At the same time, although he is found declaring to his band that no damage is to be done to any husbandman "that tylleth with his plough," nor to any good yeoman, nor to any knight or squire "that wolde be a good felowe," he delights in persecuting ecclesiastical dignitaries. A fat abbot, or a steward of a monastery, unlucky enough to fall in with him, has a weary time of it. The higher these personages, the worse the treatment meted out to them. "Ye shall then beat and bind," we find Robin directing his merry men; and as these ballads were but the essence of the public feeling of the age, it is quite evident that when at last Henry the Eighth made away with the monasteries, he must have had a very considerable and long-established force of popular sentiment entirely in accord with him.
One of the chief exploits of Robin with the dignified clergy was the traditional meeting with the Bishop of Hereford, in Skelbrooke Park, where he was said to have made the Bishop dance round an oak, and then, after plundering him, to have left him bound securely to the tree. Variations of the story are met with in plenty in legends of other outlaws and highwaymen.
That the Robin Hood legends impelled other romantic souls to take to the woodlands and be also Robin Hoods, in admiring imitation, seems sufficiently evident from old records, of which the Derbyshire petition to Parliament in 1439 is typical. The petitioners solicited help to procure the arrest of a certain Piers Venables and others who, it is stated, "wente into the wodes like as it hadde be Robyn-hode and his meyne."
Nottingham was ever a town inimical to our Robin; probably because it was nearest to his haunts in Sherwood Forest. In the earliest ballad extant of his exploits, we learn how, going piously into the town for the feast of Pentecost, he met an old monk whom he had once robbed of £100. The monk "betrays" him, and to prevent his escape the town gates are closed. Robin, seeking to leave, is captured, after a desperate resistance, and thrown into prison; and the false-hearted monk sets out for London, to convey the welcome news to the King, who will be delighted to learn that the bold outlaw is at last laid by the heels.
But Little John and Much waylay the monk, and kill him and his little page, and themselves, with the despatches, seek audience of the King, who sends a command by them to the Sheriff of Nottingham, ordering him to bring Robin Hood before him.
Arriving at Nottingham, these bearers of the King's commands are received with due honours and elaborately entertained. Finally, after much feasting and drinking, and when the sheriff and his men are sunk in a drunken sleep, Little John and Much steal their keys, kill the gaoler, and release Robin Hood. Then they return happily to the forest. The ballad ends by the pardon of Little John, in consideration of his fidelity to his chief.
Another ballad tells of the adventure of Robin and the potter. Meeting an itinerant seller of earthenware pots, Robin challenges him to the usual test of who is best man, a fight with quarter-staff. On this occasion he meets his match and is badly beaten. But there was never such a hungry man for a fight as our hero, and he then suggested a combat with swords, in which he was also vanquished. Then he changes clothes with the man of pots, buys his stock, and goes to Nottingham, where he sells them at less than cost price and so makes a speedy clearance of all but five. These he gives to the sheriff's wife, who then invites him to dinner. At the dinner-table he hears of a trial of skill at archery to be decided that afternoon, and attends and surpasses all competitors. The sheriff asks him of whom he learned such marvellous archery. "Of Robin Hood," he answered; and then the sheriff expresses a wish to see the outlaw. The pretended potter then conducts him into the depths of the forest and there blows a single blast upon his horn.
Immediately they are surrounded by Robin's own merry men, who compel the sheriff to leave his horse and other gear; glad enough to get away on any terms. Robin, however, courteously sends the sheriff's wife a white palfrey that "ambles like the wind."
Indeed, Robin was very much of a lady's man, and no outlaw worthy the name of forester was ever else. They were all squires of dames, and in this at least were equal, in theory at any rate, to the best "perfit gentil knight" that ever wore a lady's kerchief.
Courtesy to beauty in distress was ever one of the chiefest salves with which bandits salved their self-respect. No sentence of outlawry could make them rue, if to that principle they held them true. Even an outlaw had his ideals: to play special providence, to succour the distressed, to punish the oppressor, and "never to lay hands on a woman, save in the way of kindness." There were, of course, many lapses from these altitudes of conduct, but the ideal long remained, and only seems to have greatly decayed in the eighteenth century.