiction of the poet, it is certainly that which has just been related. Mr Hunter, however, is not an ordinary commentator. If the story is a strange one, he doubtless reflected, 'truth is stranger than fiction;' and if it is intrinsically and evidently improbable, that is the very reason why a poet would not have invented it. Mr Hunter, therefore, did what no other inquirer had before thought of doing--he examined the historical and documentary evidence which might throw light upon the subject. The ballad, fortunately, gives the name of the king who was concerned in this singular adventure. He is repeatedly spoken of as 'Edward, our comely king'--a phrase, by the way, which clearly implies that the ballad was composed while the monarch was still living. This circumstance is not noticed by Mr Hunter, but it is one of some importance, inasmuch as a poet would hardly have ventured to introduce the name of the reigning monarch into a purely fictitious narrative. But there are three Edwards--the first, second, and third of the name, among whom it is necessary to distinguish the one to whom the poet referred. Now, according to the ballad, this 'comely king,' before he fell in with Robin, had journeyed through the county of Lancaster:
All the pass of Lancashire, He went both far and near, Till he came to Plumpton Park, He failed [missed] many of his deer.
The question then arises, which of the three Edwards did travel in that county? To this question, Mr Hunter's researches fortunately enable him to return a decisive answer. King Edward I. never was in Lancashire after he became king. King Edward III. was not in Lancashire in the early years of his reign, and probably never at all. But King Edward II. did make a 'progress' in Lancashire, and only one. The time was in the autumn of 1323, the seventeenth year of his reign, and the fortieth of his age. By the dates of the royal writs, and by other documents, Mr Hunter is enabled to trace the king's route and his various removes on this occasion with great minuteness. He follows him, for example, from York to Holderness; thence to Pickering, to Wherlton Castle, to Richmond and Jervaulx Abbey, and to Haywra Park, in the forest of Knaresborough. In this forest is situated Plumpton Park, which is mentioned in the ballad as having been visited by the king, who here became aware of Robin's depredations. King Edward proceeded thence by way of Skipton, and several other towns, to Liverpool, and, continuing his progress, arrived on the 9th of November at Nottingham, where he remained till the 23d of that month; and it was from Nottingham, it will be remembered, that the king set out in disguise to look for Robin Hood.
But if the 'proud outlaw' on this occasion actually took service in the king's household, his name would be likely to appear among those of the royal attendants, if any list of these is preserved. This consideration occurred to Mr Hunter. The result of his search must be told in his own words. 'It will scarcely be believed,' he observes, 'but it is, nevertheless, the plain and simple truth, that in documents preserved in the Exchequer, containing accounts of expenses in the king's household, we find the name of "Robyn Hode," not once, but several times occurring, receiving, with about eight-and-twenty others, the pay of 3d. a day, as one of the "_valets, porteurs de la chambre_" of the king. Whether this was some other person who chanced to bear the same name, or that the ballad-maker has in this related what was mere matter of fact, it will become no one to affirm in a tone of authority. I, for my part, believe it is the same person.' Mr Hunter then quotes the words of the original record, which is in Norman-French. It recites the names of the twenty-four '_portours_'--as the word is here spelled--who received pay from the 24th of March to the 21st of April 1324; and among these are the names of 'Robyn Hod' and 'Simon Hod.' These names do not occur in any previous document. The date of the record, it will be observed, is in the spring of the year following that in which the king made his progress through Lancashire, and stayed for some time at Nottingham on his return southward.
The office of valet, or _porteur de la chambre_, in those days, was probably similar to that of the present groom of the chamber, and if so, was a highly respectable and confidential post. In the ballad, Robin Hood is represented, while at court, as spending his money freely with knights and squires. His profusion, indeed, soon exhausted his purse, which the daily pay of 3d., however munificent it may have been at that period, could not replenish. Robin became, observes Mr Hunter, moody and melancholy:
'Alas!' then said good Robin, 'Alas, and well-a-day I If I dwell longer with the king, Sorrow will me slay.'
At last, he petitions the king for permission to pay a visit to his chapel at Barnesdale; declaring, that for seven nights he has not been able to sleep, nor for seven days to eat or drink, so sore is his longing to see Barnesdale again. The king consents, but only for a se'nnight; 'in which,' says Mr Hunter, 'I suspect a corruption, for there was no Great Northern in those days.' Probably the leave of absence was for seven weeks instead of days.
Now, it is remarkable, that in the Exchequer pay-lists, the new porteur's name continues to appear (once under the form of Robert Hood) until the 22d of November 1324. Under this date appears an entry, which Mr Hunter has given in the original Norman-French, but which we prefer to translate: 'Robyn Hod, heretofore one of the porteurs, because he could no longer work, received as a gift, by command, 5s.' After this, we are told, his name does not again appear. The 22d of November 1324, was just a year from the time when the king was at Nottingham, where he arrived on the 9th of November 1323. Robin Hood, if he then took service, would have been in the royal household about a twelvemonth. The ballad, however, makes his service last for a year and three months. The discrepancy is not great; and it may, perhaps, be explained by the circumstance, that when Robin left the court, it was at first merely on leave of absence; and he would, consequently, still regard himself as in the king's service until he had finally determined to renounce it, which would probably not be until at least his term of leave had expired. The remarkable expression in the record, 'because he could no longer work,' seems, as Mr Hunter remarks, to correspond with Robin's declarations in the ballad, that he could neither eat, drink, nor sleep; and if he remained longer at court, sorrow would kill him. This apparent coincidence, the author adds, 'may be but imagination; but it looks like a reality.' It must be admitted, that if the Robyn Hod, or Robert Hood, of the Exchequer records be not Robin Hood the outlaw, then all these singular agreements of names, of dates, and of circumstances, will make together a far greater marvel than any that is to be found in the ballad-story itself, which some sceptics would require us to disbelieve.
This, however, is only the commencement of Mr Hunter's researches, which we cannot here follow in the same detail. The ballads relate that Robin Hood, after continuing twenty-two years in the greenwood, died--through some foul play--at the convent of Kirklees, the prioress of which was nearly related to him. On this hint, Mr Hunter seeks to discover, through this relationship, the original social position and family connections of the outlaw. He finds reason for believing, that the prioress of Kirklees at that period was a certain Elizabeth de Staynton, a member of a family of some note, established near Barnesdale. The Stayntons were tenants in chief of both the 'honours' of Tickhill and Pontefract. One of them was prior of Monk Bretton, and two were incumbents of churches in that vicinity. If Robin Hood was nearly related to this family, the connection would raise him somewhat above the rank of an ordinary yeoman; it might, as the author observes, 'give him that kind of generous air in which he is invested, and qualify him for his station among the valets of the crown.'