Sherwood in the twilight, is Robin Hood awake?
Grey and ghostly shadows are gliding through the brake,
Shadows of the dappled deer, dreaming of the morn,
Dreaming of a shadowy man that winds a shadowy horn.
ALFRED NOYES: Sherwood (1903)
King Richard the First, Richard Cœur de Lion, came to the throne in 1189 – and very soon left his throne empty when he set off on the Crusade to free Jerusalem from the Saracens. He was summoned home by the news of trouble and rebellion – but was captured on the way and shut up in a prison – no one knew where – and in England few believed that he would ever return.
When he went away, Richard left the Bishop of Ely to rule for him, but very soon the King’s wicked brother, Prince John, accused the Bishop of treason, made him fly for his life, and himself became ruler of the country.
John was a cruel, merciless man, and most of his followers were as bad as he. They needed money, and he needed money: the easiest way of getting it was to accuse some wealthy man of treason or law-breaking, make him an outlaw – and seize his house or castle and all his goods. For an outlaw could own nothing, and anyone who killed him would be rewarded.
When Prince John had seized a man’s lands he would usually put one of his own followers in his place – provided he paid him large sums of money. Prince John’s followers did not mind how they came by this money: for them the easiest way was to take it from the small farmers, the peasants and even from the serf. And not only Prince John’s upstart knights and squires did this, but many also of the Bishops and Abbots who were either in league with him, or greedy for their own good like the worst of the nobles and barons.
Many a Sheriff, too, was appointed to keep order and administer justice in the towns and counties by Prince John – provided he paid well for the honour: and of course he had also to force the money from someone weaker than himself, and obey Prince John however cruel and unjust his orders might be.
Such a one was the Sheriff of Nottingham, the little town on the edge of Sherwood Forest, and when Prince John came and set up his Court there for a time, he was naturally most eager to show his loyalty and zeal.
One evening he and his men came upon a serf who had killed a deer. Without a thought of pity, the Sheriff ordered the poor man’s cottage to be searched for money, and when none was found, had it burnt to the ground.
Then the wretched serf was brought before him.
‘You know the Forest Laws,’ said the Sheriff grimly. ‘All right, my men: one of you heat the irons quickly. Blind him, and turn him loose!’
‘No, no! Not that!’ shrieked the man. ‘Anything but that! Kill me straightaway! If you blind me, God will repay you! Mercy! Mercy!’
Prince John had ridden out to see the Sheriff at work, and at this moment he joined the little group round the glowing embers of the cottage.
‘What night-jar have we here?’ he asked carelessly. Surely, good Sheriff, you should have cut out his tongue first. You should keep silent and secret if you expect this bogey Robin Hood to come to his aid, as I’ve heard tell he does. Why, this man’s cries will waken the King in Palestine, or wherever he is now!’
‘Silence, you dog!’ cried the Sheriff striking the serf roughly across the mouth. ‘You ought to know better than to make this unseemly noise in the presence of His Royal Highness Prince John!’
‘Prince John! Prince John!’ gasped the man. ‘Oh, save me, sire! For God’s love, save me!’
‘Who is he?’ asked John casually. ‘What has he done?’
‘They call him Much,’ said the Sheriff importantly. ‘He was a miller once. But he was too fond of the King’s deer. See, his first and second fingers have been cut off: that tells its own story – a bowstring pulled unlawfully. Now we’ve caught him at it again: the law lays it down that for a second conviction for deer-slaying, a man shall have his eyes burnt out. A third time – and he hangs. But I’ll warrant he’ll find it hard to shoot a deer when we’ve done with him: I’ve never known a man to shoot by smell – ha! ha!’
The Sheriff laughed heartily at his own joke, and Prince John was pleased to smile.
‘Well, fellow?’ he said to poor old Much, who still knelt trembling before him.
‘So please your highness,’ gasped Much, ‘they burnt my mill to make a wider hunting-ground and a way to the stream so that the deer could come there to drink. How could I get my food but by hunting? It’s hard to shoot straight and true lacking the arrow fingers, and true and straight must a man shoot if he would kill lawful game, the rabbit and the wood-pigeon… I had two children, one died of want, and my boy, young Much, was crying out for food… We cannot live long upon grass and herbs like an ox, nor upon the roots that the swine eat.’
‘Oh,’ said Prince John, ‘so you decided to try a richer diet, did you? The king’s deer!… Was there no other way? No, no, Master Sheriff, let me deal justly with him… What of this Robin Hood of whom tales are told? Some rich man, they say – a yeoman or a nobleman born of some old Saxon family – who, mad fool, brings help to such dirt as you and your kin of law breakers, kills the king’s deer himself, and has even robbed a purse on the highway before now… Well, where is he? And, more to the point, who is he? Tell me that, and you shall keep your eyes to see your way to the gallows one day, I’ll be bound!’
‘I know not who he is!’ gasped Much. ‘Robin Hood comes out of the forest – men say he is the Good Spirit of Sherwood – and having brought help, he goes away as silently as he came. No one has seen him by daylight…’
‘Faugh!’ cried Prince John impatiently. ‘Take him away and do your work on him out of my sight. These rogues are too loyal for my liking, or for their own good.’
So four of the Sheriff’s men dragged poor Much away while a fifth drew the glowing irons from the fire which had been his home and followed grimly at his heels. But suddenly with a desperate cry he tore himself loose, snatched a sword from one of them, and made a rush at Prince John. He never reached him, however, for with a sudden vicious whine an arrow sped from behind them and laid him dead on the ground.
‘A good shot, truly,’ remarked Prince John, ‘though I could wish that it had but maimed him. A dead man is no bait for this Robin Hood… Who was it loosed this arrow?’
He turned as he spoke, and saw advancing towards him from the edge of the glade a short dark man wearing a green cloak over his suit of brown leather.
‘My lord,’ said the man, bowing very low before Prince John, ‘I am called Worman, Steward to Robert Fitzooth, Earl of Huntingdon.’
Prince John’s smile twisted itself suddenly into a scowl of anger.
‘Earl of Huntingdon, indeed!’ he exclaimed, ‘I have heard tell of this nonsense before – David Lord Carrick is the Earl – Northumberland’s son. What pretence is this?’
‘Pardon me, my lord,’ protested Worman, cringing before Prince John. ‘Hereabouts men call Fitzooth Earl of Huntingdon, by right of his mother and the Saxon line of the old Earls. He is my master, so I dare not call him otherwise!’
Prince John nodded. ‘I would know more of this supposed Earl,’ he said in his most cruel and silky tones. ‘Is he loyal, think you?’
‘To King Richard – yes,’ answered Worman with meaning in his voice.
‘Richard – Richard – everywhere Richard!’ snarled John. ‘Richard is dead – or as good as dead – rotting in some dungeon. That mad minstrel Blondel will never find him! I am King: King in all but name… This fellow Fitzooth: is he rich? Are his lands wide?’
‘Once they were wide indeed,’ said Worman, ‘but now only the house and lands of Locksley remain to him. The other lands he has sold.’
‘Ha, then his coffers must be full of gold!’ cried Prince John.
‘Even I his Steward do not know that,’ answered Worman. ‘I know only that he has some secret need for money, though what it is he keeps to himself and no one in his household knows except his friend and body-servant William Scathlock.’
‘How could I see him unknown?’ mused Prince John. ‘If I heard but a word of treason – well, we would see what was in those coffers… And you, my good fellow, should have your pickings – if you prove true and secret.’
‘Against my master?’ said Worman. ‘Can I betray him?… But indeed my duty to you, sire, overweighs all other duties… Then I will tell you how it can be done. Tomorrow Earl Robert is to be married at Fountains Abbey to the Lady Marian, daughter of Lord Fitzwalter. Tonight he holds a great feast in his own great house of Locksley Hall: all guests will be welcome and no close watch kept as to who they are. If you and the Sheriff come disguised – as palmers from the Holy Land, perhaps, with some tall tale of King Richard – you will have a ready welcome.’
‘I like the scheme,’ exclaimed Prince John who, for all his faults, never lacked courage. ‘Come with me, good fellow; and you, Master Sheriff, gather your men and come also: we have little time to waste. Leave that dead dog there – as a warning to Robin Hood should he come this way.’
When they had ridden off into the grey of the evening, and silence had fallen upon Sherwood once again, certain bent and maimed figures began to creep out of the nearby thickets and gather round the body of old Much the miller which lay where it had fallen near the still smoking ashes of his home.
‘He’s dead,’ exclaimed one of them. ‘Well, better than blinding… These are cruel times.’
‘Aye,’ cried another, ‘but when the King comes home from the Crusade, things will be better.’
‘But if he never comes back,’ muttered a third, ‘then that devil Prince John will be King – and God have mercy on us then.’
‘Here’s that poor lad Much, son of the man they’ve murdered,’ interrupted another. ‘What can we do for him? The old man went out to shoot a deer, for hunger drove him to it… Which of us can feed this poor orphan lad?’
There was a general murmur of pity while the boy Much knelt weeping by his father’s body. Then somebody said quietly:
‘Robin Hood will not let him starve. Look, here comes his man, Will Scarlet, carrying a sack. May God and Our Lady bless this Robin Hood who comes to our aid like some very angel.’
A man had walked quickly into their midst as he spoke, a tall man of some forty years of age whose costume of russet and scarlet well suited the name by which these poor outcasts knew him.
‘Have courage, my friends!’ cried Will Scarlet, lowering the heavy sack as he spoke. ‘My master and your true friend Robin Hood has sent me with this, fearing lest you should hunger. For he knows that the Sheriff and his men have been out in the Forest this day – and they ever leave misery and want behind them.’
‘God’s blessing on brave Robin Hood!’ chorused all of them, except the boy who still knelt weeping by the still body.
Scarlet went over to him and laid a hand gently on his shoulder.
‘So they have killed old Much,’ he said. ‘Have comfort, boy: he is at peace, and has been spared many evils. It was a quick death, see the arrow has transfixed his heart… Strange, that arrow never came from Nottingham armoury: it is such a one as my master and his servants use.’
‘Good Will Scarlet!’ cried the boy, turning to him suddenly. ‘Let me come with you and serve your noble master too. I know I am but twelve years old – but sorrow brings us quickly to manhood – and I would be revenged on these accursed murderers.’
‘Speak not of revenge,’ said Will Scarlet gently. ‘It is for justice that we fight… But come with me. We have need of a bold lad like you – and one who can be trusted, even to the death as your father could be trusted.’
‘Aye, aye,’ chorused the group round about them. ‘Be sure the old man died rather than betray your master, and so would any one of us. God save Robin Hood – King Richard and Robin Hood!’