The Battle Abbey Roll. Vol. II.
by
The Duchess of Cleveland.
Prepared by Michael A. Linton
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Fitz Otes : Otto Aurifaber or Aurifex held a barony in Essex in 1806 (Domesday). "Morant and Kelham agree that this Otto the goldsmith was ancestor of Thomas Fitz Otho, mint-master or engraver for the King's mint; and that the last of the male line of his family died in 1282. Otto the younger, by a charter still remaining in the Tower, and directed to Maurice Bishop of London, in or before the seventh Hen. I., had 'the mystery of the dies' restored to him, which his father had held, together with all other his offices, and certain lands. The same privilege was afterwards conferred by the same King to William Fitz Otto the grandson. The office which these persons successively held appears to have been that of cuneator or manager of the dies. Madox, in his History of the Exchequer, says he claimed the old and broken dies as his fee; which claim was allowed to Thomas Fitz Otto in the 49th Hen. III. on his petition to the King in the Court of Exchequer, that they belonged to him of right and inheritance, and that his ancestors had been accustomed to have them. This, upon examination, was found to be true. The serjeanty continued in a female branch of Otto's family at least as late as the first of Edward III.
"In the Testa de Nevill, p. 362, it is said, 'Willelmus fil. Ote tenet in Lilleston, Midd. in serjean. unam carucatam terra? quae valet xls per servicium signa R. monetae et facit servitum per totum annum.'"—Sir Henry Ellis.
"Otto Aurifaber" was employed to make the Conqueror's monument in the church of St. Stephen's, Caen; and "a mass of gold and silver and precious stones" was handed over to him for the work. "The coffin itself, wrought of a single stone, and supported by three columns of marble, was surmounted by a shrine of splendid workmanship, blazing with all the precious materials which had been entrusted to the cunning hand of Otto. On that shrine the epitaph of William was graven in letters of gold."—Freeman.
This famous goldsmith was succeeded in his Essex barony by his son William Fitz Otto and his grandson Otto Fitz William, who, according to Morant, was Sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire the seven last years of Henry II., and the first two of Richard I., and gave his name to Belchamp Otton, or Otes, near Castle Hedingham, which he had acquired in the former reign. The next heir, another William, who, with his mother, paid scutage for two knight's fees in 1200, left his son Otto a minor, for in 1214 Robert de Vere, third Earl of Oxford, bought of the King "the wardship of the heir of William Fiz-Oates, to marry to his niece." This Otto was still living in 1256. William, his son, had no children, and the inheritance passed to a nephew, Thomas Fitz Otes, engraver to the King's mint, who married Beatrice de Beauchamp, one of the heiresses of the last Baron of Bedford, and died in 1274. He left a son and three daughters. The son, who survived him eight years only, died s. p., and the three daughters, Johanna, Maud, and Beatrice, inherited; but the eldest and youngest were either spinsters, or childless wives, and both their shares accrued to Maud. She was married in 1302 to Sir John de Boutetourt of Mendlesham in Suffolk, summoned to parliament as Lord Boutetourt in 1307, by whom she had four sons, and a daughter named Beatrix, the wife of William Latimer.[1]
In addition to this baronial line, there were various junior branches of the family, and one of them undoubtedly gave birth to Robin Hood. "His true name," says Thoroton, "was Robert Fitzooth, or Fitz Othes, but agreeably to the custom of dropping the Norman addition Fitz, and the two last letters being turned into d, he was vulgarly called Ood or Hood."[2] His arms, given (on the same authority) as Gules two bends engrailed Or, were evidently derived from the coat of Fitz Otes of Essex, Azure 3 bends Or: a canton dexter Argent, and sometimes Ermine. There seems little doubt that Robin Hood was of gentle birth, and that Leland had good authority for calling him nobilis ille exlex. But Thoroton proceeds to assert that "it is probable he might claim the title of Earl of Huntingdon, by reason of John Scot, tenth Earl, dying s. p., as he was heir by the female line, as descended from Gilbert of Gaunt, Earl of Kyme and Lindsey. This title, it seems, lay dormant ninety years after Robert's death, and about ten of the last years of his life." In support of this popular fallacy, he gives the pedigree. I have here inserted, and which I should have thought it impossible for the most credulous mind to accept. Gilbert of Gaunt's wife was Alice de Montfort; there is no record of any second marriage; and as he died in the reign of William Rufus, he could scarcely have been the son-in-law of the co-heiress of the Countess Judith, who survived till 1140. I may add that the Fitz Ooth brought up by the Earl of Oxford, and represented as Robert's father, might in reality have been his son or grandson, as he was still a minor in 1214, when Robert must have been at the very least fifty years old. It was owing to the glamour of romance with which later generations have invested their favourite hero, "the gentlest thiefe that ever was," and the record of his "robberies, frolics, clemency, and charities," that this illustrious descent was invented, and he was credited with an Earldom.
The place of his birth, which occurred between 1160-70, is uncertain, and has been claimed by various localities. All the old ballads unanimously pronounce in favour of "merry sweet Locksley town" in Notts, but unfortunately no such place exists in the county. There is a Loxley in Staffordshire, a Locksley in Warwickshire, and Loxley Chase, traversed by the river Loxley, in Hallamshire, "which," says Hunter, "seems to have the fairest pretension to be the Locksley of our own ballads, where was born that redoubtable hero Robin Hood. The remains of a house in which it was pretended he was born was formerly pointed out in Bar-wood, and a well of fair clear water rising near the bed of the river has been called, from time immemorial, Robin Hood's well." Loxley in Staffordshire, where there is a similar tradition, belonged to the Ferrers, and "the family of Fitz Otho were subfeudatories of the Ferrers in the time of King John."—Lipscomb's Bucks. "This famed robber," continues Thoroton, "may have been driven to this course of life on account of the attainder of himself or relatives, or of the intestine troubles during the reign of Henry II., when the son of that King was in arms against his father. The Ferrers being Lords of Loxley, the birthplace of our hero, and Robert de Ferrers manning the castles of Tutbury and Duffield on behalf of that prince, William Fitz Ooth, Robert's father, might by his connection with that family be implicated in the guilt and consequences of that rebellion. Thus might it happen, that Robin Hood was possessed of no paternal estate and deprived of the title of Earl of Huntingdon, and driven to take refuge in the woods and forests to avoid the punishment of his own or his father's crimes against the State." But there is no evidence to show that the Fitz Otes family were undertenants of Loxley; whereas Dugdale tells us that Robert Fitz Otes was Lord of Westcote and Locksley in Warwickshire, holding of the Barons of Stafford, in the time of Henry II. He left three daughters his co-heirs: Basilia (mentioned in 1201), who married Peter de Mora, and was the mother of Ralph le Falconer; Agnes, the wife of William Trussell; and Margerie, married to William Bagot. This is the family to which, in all likelihood, Robin Hood belonged, and, "being of a wild and extravagant disposition, so prodigiously exceeded in charges and expenses," that he ruined himself, and was cast adrift to make his living as best he could. It is just possible that he may have been the disowned brother of these three sisters. Little did they ever dream of the time to come, when the renown of having given him birth would be eagerly sought for and jealously contested, and the scapegrace of the family transformed into a disguised Earl!
Robin Hood, "the prince of thieves," who robbed the rich to feed the poor, was the darling of the common people, and lived in their memory for many centuries after his death. He has been called "the English ballad-maker's joy," for no theme was more welcome to the mediaeval minstrel, or gave greater delight to the listeners; and he and his merry men clad in Lincoln green have been the heroes of enough ballads and broadsides to fill several volumes. The story of his freaks and exploits was in every man's mouth; even Chaucer's ignorant and slothful priest is made to say—
"I cannot parfitli my paternoster...
But I can ryms of Roben Hode."
Most of these older ditties have perished. Those that survive are of subsequent date; but though some of the adventures they relate must be judged apocryphal, the greater part of the stories have evidently been handed down by tradition, and afford a vivid picture of the lusty outlaw and his doings. We see him brave and daring to a fault, yet a wary and adroit leader; loyal to his friends, and kind to the poor; fond of disguises, surprises, and every species of frolic; playing his pranks on all men, and chiefly on the "proud Sheriff of Nottingham"; yet clement and generous withall; "murdering none but the deer," and dispensing the venison among his neighbours with a free hand. There is a genial love of fun and good fellowship that runs like a key-note through the whole, showing that the life he led, if hard and hazardous, was none the less cheery.
"Ye were merry lads, and those were merry days,"
says the old ballad-monger: and Shakespeare's outlaws in the Forest of Arden (As you like it) "live like the old Robin Hood of England, and fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden age." While summer lasted, the free camp-life in the wild greenwood, among the glorious oaks and brake-clad dells of old Sherwood, must have been delightful—all the more fascinating for its flavour of danger and adventure; and though it had its reverse in winter, the outlaws would be then less molested by the King's officers, and either sheltered in caves and huts, or (as has been suggested) quartered on friends living near the skirts of the forest.
Though Robin was as merciless to priests as he was to usurers, and bore a particular grudge to the dignitaries of the Church—
"These byshoppes and these arch-byshoppes,
Ye shall them bete and bynde:"
making one captive prelate dance a saraband in his heavy riding boots round one of the old oaks of Sherwood, he was scrupulous in his religious observances, and heard mass every day. Once he was surprised in "that most secret recess of the wood where he was at mass" by the Sheriff and the King's officers. His followers urged him to fly, and most of them set the example of making off at full speed; but Robin reverently refused to move till the service was over; and then, setting upon his enemies with the few men he had left, took several prisoners and put the rest to flight. He held the Blessed Virgin in great veneration, and respected all women for her sake.
"Robyn loved Our dere Lady,
For dout of dedely synne;
Wolde he never do company harme
That ony woman was ynne."
His band numbered from one hundred to two hundred men, tried and chosen by himself, and esteemed the best archers in the country. Whenever he heard of "any that were of unusual strength and hardiness," he went, sometimes disguised as a beggar, to seek them out; and "after he had tried them with fighting, would never give over tyl he had used means to draw them to lyve after his fashion." Once, while crossing a long narrow foot-bridge, he found himself face to face with a stalwart young giant[3] named John Little (John Nailor, according to others), who was armed with a staff, and would not make way for him to pass. Robin, who carried only his bow, went and cut a staff for himself in the thicket; and the two men belaboured each other with hearty good will, till the giant dealt Robin a blow that sent him spinning into the water. Far from being angered or discomfited, Robin pronounced him to be
"A jolly brisk blade, right fit for the trade;"
enlisted him forthwith, and, equipping him with a bow and a suit of "the outlaw's colour" (the green livery of the forest) christened him Little John—a name that became almost as famous as his own.
"Thou shalt be an archer as well as the best,
And range in the greenwood with us;
Where we'ill not want gold and silver, behold,
While bishops have aught in their purse;
"We live here as squires or lords of renown,
Without e'er a foot of free land;
We feast on good cheer, with wine, ale and beer,
And everything at our command."
Robin was devoted to his followers, rescuing them at all risks—sometimes from the very hands of the hangman; sharing the booty to all alike; and standing by them even in their love affairs. He found his way; in the guise of a harper, to the church where Alan-a-Dale's true love, "a finikin lass that shone like the glistering gold," was being unwillingly married to a rich old knight, and swearing that "the bride should choose her own deare," put his horn to his mouth and summoned his men. Four-and-twenty came at his call; and, stripping off the priest's vestments, he put them on Little John, made him perform the marriage ceremony, and with his own hand gave away the bride to Alan-a-Dale. His own fortunes were shared by a disguised damsel who went by the name of Maid Marian, and is popularly believed to have been Lord Fitzwalter's daughter, "the chaste Matilda, poysoned at Dunmow by King John." But there is no possible ground for identifying her with Maud Fitzwalter, and I may add that she is not alluded to in the Lytell Geste of Robyn Hode, or the older ballads.
Though Sherwood was his usual haunt, Robin and his band ranged over a wide extent of country. He was often to be found in Barnesdale in Yorkshire, and Plompton Park, a forest in Cumberland; and when closely pressed, he was wont to cross the moors towards Whitby, strike the seacoast at a place, still called Robin Hood's Bay, about six miles beyond, where he always had some fishing boats in readiness, and "putting off to sea, hold the whole power of the English nation at defiance." Once (it was in 1188) when he and Little John were dining at Whitby Abbey, the Abbot asked them to show him a specimen of their skill with the long bow. "To oblige him, they went up to the top of the Abbey, whence each of them shot an arrow, which fell not far from Whitby Laths, a distance of more than a measured mile; but when we consider the advantage they must have from so great an elevation (the Abbey standing on a high cliff) the fact will not appear so very extraordinary. The Abbot set up a pillar where each arrow fell, and these were still standing in 1779, each pillar retaining the name of the owner of the arrow."—Thoroton's Notts. Robin lived for fifty-nine years after this, and must have been at least eighty when he died. The great Justiciary, Hubert de Burgh, had set a price upon his head, but he could be taken neither by force or stratagem, and fell a victim at last to foul play. "Being dystempered with could and age, he had great payne in his lymmes," and sought relief in the loss of blood, in those times a universal specific, but the last remedy we should now think of for rheumatism. He had a kinswoman "skilful in physique" who was Prioress of Kirklees, near Leeds; and to her he went to be bled; but the perfidious cousin, incited by her paramour Sir Roger of Doncaster, who owed Robin some grudge, opened the vein of his arm and left him, locked up in a narrow cell, to bleed to death. As he lay there, helpless and despairing, feeling his life ebb slowly away, he "bethought him of his bugle horn," and raising it for the last time to his lips, attempted to summon his comrades. The blast was faint and uncertain; and Little John, as he caught the sound "in the greenwood where he lay," was struck with dismay:
"I feare my master is nigh dead,
He blows so wearilie."
He sprung up on the instant, led his men to Kirklees, and, breaking open the convent gates, forced his way to his dying chief. He was too far gone for
human aid; and Little John, thirsting for revenge, proposed to burn down "Kirklees Hall and all their nunnery." But Robin would not hear of it:
"I never hurt fair maid in my time,
Nor at my end shall it be:
But give me my bent bow in my hand,
And a broad arrow I'll let flee;
And where this arrow is taken up,
There shall my grave digg'd be."
His faithful henchman helped him to the casement, put the bow in his hand, and raised him in his arms as, with a last supreme effort, he struggled to his feet, and bent it once again. He shot two arrows; the first fell in the river Calder, but the second lighted in the park at Kirklees, where he was buried according to his desire, and a stone placed (it is said by the treacherous Prioress herself) to mark his grave. A tombstone bearing a very ancient cross remained in 1750; but is now replaced by one inscribed with the spurious epitaph that found a place in the collections of the late learned Dean of York, Dr. Gale:
"Dear undernead dis Iaitl stean
laiz robert earl of Duntingtun
near arcir ber az hic sa geud
an pipl kauld im robin heud
sick utlauz az hi an iz men
bil england nibr si agen.
obiit 24 (r. 14) kal. dekembris 1247."
But, though no one puts faith in the inscription, the site, at least, is believed to be genuine. "It is no small confirmation of this opinion," writes Thoresby, "that the spot pointed out for the place of his interment is beyond the precinct of the nunnery, and therefore not in consecrated ground. He was buried as a robber and outlaw, out of the peace of the church. Yet on the stone which was supposed to cover his remains, and was entire in the year 1750, there was a cross of the precise form which was in use at the beginning of the thirteenth century. But this difficulty will be removed by reflecting that at the dissolution of the nunnery many ancient gravestones would remain, and that, the place of the outlaw's interment being still notorious and popular, one of them might be removed hither to mark a place which perhaps an older memorial had ceased to recall. Moreover, this stone never had an inscription; therefore, either the epitaph first produced by Dr. Gale is spurious, or my hypothesis as to the gravestone is confirmed, or both. I think the last; for, 1st, a cross without a sword can have originally covered none other than an ecclesiastic; and secondly, the internal evidence is strongly against the genuineness of the epitaph. If it ever existed, it must have been the invention of some rhymer in long subsequent times. But the spelling, so far as it deviates from common old English, is not according to the dialect of the West Riding, but of the North. On the whole, I should think it a fabrication somewhere between the time of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, when the terms archer and outlaw were become familiar."
His band dispersed after his death (though outlaws are still called "Roberds-men" in a statute of Ric. II. more than 200 years afterwards), but the affection felt for his memory was as remarkable as it was enduring. Not only in the counties that had been his favourite resort, but throughout the whole of England it was cherished and held dear, and it cannot even yet be said to have died out.[4] Fuller included him in his list of Worthies, "not for his thievery, but for his gentleness;" and Walter Scott has immortalised him in his 'Ivanhoe.' No mediaeval masque was complete without him, Maid Marian, and the faithful Little John; and the celebration of Robin Hood's Day on the 1st of May, with its games and sports, and merry crew of mummers and morris-dancers, went on rejoicingly till it was put a stop to by the Puritans.[5] Indeed, no public servant that ever earned the thanks of the State has lived so long in popular estimation as the outlawed robber who loved and fed the poor.
"Nine times round,
Robin Hood's charm—
If it does thee no good,
It will do thee no harm."