This epitaph appears to me suspicious; however, a late antiquary has given a pedigree of Robin Hood, which, if genuine, shows that he had real pretensions to the Earldom of Huntingdon, and that his true name was Robert Fitz-ooth.[481] Yet the most ancient poems on Robin Hood make no mention of this earldom. He is expressly asserted to have been a yeoman[482] in a very old legend in verse, preserved in the archives of the public library at Cambridge,[483] in eight fyttes, or parts, printed in black letter, quarto, thus inscribed: "¶ Here begynneth a lytell geste of Robyn hode and his meyne, and of the proude sheryfe of Notyngham." The first lines are—
"Lithe and lysten, gentylmen,
That be of fre-bore blode:
I shall you tell of a good yeman,
His name was Robyn hode.
"Robyn was a proude out-lawe,
Whiles he walked on grounde;
So curteyse an outlawe as he was one,
Was never none yfounde," &c.
The printer's colophon is, "¶ Explicit Kinge Edwarde and Robin hode and Lyttel Johan. Enprented at London in Flete-strete at the sygne of the sone by Wynkin de Worde." In Mr. Garrick's Collection[484] is a different edition of the same poem, "¶ Imprinted at London upon the thre Crane wharfe by Wyllyam Copland," containing at the end a little dramatic piece on the subject of Robin Hood and the Friar, not found in the former copy, called, "A newe playe for to be played in Maye games very plesaunte and full of pastyme. ¶(∴)⁋."
I shall conclude these preliminary remarks with observing, that the hero of this ballad was the favourite subject of popular songs so early as the time of King Edward III. In the Visions of Pierce Plowman, written in that reign, a monk says:—
"I can rimes of Roben Hod, and Randal of Chester,
But of our Lorde and our Lady, I lerne nothyng at all."
Fol. 26, ed. 1550.
See also in Bishop Latimer's Sermons[485] a very curious and characteristic story, which shows what respect was shown to the memory of our archer in the time of that prelate.
The curious reader will find many other particulars relating to this celebrated outlaw, in Sir John Hawkins's Hist. of Music, vol. iii. p. 410, 4to.