In the days of Henry VIII, eminent Scottish historian John Major looked back to the reign of Richard the Lionheart and sketched the character of legendary outlaw Robin Hood.
1189-1199
King Henry VIII 1509-1547 to Queen Elizabeth I 1558-1603
In his Historia Majoris Britanniæ (1521), the eminent Scottish historian John Major (1467-1550) reflected at length on the life of King Richard I. Then all of a sudden he began to speak of Robin Hood (or Robert, as he called him), thus becoming the earliest authority we have for the tradition that Robin was a contemporary of Richard and John.
ABOUT this time it was, as I conceive, that there flourished those most famous robbers Robert Hood,* an Englishman, and Little John, who lay in wait in the woods, but spoiled of their goods those only that were wealthy.* They took the life of no man, unless either he attacked them or offered resistance in defence of his property. Robert supported by his plundering one hundred bowmen, ready fighters every one, with whom four hundred of the strongest would not dare to engage in combat. The feats of this Robert are told in song all over Britain. He would allow no woman to suffer injustice, nor would he spoil the poor, but rather enriched them from the plunder taken from abbots.* The robberies of this man I condemn, but of all thieves he was the prince and the most gentle.
* In John Major’s Latin original, Robertus Hudus.
* See for example Robin Hood and the Debt of Honour.
* Today, Robin’s name is sometimes invoked by champions of the forcible redistribution of property by the State. It is difficult, however, to imagine him entrusting such a mission to the likes of the Sheriff of Nottingham or the Church hierarchy. See also Adam Smith on Fit and Proper Persons, and stories tagged Robin Hood.
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Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.