June 20, 1740.
* * * * *
“The following was sent me a few months ago by the minister of Kirklees in Yorkshire, the burying place of Robin Hood. My correspondent tells me it was found among the papers of the late Dr. Gale of York, and is supposed to have been the genuine epitaph of that noted English outlaw. He adds that the grave stone is yet to be seen, but the characters are now worn out.
Here undernead dis laitl Stean
Laiz Robert Earl of Huntingtun.
Nea Arcir ver az hie sa geud,
An Piple kauld im Robin Heud.
Sick utlawz az hi and is men
Vil england nivr si agen.
Obiit 24. Kal. Dehembris, 1247.
I am, dear Sir, your most faithful and humble Servant,
JOSIAH RELPH.”
Note in Nichols.—See the stone engraved in the Sepulchral Monuments, vol. i. p. cviii. Mr. Gough says the inscription was never on it; and that the stone must have been brought from another place, as the ground under it, on being explored, was found to have been never before disturbed.2
2 On the disputed question of the genuineness of the above epitaph, see the Notes and Illustrations to Ritson's Robin Hood, pp. xliv—1. Robin Hood's Death and Burial is the last Ballad in the second volume.
“And there they buried bold Robin Hood,
Near to the fair Kirkleys.”
Lord Dalmeny, son of the E. of Rosebery, married about eighty years ago a widow at Bath for her beauty. They went abroad, she sickened and on her death-bed requested that she might be interred in some particular church-yard, either in Sussex or Suffolk I forget which. The body was embalmed, but at the custom-house in the port where it was landed the officer suspected smuggling and insisted on opening it. They recognized the features of the wife of their own clergyman,—who having been married to him against her own inclination had eloped. Both husbands followed the body to the grave. The Grandfather of Dr. Smith of Norwich knew the Lord.