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Overview
Why is the highwayman largely perceived as a romantic, glamorous and gallant figure? How is it that men who were really nothing more than bandits, who were often gratuitously violent, sometimes murderers and rapists as well, have become the swashbuckling heroes of history? To put their roles in context, the book probes into the economic, social and technological factors that at certain times made highway robbery highly lucrative and which help to explain why some of its exponents eventually disappeared from the scene. Finally, the legacy of the highwaymen on pub signs, in films and in fiction is discussed. Informative, stimulating and entertaining, from the pen of a true enthusiast, this book will appeal to anyone interested in the dramatic, murky underworld of history.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780752468204 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | The History Press |
| Publication date: | 09/30/2011 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 280 |
| File size: | 735 KB |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Stand and Deliver!
A History of Highway Robbery
By David Brandon
The History Press
Copyright © 2011 David BrandonAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7524-6820-4
CHAPTER 1
The Age of Robin Hood
Some claim for Robin Hood the title of the first English highwayman. As with other English legendary heroes, information about him is dubious and confused and if he existed at all, it was probably in the twelfth or thirteenth centuries. It is possible that his pedigree can be traced back through Philip, Lord of Kyme, to Waltheof, Earl of Northumberland, and Judith, who was a niece of William the Conqueror. Waltheof numbered among his titles that of Earl of Huntingdon, with which Robin is associated. However, some of the ancient ballads refer to Robin as a yeoman and therefore from a humbler estate than the nobility. Here some of the stories surrounding Robin Hood are considered, as are the activities of one or two other highway robbers from the period.
It is asserted that Robin and King John were deadly foes because both were intent on winning the favours of Maid Marian. Her father would have nothing to do with John's avid pursuit of his daughter's favours because the King was a notorious philanderer. Maid Marian is believed to have been the daughter of Robert, Earl Fitzwalter, who is buried at Little Dunmow church in Essex. Legend says that she staunchly maintained her purity until Robin was pardoned so that when he was no longer an outlaw, she could marry him with the full blessing of the Church. The churlish King John, however, is supposed to have been so outraged by the continuing rejection of his lecherous advances that after Robin died he sent her a gift of a poisoned egg, which she unwittingly consumed, promptly collapsing in a terminal swoon. King John has not enjoyed a 'good press' but the story of the poisoned egg sent by a frustrated swain to an unattainable female turns up frequently, and every time with a different sender and with different women recipients. The veracity of these stories may be questioned but the frequency with which Maid Marian appears in ballads suggests that she is useful if only because her presence maintains the romantic interest.
'Robin Hood' or very similar names were by no means uncommon in medieval England. Spice is added to the legends by the idea that he was born into the nobility but was then dispossessed and became the country's most wanted outlaw. These tales go on to say that he was pardoned by the King and had his estates restored. However, such was his love for the greenwood that he turned his back on a life at court and returned to his precious freebooting life. It must be remembered that an outlaw of these times was a pariah, officially repudiated by the law and cast out of the community, being left to fend for himself and to live as a fugitive, dependent on his own skills and a large amount of luck. Intelligent, brave and resourceful Robin may have been, but he was forced to take to the by-ways and forests with little option but to live by illegal hunting and robbery. He appears to have been a natural leader and to have surrounded himself with a band of faithful followers. He also enjoyed the adoration of the ordinary people, who saw him as their champion against the hated and oppressive Forest Laws and all the other injustices and insults that were heaped upon them.
Some scholars believe Robin to be a relic of ancient north European pagan beliefs. A robber with something of the folk-hero about him, and a somewhat similar name, turns up in contemporary France. It has even been suggested by the English anthropologist Margaret Murraythat 'Robin Hood' was a generic name for grandmasters of the witch-cult throughout northern Europe and that the name meant 'Robin with a Hood', referring to an important part of the ceremonial attire worn by such figures at the Sabbat. Even if his provenance is accepted as English, then it is puzzling that so many locations appear to commemorate his name. Robin Hood was certainly a peripatetic fellow. His name is obviously synonymous with Sherwood Forest but elsewhere across the United Kingdom are natural features such as hills, bays and tors by which he is commemorated, while innumerable spreading oaks across Britain are also ascribed to him.
Sherwood Forest does seem a particularly appropriate locality for a plucky outlaw who dressed in Lincoln Green and loved nothing better than alfresco banquets of venison, washed down with best English ale. In Sherwood Forest stands the Major Oak, which reputedly was a trysting place for Robin and his Merrie Men. Until a few years ago there was a hollow tree called Robin Hood's Larder where legend says that the outlaws used to hang their venison. The neighbourhood is positively cluttered with Robin Hood associations. Nearby are Fountain Dale, perhaps the home of the saintly looking but roguish Friar Tuck, and Edwinstowe, where Robin and Maid Marian were reputedly married. Close by are Robin Hood's Cave, Robin Hood's Hill, Robin Hood's Meadow and various other places bearing his name.
In the part of the Forest that has now disappeared under suburban Nottingham, Robin is said to have met the King, although we do not know which one, who on this occasion was disguised as a monk. They fought and the King is supposed to have dealt Robin such a blow with a sturdy stave that he knocked him out and carried him off to the court where, rather curiously, Robin was fêted and had his land and titles restored to him. There is no factual evidence to substantiate any of this. However, most kings of the period were obsessed with hunting and it is therefore likely that all of them from Richard I to Edward II would indeed have hunted in Sherwood Forest. The Major Oak and Robin Hood's Larder, however, would not even have been acorns in the thirteenth century.
If Robin existed, did he really spend time plundering the rich and being a general nuisance to the powersthat-be in the Nottingham area? Many early ballads describe him as 'Robin of Barnsdale' and he and his Merrie Men get up to a variety of escapades in this locality, not far from Pontefract in Yorkshire and close to the Great North Road. This would have made it an ideal location for a band of desperadoes who numbered highway robbery among their activities. One ballad mentions how 'Robin of Barnsdale' manages to outwit a sheriff in this area. There is not necessarily a contradiction between Robin being active around Barnsdale and also in the Nottingham area. Sherwood Forest was vast and its northern fringes would only have been about 30 miles south of Barnsdale. We can assume that outlaws would frequently have varied the site of their activities, particularly when there was a hue and cry.
Historians have located a number of men called Robert or Robin Hood or Hod in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in places as dispersed as Cirencester in Gloucestershire and Wakefield in West Yorkshire. All of them seem to have engaged in activities that were likely to bring them to the attention of the authorities. Perhaps the most likely candidate is a 'Robert Hood', whose name appears in a Pipe Roll. This was an account that had to be rendered by all sheriffs and it included details of tax liabilities in the area over which he had jurisdiction as well as the sheriff's own expenses. The date of this particular document is 1226 and Robert Hood is described as a 'fugitive'. It is not known, of course, whether this is indeed the famed outlaw but it is about the right time and place. The reign of Henry III started in 1216 and lasted for fifty-six years. This monarch successfully used his influence to promote a wide range of progressive economic activities and political institutions, but also presided over an appalling increase in banditry and other social disorders. It may be that in Sherwood Forest or elsewhere a band of outlaws, poachers and highway robbers existed who were well organised and who contained a force of particularly skilled archers who robbed the well-to-do. Perhaps they also acted as defenders of the poor against the more overt depredations of the rapacious barons.
The character of Robin Hood is highlighted in innumerable ballads, some of which possibly date from the period when the outlaw was alive but the majority of which were written in the eighteenth century and later. The ballad was a treasured vehicle for oral history and for entertainment in medieval England. Rather than being sung, it is likely that entertainers recited ballads and it is also probable that the stories grew or altered in the telling. Nobody wanted to hear about a dull, upright fellow with no known vices and so there would have been a natural tendency to embellish the stories in order to make them more interesting and to encourage the audience to want more. Among the Sloane documents in the British Museum there is an anonymous account of Robin's life that states that he was born in about 1160 at a place called Lockesley either in Yorkshire or Nottinghamshire. However, there is no Lockesley in either of those counties and the best we can do is Loxley in Staffordshire, a short distance from Uttoxeter, Loxley in Warwickshire or Loxley in the vicinity of Sheffield, which has various associations with Robin. Another ancient chronicler states that Robin was a Yorkshireman from Wakefield who took part in Thomas of Lancaster's rebellion in 1322. There are many other unsubstantiated assertions about Robin's origins.
It is interesting to note that three separate Scottish chroniclers from the fifteenth century all refer to Robin Hood as if there was not the slightest doubt that they were discussing an actual historical person. Obviously, it is not known what sources of information they drew on but the requirements of modern historiography, which rightly expect historians to provide verifiable supporting evidence for their working hypotheses, did not exist when these chroniclers were active. It is essential to maintain a healthy scepticism about such writings, but this does not mean that they should simply be dismissed. It is interesting to note, however, that there was a popular fifteenth-century proverb, 'Many speak of Robin Hood that never bent his bow'. This could be taken as suggesting that even then there were doubts in the minds of the populace as to whether this folk-hero had ever actually existed.
Perhaps Robin is a combination of bits and pieces, of robbers and rebels who did exist but about whom the stories have changed with the telling. The myth is a very potent one and even without embellishments and exaggerations, it is easy to see how it took root and became part of popular culture. The times in which Robin is supposed to have lived sharply demarcated those with power from the vast majority who had none. The King, the barons and the senior clergy all fought, duped and double-crossed each other in their search for greater power and wealth but were united about the necessity of exploiting the common people and keeping them in their place. As Christina Hole has said, 'Robin Hood was essentially a people's hero. 'Perhaps Robin, the man who haunted the thickets, forests and byways of England, accosting affluent travellers and persuading them to lighten their purses, was vicariously the fulfilment of what all the ordinary folk wanted to do – turn the tables on the rich and powerful. Robin outwitted vindictive sheriffs and cunning, greedy, worldly bishops, which was what they themselves would all like to have done. He defied the iniquitous Forest Laws of his day and ate till he was replete with the King's game. He apparently carried out his robberies courteously and happily disbursed the proceeds of his robberies to the poor and needy. That alone would guarantee a place in popular folk-mythology. In addition Robin was healthy and handsome, strong and audacious, a good lover, a man with a mischievous sense of humour, gracious and loyal to his friends. He is a cameo of the person everyone would like to be. He went round righting wrongs, rescuing languishing maidens, hunting in the royal forests, killing and roasting deer for alfresco banquets, all the time cocking a snook at the rich and powerful. It really did not matter that he perhaps never actually existed in this form at all.
Further confusion is caused by the existence of a play and more ballads featuring Robin Hood and various of his associates who often came to be known or at least referred to by the names of the characters they habitually played. So we hear of a Robert Stafford from Sussex whose name appears as 'Friar Tuck' in documents recording the fact that he failed to answer a summons for trespass in the early 1430s. A related difficulty concerns the supposed grave of Little John at Hathersage in Derbyshire. When it was opened it was found to contain bones of the size we might expect of a giant but there is no way to ascertain whether these remains are indeed those of Little John himself. He is supposed to have died peacefully in the neighbourhood although they could perhaps be the remains of an actor of very generous dimensions who played the named role. The Robin Hood plays may have been part of the ancient ceremonies associated with May Day, which leads some scholars to believe that Robin Hood never existed as such but was a surviving relic of ancient pagan practices, a symbolic 'green man'.
There is a strong and persistent tradition that Robin Hood died at Kirklees Priory, not far from Huddersfield in West Yorkshire and was buried in the woods close by. It is said that in his dotage, troubled in mind and body, he repaired to this priory for refuge and treatment. The prioress, despite her conventual vows, was a malicious and perfidious virago working hand-in-glove with Robin's many enemies and, while pretending to nurse him back to health, in fact allowed him, whether by neglect or deliberately, to bleed to death. Robin, realising that he was undone, is then said to have chosen his resting place by shooting two arrows out of the window of his cell and giving instructions that he was to be buried where they fell. One arrow rose high into the air, testimony even at this stage to Robin's skills in archery, but it plummeted straight into the nearby River Calder. The second, however, descended into the park surrounding the priory. The reputed site of his grave is about 500 yards from the farmhouse standing on the site of the priory and containing some remains of its fabric.
It is not difficult to see how the idea of Robin Hood could in time and in different circumstances evolve into a new hero, the highwayman, because the latter had some of the same attributes that made Robin such an engaging if probably illusory figure. The highwayman was to be found on the road, robbing travellers. Especially when they rode in their own carriages, on horseback or aboard a stagecoach, they were likely to be at least moderately well-to-do. Courage and derring-do were needed by the highwayman. Also, because he rode a horse he was probably a gentleman. Was it not part of Robin's attraction that he was supposed to have been a member of the nobility fallen from grace, perhaps the rightful Earl of Huntingdon who went on to turn against the very class that had humiliated and disinherited him? The highwayman too was a 'gentleman of the road' and the fact that he was likely to rob all and sundry and had no intention of distributing his booty among the indigent and deprived people of the area tended to be forgotten.
In considering both Robin and the highwaymen there is the same problem of inadequate and conflicting evidence. Robin's earliest mention in literature seems to be in William Langland's Piers Plowman, written between the late 1360s and mid-1380s. In this a drunken priest confesses that he cannot repeat the Lord's Prayer but that he can recite a 'rhyme of Robin Hood'. A more detailed account of his doings appeared from the pen of Wynkyn de Worde in 1495. Those who wrote about Robin, unless they were the querulous Sheriff of Nottingham, outwitted yet again and writing indignantly to Prince John, seem to have done so in a eulogistic style that carried over seamlessly into the general tenor of most writing about highwaymen. This despite the fact that the behaviour of most highwaymen was the opposite of Robin's dashing gallantry.
The ballads certainly portray Robin as a hail-fellow-wellmet, a backslapping sort of a chap, friendly and cheerful to all except hypocritical prelates, shifty, scheming sheriffs with their obsequious underlings, and zealous verderers and forest rangers. Robin was a bandit but the ballads and stories suggest that he loved nothing better than a jape at the expense of such people and took particular delight in duping them with a variety of cunning disguises. He and his men were therefore merry rather than actually mischievous. It is claimed that he never harmed any party that had one or more women in it. It is also said that he was devoted to the cult of the Virgin Mary and made every attempt, in spite of the attendant dangers, to attend Mass. Yet for all this piety, Robin could be ferocious and on one occasion is supposed to have taken part in desperate fighting in the streets of Nottingham during which, with an exhibitionist flourish, he decapitated his arch-enemy, the Sheriff of Nottingham.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Stand and Deliver! by David Brandon. Copyright © 2011 David Brandon. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction,1 The Age of Robin Hood,
2 Roads in Medieval Times,
3 Early Highwaymen,
4 Highwaymen and the Civil War,
5 Some Ladies of the Road,
6 The Highways of England Before the Industrial Revolution,
7 Highwaymen After the Restoration of the Monarchy,
8 Some Eighteenth-century Highwaymen,
9 Road Travel in Georgian Times,
10 Dick Turpin,
11 Policing Before Robert Peel,
12 Prisons and Punishment,
13 Street Robbery,
14 Jonathan Wild and Jack Sheppard,
15 Highway Robbers in Literature and Film,
16 Some Places Associated with Highwaymen,
17 Conclusion,
Notes,
Bibliography,