The Doctor seems, by this pedigree, to have founded our hero’s pretensions on his descent from Roisia, sister of Robert Fitzgilbert, husband of Alice, youngest daughter of Judith, Countess of Huntingdon, which, whatever it might do in those times, would scarcely be thought sufficient to support such a claim at present. Beside, though John the Scot died without issue, he left three sisters, all married to powerful barons, either in Scotland or in England, none of whom, however, assumed the title. It is, therefore, probable, after all, that Robin Hood derived his earldom by some other channel.
Dr. Stukeley, whose learned labours are sufficiently known and esteemed, was a professed antiquary, and a beneficed clergyman of the Church of England. He has not, it is true, thought it necessary to cite any ancient or other authority in support of the above representations; nor is it in the editor’s power to supply the deficiency. Perhaps, indeed, the Doctor might think himself entitled to expect that his own authority would be deemed sufficient: upon that, however, they must be content to rest. Sit fides penes auctorem! Mr. Parkin, who published “A reply to the peevish, weak, and malevolent objections brought by Dr. Stukeley in his Origines Roystonianæ, No. 2” (Norwich, 1748, 4to), terms “his pedigree of Robin Hood, quite jocose, an original indeed!” (See pp. 27, 32.)
Otho and Fitz-Otho, it must be confessed, were common names among the Anglo-Normans,* but no such name as Othes, Ooth, Fitz-Othes, or Fitz-Ooth, has been elsewhere met with. Philip de Kime, also, was certainly a considerable landholder in the county of Lincoln in the time of King Henry II., but it nowhere appears, except from Dr. Stukeley, that his surname was Fitz-Ooth.
The Doctor likewise informs us that the arms of Ralph Fitz-Ooth, and consequently of our hero, were “g. two bendlets engrailed, o.”
* “Filius Roberti filii Odonis est in custodia Domini Regis, et est vj annorum, et ipse est heres decime partis unius militis, et vix possunt inde habere victum suum ipse et mater sua.” Rotulus de vidius, &c. (31 H. 2) MSS. Har. 624.
[12] Grafton’s Chronicle, p. 85.
[13] Collec. i. 54.
[14] See Robin Hood’s Progress to Nottingham, part ii. ballad 2.