It may be said that few
subjects of yore can boast so bewitching an interest as the present: for
even now, after the lapse of six or seven hundred years, the names of
Robin Hood and Little John are
Familiar in our mouths as household words.
Drayton writes
In this our spacious isle I think there is not one,
But he, of Robin Hood hath heard, and Little John;
And to the end of time the tales shall ne'er be done,
Of Scarlock, George a Green, and Much, the miller's son,
Of Tuck, the merry friar, which many a sermon made
In praise of Robin Hood, his outlaws and their trade.
Robin Hood, from the best accounts, was born at Locksley, in the county
of Nottingham, in the reign of King Henry II., and about the year of
Christ 1160. His extraction was noble, and his true name was Robert
Fitzoothes, which vulgar pronunciation corrupted into Robin Hood. He was
frequently styled, and commonly reputed to have been Earl of Huntington,
descending from Ralph Fitzoothes, a Norman, who came over to England
with William Rufus; marrying Maud, daughter of Gilbert de Gaunt, Earl
of Kyme and Lindsey, to which title in the latter part of his life, he
appears to have had some pretension.
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