This passage is found in no other copy of Fordun’s Chronicle than one in the Harleian Library. Its suppression in all the rest may be fairly accounted for on the principle which is presumed to have influenced the conduct of the ancient English historians. See Note [1].
(23) —“a proclamation was published,” &c.] “The king att last,” says the Harleian MS., “sett furth a proclamation to have him apprehended,” &c. Grafton, after having told us that he “practised robberyes,” &c., adds, “The which beyng certefyed to the king, and he beyng greatly offended therewith, caused his proclamation to be made that whosoever would bryng him quicke or dead, the king would geve him a great summe of money, as by the recordes in the Exchequer is to be seene: But of this promise no man enjoyed any benefite. For the sayd Robert Hood, being afterwardes troubled with sicknesse,” &c. (p. 85.) See Note [14].
(24) “At length the infirmities of old age increasing upon him,” &c.] Thus Grafton: “The sayd Robert Hood, beyng troubled with sicknesse, came to a certain nonry in Yorkshire called Bircklies [r. Kircklies], where desiryng to be let blood, he was betrayed and bled to death.” The Sloane MS. says that “[Being] dystempered with could and age, he had great payne in his lymmes, his bloud being corrupted, therefore to be eased of his payne by letting bloud, he repayred to the priores of Kyrkesly, which some say was his aunt, a woman very skylful in physique & surgery; who, perceyving him to be Robyn Hood, & waying howe fel an enimy he was to religious persons, toke reveng of him for her owne howse and all others by letting him bleed to death. It is also sayd that one Sir Roger of Doncaster, bearing grudge to Robyn for some injury, incyted the priores, with whome he was very familiar, in such a maner to dispatch him.” See the Lytell Geste of Robyn Hode, ad finem. The Harleian MS., after mentioning the proclamation “sett furth to have him apprehended,” adds, “At which time it happened he fell sick at a nunnery in Yorkshire called Birkleys [r. Kirkleys]; & desiring there to be let blood, hee was betrayed & made bleed to death.”
Kirkleys, Kirklees, or Kirkleghes, formerly Kuthale, in the {xlv} deanery of Pontefract, and archdeaconry of the West Riding of Yorkshire, was a Cistercian, or, as some say, a Benedictine nunnery, founded, in honour of the Virgin Mary and St. James, by Reynerus Flandrensis in the reign of King Henry II. Its revenues at the dissolution were somewhat about £20, and the site was granted (36 Hen. 8.) to John Tasburgh and Henry Savill, from whom it came to one of the ancestors of Sir George Armytage, Bart., the present possessor. The remains of the building (if any) are very inconsiderable, and its register has been searched after in vain. See Tanner’s Notitia, p. 674. Thoresby’s Ducatus Leodiensis, p. 91. Hearne’s “Account of Several Antiquities in and about the University of Oxford,” at the end of Leland’s Itinerary, vol. ii. p. 128.
In 1706 was discovered, among the ruins of the nunnery, the monument of Elisabeth de Staynton, prioress; but it is not certain that this was the lady from whom our hero experienced such kind assistance. See Thoresby and Hearne ubi supra.
“One may wonder,” says Dr. Fuller, “how he escaped the hand of justice, dying in his bed, for ought is found to the contrary; but it was because he was rather a merry than a mischievous thief (complementing passengers out of their purses), never murdering any but deer, and . . . . ‘feasting’ the vicinage with his vension” (Worthies, p. 320). See the following note.
(25) “He was interred under some trees at a short distance from the house; a stone being placed over his grave with an inscription to his memory.”] “Kirkley monasterium monialium, ubi Ro: Hood nobilis ille exlex sepultus” (Leland’s Collectanea, i. 54). “Kirkleys Nunnery, in the Woods, whereof Robin Hood’s grave is, is between Halifax and Wakefield upon Calder” (Letter from Jo. Savile to W. Camden, Illus. viro epis. 1691).
“
as Caldor comes along,
It chanced she in her course on ‘Kirkley’ cast her eye,
Where merry Robin Hood, that honest thief, doth lie.”
(Polyolbion, song 28.)
See also Camden’s Britannia, 1695, p. 709. {xlvi}
In the second volume of Dr. Stukeley’s Itinerarium Curiosum is an engraving of “the prospect of Kirkley’s abby, where Robin Hood dyed, from the footway leading to Heartishead church, at a quarter of a mile distance. A. The New Hall. B. The Gatehouse of the Nunnery. C. The trees among which Robin Hood was buryed. D. The way up the Hill were this was drawn. E. Bradley wood. F. Almondbury hill. G. Castle field. Drawn by Dr. Johnston among his Yorkshire Antiquitys, p. 54 of the drawings. E. Kirkall, sculp.” It makes plate 99 of the above work, but is unnoticed in the letterpress.