It is very difficult to identify a real Robin Hood in the history books and it seems likely that the legend is based on the stories of any number of real outlaws. There are two notable fugitives who lived during the reign of King John (1199-1216) that have been linked with the Robin Hood legend.
Eustace the Monk
The first is Eustace the Monk, who started out in a religious order and ended up as a pirate in the English Channel, sometimes pillaging for himself and sometimes as a mercenary for either the King of England or the King of France. He even managed to capture the island of Sark in 1205 before finally being defeated and killed in a battle with an English fleet off the town of Sandwich in 1217.
Fulk fitzWarin
The second is a noble called Fulk fitzWarin who held lands at Whittington in Shropshire. During his childhood he spent time at the court of Henry II, (John’s father) and had a number of clashes with the volatile Prince John. When John succeeded to the throne he stripped Fulk of his lands and gave them to one of his enemies, Morys fitzRoger.
Fulk murdered Morys and took up the life of an outlaw. He became a thorn in John’s side for three years until pardoned in 1203. He then fought against the king in the baronial war that culminated in Magna Carta in 1215, made his peace with the king for a second time and died around 1256.
The Folville Gang
In the 14th Century it was not uncommon for outlaw gangs to be made up from the landless younger sons of the nobility who had no real means of making a living when the king was not hiring soldiers for his foreign wars. One of the most infamous of these robber bands was led by Eustace Folville, a younger son of John de Folville, lord of Ashby-Folville, Leicestershire and of Teigh.
Taking advantage of the political turmoil that characterised Edward II’s reign (1307 - 1327) Eustace and his five brothers murdered, stole, pillaged and raped their way across the Leicestershire area for nearly twenty years. In 1326 they were strongly implicated in the murder of Roger Bellers, a baron of the exchequer, and in 1332 the gang kidnapped Richard Willoughby, a justice of the King's Bench, forcing king Edward III (1327-1377) to pay a huge ransom of over 1,300 marks.
Eustace later fought for Edward III against the Scots and received a full pardon for his crimes as a result. He died around 1346-7, a respectable knight of the realm, but one of his brothers was not so lucky. In 1340 Richard Folville, rector of the church of Teigh in Rutland, but still a prominent member of the gang, was dragged from his church and beheaded in the street by Sir Robert Colville, keeper of the peace who had been ordered to arrest him.
The Coterel Gang
Around the same time another landless group of noble younger sons, James, John, and Nicholas Coterel were terrorising large parts of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. Like the Folvilles, they too received pardons from Edward III for service in the Scottish wars and for a time Nicholas Coterel was made the queen’s bailiff for the High Peak District of Derbyshire.
The ’Real’ Robin Hood
All of these real outlaws strike a chord with the Robin Hood known today. They (mostly) robbed from the rich on the basis that it was more profitable to do so, they often fought against corrupt officials and tax collectors and some received full pardons in reward for services given to the king; familiar themes in the legend of Robin Hood.
Sources:
· Terry Jones, Medieval Lives, (BBC Books 2004)
· Dr Mike Ibeji, Robin Hood and his Historical Context (BBC History website, 2001)
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