Robin Hood of Nottingham and the De Kyme connection.

By Robert Henshaw

Robin Hood of Nottingham and the De Kyme connection.

In my experience whenever the topic of Robin Hood is discussed, the question most often asked is, 'Did he really exist?' Being Nottingham born and bred, I have never ever doubted his flesh and blood reality, but I am aware that wanting and believing a subject to be true will just not suffice. Hard evidence must be sought.

For any enthusiast of the Robin Hood legend, and I have been a devotee since childhood, that search invariably begins with these famous lines from William Langland's epic poem. 'The Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman', printed circa 1377.

`If I shulde deye bi this day-me liste nought to loke;
I can noughte perfitly my pater-noster- as the prest it syngeth,
But I can rymes of Robyn hood-and Randolf erle of Chestre,
Ac neither of owre lorde ne of owre lady-the leste that evere was made.'      

These words are delivered by Sloth as personified by a negligent Christian priest. A priest who does not know the Lord's Prayer, but does know rhymes of Robin Hood and Randolf, an Earl of Chester. So rhymes and stories relating to our hero were unquestionably known by the latter part of the 14th century.

Randolf De Bluntville, the Earl related to in 'Piers Plowman', was born circa 1170 and died 1232. Would it be unreasonable to believe then that Robin Hood was a contemporary of this great Earl?

It would appear that Langland perceived Robin Hood to be factual, somebody worthy of affinity with the famous 3rd Earl of Chester. Earl Randolf, the man credited in some quarters as having single-handedly recovered the throne for the Plantagenets, was a factual figure of history.

Andrew Wyntoun's 'Origynal Chronicle, circa 1420, under the year 1283 mentions both Robin Hood and Little John. Wyntoun saw Robin Hood as a real person, real enough in fact for him to compere our outlaw with Scotland's own famous outlaw William Wallace.

So why should Robin Hood not be a genuine figure of history? That question is usually swiftly followed by, 'Where then is the written historic evidence?' The answer, there is none, and why should there be? Robin Hood's adversaries, among others, were the false clergy as satirised so famously in 'Piers Plowman'. Who were the only people able to write in Medieval England, the clergy? Are these scribes going to put quill to paper and write down the deeds of a sworn enemy of theirs, of course not? If Robin Hood was real, then just who was he, and where do we start searching for him?

John Selden (1584-1654) keeper of the records in the Tower of London states,

'There is more historical truth in many of the old ballads than in many modern histories'

And so in the absence of historical evidence regarding Robin Hood, it is to the ballads that we must look.

The earliest extant ballads concerning our outlaw are Robin Hood and the Monk, (circa1450), Robin Hood and the Potter, (circa 1500), Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne, date unknown, but believed by Francis James Child, the great American editor of 'The English and Scottish Popular Ballads', to be late Middle Ages. And of course the very famous, 'A little Geste of Robin Hood', author unknown.

The Wynken De Worde copy of the Geste can be dated as being printed circa 1495 to 1500, although the original ballads of which the Geste is compiled are believed to be much earlier.

In all of these early ballads Robin Hood and his men are placed in a greenwood close to Nottingham. That greenwood can only be Sherwood Forest. In 'Robin Hood and the Monk', the greenwood is named as such.

Stanza 16 

And Littul John to Mery Scherwode.
The pathes he knew ilkone. (each one) 

In 'Robin Hood and Guy of Gisbourne' Stanza 57,

Towards his home in Nottingham. 
He (the sheriff) fled full fast away. 

The Sheriff ran on foot, from Barnesdale. Surely this implies a forest very close to Nottingham.

I have yet to find one early ballad that places Robin and his entourage elsewhere other than a forest adjacent to Nottingham town. Close enough to Nottingham in fact to make complete sense of 'The Little Geste'.

As to Robin's character in the early ballads, he is shown to be hotheaded, but courteous, pious, but quick to anger. In all of these ballads he is called an outlaw and classed as a yeoman, nothing else.

According to Geoffrey Chaucer, author of the Canterbury Tales, a yeoman of the Middle Ages was one step lower than a Squire; a minor landowner with the emphasis on smaller holdings. The yeoman status agrees fittingly with the character of Robin Hood as portrayed in the Geste. He is a man of independent means, as can be seen by his instructions to Little John, Stanza 67 in the Geste.

' Come nowe furth Litell Johan, 
And go to my treasouri,
And bringe me foure hundred pound,
And loke well tolde it be' 

Robin has his own treasury, stables and wardrobe. He can provide the gentle knight with new cloth, a horse for him to ride, and a packhorse to carry his baggage. He greets his guests politely at his lodge door. He washes and wipes his hands before eating. His feasts are magnificent, where swans, pheasants, sweetbreads, the best red wine, and of course the King's venison are served.

And contrary to popular belief Robin Hood never truly robbed anyone. His method of relieving folks of their money was not one of 'stand and deliver', but the more subtle approach of asking his guests to pay for their meal. Tell the truth about your finances and be rewarded, lie and be relieved of your cash

Robin Hood had no real necessity to rob people for money; he had his own source of income; a Yeoman's fee. Robin's purpose was to ridicule and humiliate cronies of a weak King; 'these bisshoppes and archebishoppes' placed in high office merely for being the Sovereign's associates. Those priests who did not know the Lord's Prayer, but wielded the ultimate power, excommunication, eternal damnation, were Robin's targets. His grievance was against the deceitful clergy, the French and Italians, given benefices in England and bleeding the indigenous population with outrageous taxes and other demands.

What did these foreigners care for our English laws; forget Magna Carta, forget the Provisions of Oxford.

Here in Robin Hood was somebody whose exploits captured the hearts and minds of the common man. Someone so revered by the ordinary man and woman of 13th century England that his deeds and adventures needed no written confirmation. His endeavours had sufficient strength of their own to be passed on orally in the taverns and at fairs as the stories and the rhymes that William Langland knew. Advocates promoting a Yorkshire Robin Hood use the 'Geste' to show how he operated out of Barnsdale in the West Riding. Therefore I too shall employ this epic ballad to explain my own beliefs and ideas as to where Robin Hood really carried out his exploits.

Barnsdale Wood in Yorkshire was never a Royal Forest. Sherwood Forest most definitely was, and as everybody knows it was the King's deer that Robin Hood poached. If one looks at 'Domesday for Nottinghamshire', you will see that Bassetlaw Wapentake is shown as Bernesedelawe; practically the same pronunciation, but not quite the spelling, Bernysdale, as used in the Wynken De Worde version of 'The Geste'. But remember, there was no set way of spelling or punctuation in the Middle Ages, and words would be spelt at the whim or the skill of the writer. Bassetlaw at the time of the great survey did and still does, contains Sherwood Forest in its entirety. Therefore when an anonymous clerk wrote the piece of doggerel, circa 1426, stating that, ' Robin Hood in Sherwood stood', or Robin Hood in Bernysdel stood, he or she was referring to one and the same place, Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire.

Accepted, Domesday was compiled in 1086, two hundred and fifty years prior to Langland's mention of Robin Hood, but what the survey does show is that the region containing the Royal Parks of Sherwood was at one time known as Bernesedelaw.

The mention of a place so very peculiar to North Nottinghamshire compels me believe that the writer of parts of the ballads that compile the Geste was a man local to Nottingham. Similarly the following excerpt from the Geste, Stanza 18, Robin's instructions to Little John, Much, and Will Scarloke.

'And walk up to the sallies and so to Watlinge Streete'

The line above is seen by some people as further indicating the setting of the Geste as being present day Barnsdale, Yorks, and the obscure Sayles plantation. The Sayles of Barnsdale, Yorks, owes its fame to the Geste, not the other way round.

In various editions of the Geste, sallies is shown as saylis, sayle and sometimes shore, (shaw) a small wood. The Reverend John Eagles, M.A., once of Waltham College, Oxford attempted to translate 'The Geste' into a more uptodate language. He transcribed sallies as sallows. My own conviction is for sallows, (Latin name sallix) the dwarf willow, of which there would an abundance along the Day brook; the stream running through the tract of forest where Robin's lodge was located.

The Roman road Watling Street ran from Dover in the south-east to the north-west and Wales. It never ran by Barnsdale, Yorkshire or through Nottinghamshire. The King's Great Way however ran from London via Nottingham, Papplewick and Mansfield, (a Royal manor), to Richmond, Yorkshire. A section of this ancient road is still to be found in 'Thieves Wood', Sherwood Forest, north Nottinghamshire.

The stretch of the King's Great Way that ran from Nottingham to Papplewick was known as Walton Gate. Gate in this instance meaning street, from the Scandinavian Gata. Nottingham was once one of the five boroughs of the Danelaw, so gate and street would be compatible, but for purpose of rhyme, the writer of the Geste used street. This Walton (Watlon) Street, was the Watling Street of the Geste.

Stanza 21, the Geste

Little John, Mutch and Will waylay the gentle knight, 'bi a derne strete' and south of Blyth. They can only be in Sherwood Forest.

Now I maintain that derne in this instance denotes dene, a wooded valley, and is derived from the old English, denu. The modern-day Valley Road, (derne strete) in Basford, Nottingham crosses the one time Walton Street, (Hucknall Road) adjacent to the site of ancient Brimsdale and this, I believe, is the area around which Robin Hood carried out his exploits. Close to Nottingham town just five miles away and within the ancient forest of Sherwood.

Stanzas 20 & 21 of the Geste as I determine them.

Little John, Mutch and Will walked to the copse of willow trees
Then on to Walton Street, and waited there
They looked east, They looked west
And as they looked south towards Brimsdale
Along the street in the wooded valley
There came a knight riding 

Walter Bower's Scottish Chronicles (circa 1440), after Fordun, shows in Latin under the year 1266, Brimsdale as the haunt of 'the famous murderer, Robin Hood, as well as Little John.' 1266 the year after the battle of Evesham. Unfortunately Bower does not give the source of his information.

A map recently published by the Nottinghamshire Thoroton Society of 'Sherwood Forest in 1609' (Ed. Stephanos Mastoris & Sue Groves) shows Brimsdale located just west of the ancient road known as Walton Street, and south of the Day brook with its willow trees, (sallows).

The notion that Robin Hood and his Merrie Men lived in Sherwood Forest for twenty-two years until pardoned by the King is, I'm sorry to say, just not feasible.

Forty years of research led my Uncle, Jim Lees, to conclude that the legend of Robin Hood was based on the deeds of a Nottingham knight-errant named Robert De Kyme.

I should like to expand on his theory and briefly explain how he came to this conclusion.

If we are to believe the legend then we must look for somebody of Saxon origin, supposedly of noble birth, with a pretence to the Earldom of Huntingdon. A crusader knight who, whilst fighting for King Richard in the Holy Lands, was robbed of his lands. Someone, who was outlawed as a youngster, pardoned, then outlawed for a second time and to die an outlaw. Someone who people called Robin Hood

Robert De Kyme, eldest son of William De Kyme and his first wife Rohaise De Tamworth, was born at Bilborough, Nottinghamshire, circa 1210 and outlawed in 1226. His Uncle Simon was tenant-in-chief for the vast estates owned in Nottinghamshire by the powerful Norman baron, William Peverill. The De Kymes were Saxon in origin, but earlier generations had married Normans.

The King pardoned Robert after thirteen months, as the legend states. And during this outlawry Robert spent his time with his Uncle Simon in Staffordshire playing the part of the country squire. Hence Robert's father managing the estates at Bilborough. Robert too held lands in Staffordshire of a great-uncle of his; these lands included Loxley, Uttoxeter and Chartley. Chartley, whose castle was founded by non-other than Randolf De Blunville, the Earl of Chester. If, as I believe, he carried on his misdemeanours whilst outlawed in Staffordshire, his reputation would grow there too. Robin Hood is sometimes called Robert of Loxley.

Robert's stepmother was Lucy De Ros, daughter of William De Roos, grandson of William, King of Scotland. William of Scotland's brother David was one time Earl of Huntingdon. On the death of John, surnamed the Scot, in 1233, the Earldom of Huntingdon was once again available. The title was not hereditary; but a gift from the reigning Monarch. Through past generations the De Kymes had a legitimate if somewhat weak case for ownership of this Earldom, but never held it.

Could this be one more reason for Robert De Kymes rebellious nature, the fact that his family was now no more than maintainers of the vast estates that could have been theirs?

Robin Hood was supposedly of noble birth, no less a person in fact than an Earl of Huntingdon. Robert De Kyme as a knight-errant was called upon to serve with Richard, Earl of Cornwall, brother of King Henry 3rd. This Richard became King of Almein (Germany) and was for a time Regent of England. According to legend, Robin Hood served as a crusader knight with King Richard the Lionheart.

But there is only one King mentioned in the Geste and that is Edward.

'Edward our cumly King'

Various interpretations of cumly have been put forward in an attempt to identify both the era of the Robin Hood legend and the Edward thus mentioned in the Geste. May I contribute my own version? The Oxford Concise Dictionary offers for the modern-day comely, pleasant to look at (usually of a woman). This could possibly be said of King Edward 2nd.

Again the O.C.D, Comely, Middle English, cumlich, cumli, probably from becumlich, to become.

According to F.M. Powicke in his book, 'Henry 3rd and the Lord Edward',

"Evesham was Edward's victory, won in the Marches' War. In a sense the prince, just twenty-six years of age, began to reign in the summer of 1265."

That I believe is what the writer of the Geste was saying' Edward, our king to become, our future King. Not yet quite the sovereign, but as good as. Therefore I believe that the King Edward of the Geste was 'Scottorum malleus', hammer of the Scots, Edward 1st

In the Geste, Robin Hood recognises King Edward and the King knows Robin. Why? Because Robert De Kyme served with King Henry 3rd at Shrewsbury and with the King and the Lord Edward on their French expeditions in Gascony against the Earl of Brittany and Richmond. Gascony was where Robert's discontent started to set it, fighting those barons holding duel loyalties who took money from Henry 3rd with one hand and attacked the English holding lands in France with the other. This is the time that Robert De Kyme changed not only his name, he took the nom-de-plume Robin Hood, but his loyalties too. He now supported the rebel barons' cause and it is after Evesham, 1265 that the Geste takes up his story.

Legend has us believe that Robin Hood fought at and met Little John at Evesham. Although I have no evidence that the De Kymes actually supported the rebel barons at Evesham, Robert at that time was a tenant of the notorious rebel baron Robert De Ferrers, Earl of Derby.

Robert De Kyme's Uncle Simon was married to Maud De Ferrers, sister of Robert De Ferrers. In 1246 Robert had to sue this self-same Uncle to regain lands which Simon had seized whilst Robert was away serving his King. Did not Robin Hood, according to legend, lose his lands whilst away fighting with King Richard? The rebel leader Simon De Monfort's support was drawn from, amongst others; families previously connected to the Earls of Chester. Randolf, Earl of Chester of 'Piers Plowman' fame died without issue and his vast estates were divided between his four sisters. One of the sisters, Alice, married William De Ferrers, Earl of Derby, father of rebel baron Robert.

But I can (know) rymes of Robyn hood ' and Randolf erle of Chestre.

Not everyone accepted King Henry 3rd's terms, (The Dictum of Kenilworth), after his victory at Evesham. Many rebels took to the forests to fight a guerrilla campaign against him. Robert De Kyme was one of them. Roger Godberd, who many believe to be Robin Hood, surrendered, demanding all his lands back or nothing. The King would not agree to these demands and Roger once again took to the woods, a named outlaw.

1265 and Robin Hood was now in Sherwood, capable of summoning his four score whyte young men with one blow of his horn. Not all of these men were outlaws, but Robin Hood was. In addition to supporting the rebels, Robin was one of Robert De Ferrer's tenants. And so evil was De Ferrers that he and his tenants were not pardoned until 1271. Robin Hood was outlawed a second time according to legend. Robin Hood and his band did not live permanently in Sherwood Forest. He would assemble his Merrie Men as and when a need arose, only for them to return to their everyday lives until the next raid was announced. They would be people of a similar persuasion, folks who did not agree with the status quo, and who wanted to redress the balance somewhat. Take from the rich false clergy and give it to the poor and needy.

There are not enough tales of Robin Hood and his band to last two months never mind twenty-two years. This is how I perceive the growth of the legend. Robert De Kyme never wanted to continue in the family business of farming. He wanted to fight for his King

'The Geste'

I love no man in all the worlde so well as I do my kynge.

Being rebellious by nature Robert was soon in trouble with the authorities and outlawed, to be pardoned 13 months later. Simon De Kyme's support of the rebel barons against King John had left the family nearly destitute and by means of a large fee to the king they had only recently regained their lands and status. The family did not need any more problems with a rebellious youngster and so Robert was disowned. Consequently he sold his sword to the King.

Discontent grew as he saw at first hand the favouritism and corruption that went on with the King's knowledge and support. The complete disregard for Magna Carta and the indifference shown to people who supported this historic piece of legislation caused Robert to alter his allegiance. He went over to the rebel barons' side and adopted the name Robin Hood to conceal his true identity.

After the defeat of Simon De Monfort at the battle of Evesham in 1265, Robert was once again an outlaw. He took to Sherwood Forest from where he waged a war against the corrupt clergy and their false ministry. He had access to, possibly owned, a hunting lodge in Brimsdale; a settlement within Sherwood Forest from where he directed his operations. He and his men would recede into the vast depths of Sherwood Forest to escape pursuit and for Robin to escape the wrath of King Edward.

As the legend informs us, Sherwood Forest (Bernysdelaw) provided Robin's refuge and all of his needs. He was never caught, as was the fate of other outlaws, but eventually died in old age. A man who had held off armies finally betrayed by a woman and he still an outlaw.

Robin's chief adversary was the Sheriff of Nottingham, a man who would hold no jurisdiction in Yorkshire Written historical evidence shows how Reginald De Gray waged war on the outlaws of Sherwood Forest in 1266/67, with very little success. John De Gray, a loyalist, and the man Robert De Kyme served under whilst fighting for his King at Shrewsbury, became Sheriff of Nottingham in 1264 and again in 1265. He knew Robin and Robin knew him.

Stanza 15, the Geste

The hye sherif of Notyingham, Hyme holde ye in your mynde

These outlaws of Sherwood Forest must have had a leader, but nowhere is this man named other than in the ballads that Selden says,

'hold more historic truth than modern histories'.

The intervening years between Evesham and his second pardon by 'King' Edward 1st gave birth to the legend of Robin Hood.

Well that's what I believe.
Robert Henshaw 2001