The Pretended Grave
The Black Death of 1348 and the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 were memorable events in English history. Robin lived through both. Two victims of the Black Death in Wakefield included a lawyer and his neighbour, a local farmer named Robert Hode. He assaulted Henry Archer’s wife, injured Juliana Horsse, and built a haystack on the highway. The court fined him two pence for each offence, a day’s wages back then. Robin Hood, the archer, forester, and merchant who lived in the forest, did not farm the land, and he compared women to the Virgin Mary, saying never to harm them. They are different men.
Survivors of the Black Death placed two stone slabs by the roadside in memory of the dead. On one slab, they inscribed the deceased’s name and date; on the other, they carved a cross. Richard Grafton described the cross in his 1569 chronicle as “bearing a raised cross on a calvary of three steps sculptured thereon.”
During a road widening in 1607, workers took the slab inscribed with a cross to Hartshead Church, where residents of Kirklees worshipped. See the centre picture on the previous page. Then, they broke the other slab bearing the names and dates of the deceased into small pieces, saying the fragments cured toothache.
In 1850, hundreds of years after Robin’s death, Sir George Armytage II, seizing his opportunity to gain fame and fortune, built the standing hearse. He changed the farmer’s date of death from 1348 to 1247 to make it consistent with William Stukeley’s fictional Earl of Huntingdon. He then commissioned a headstone bearing the false date of death, complete with a rhyme in fake Middle English, and he finished by placing a small remnant of the memorial stone in the middle of the grave. Sir George then charged people good money to view the fake resting place of an imaginary earl. See Professor Holt for more.
Coming up to the present day, Mr J. Lees of Nottingham took the deception further by renaming the fictional Robert Fitz Ooth Robert-de-Kyme. He then inserted his invention into the de-Kyme family tree, claiming he was Robin of Nottingham. This could get someone in trouble. The de-Kyme family were Lincolnshire people, not from Nottingham, nor did they have any connection with the Huntingdon Earldom. Mr Lee’s fictional Robert de Kyme, not Robert Hood, became Nottingham’s fake Robin Hood.
Even the sheriff of Nottingham was from Morton in West Yorkshire. Being Crown representatives, they hailed from other regions, only staying in one place for twelve months or so (see below). He was the Steward of Conisbrough Castle in Yorkshire—John O’Gaunt’s deputy in Pontefract, Chief Bailiff of Yorkshire, and a parliamentarian.
1355....... .... John de Gresele.
1355.... ....... Roger Michell.
1356/57...... Richard de Grey of Landeford.
1358/59….. John de Greseley.
1360........... Henry de Brailesford
1361/62….. Robert de Morton
1363........... Richard de Byngham
1364........... Simon de Leek
1365/66….. Robert de Twyford
1367/68..... Sampson de Strelley, etc. etc.
Ten sheriffs in 13 years.
The Robin Hood tourist signs on the M1 motorway and elsewhere are incorrect. They should face Loxley, Barnsdale, and Yorkshire, where Robin was born, lived and died. (See Professor Holt for more on William Stukeley.)
Copyright © 2020, Graham Kirkby All rights reserved. NEXT PAGE
Survivors of the Black Death placed two stone slabs by the roadside in memory of the dead. On one slab, they inscribed the deceased’s name and date; on the other, they carved a cross. Richard Grafton described the cross in his 1569 chronicle as “bearing a raised cross on a calvary of three steps sculptured thereon.”
During a road widening in 1607, workers took the slab inscribed with a cross to Hartshead Church, where residents of Kirklees worshipped. See the centre picture on the previous page. Then, they broke the other slab bearing the names and dates of the deceased into small pieces, saying the fragments cured toothache.
In 1850, hundreds of years after Robin’s death, Sir George Armytage II, seizing his opportunity to gain fame and fortune, built the standing hearse. He changed the farmer’s date of death from 1348 to 1247 to make it consistent with William Stukeley’s fictional Earl of Huntingdon. He then commissioned a headstone bearing the false date of death, complete with a rhyme in fake Middle English, and he finished by placing a small remnant of the memorial stone in the middle of the grave. Sir George then charged people good money to view the fake resting place of an imaginary earl. See Professor Holt for more.
Coming up to the present day, Mr J. Lees of Nottingham took the deception further by renaming the fictional Robert Fitz Ooth Robert-de-Kyme. He then inserted his invention into the de-Kyme family tree, claiming he was Robin of Nottingham. This could get someone in trouble. The de-Kyme family were Lincolnshire people, not from Nottingham, nor did they have any connection with the Huntingdon Earldom. Mr Lee’s fictional Robert de Kyme, not Robert Hood, became Nottingham’s fake Robin Hood.
Even the sheriff of Nottingham was from Morton in West Yorkshire. Being Crown representatives, they hailed from other regions, only staying in one place for twelve months or so (see below). He was the Steward of Conisbrough Castle in Yorkshire—John O’Gaunt’s deputy in Pontefract, Chief Bailiff of Yorkshire, and a parliamentarian.
1355....... .... John de Gresele.
1355.... ....... Roger Michell.
1356/57...... Richard de Grey of Landeford.
1358/59….. John de Greseley.
1360........... Henry de Brailesford
1361/62….. Robert de Morton
1363........... Richard de Byngham
1364........... Simon de Leek
1365/66….. Robert de Twyford
1367/68..... Sampson de Strelley, etc. etc.
Ten sheriffs in 13 years.
The Robin Hood tourist signs on the M1 motorway and elsewhere are incorrect. They should face Loxley, Barnsdale, and Yorkshire, where Robin was born, lived and died. (See Professor Holt for more on William Stukeley.)
Copyright © 2020, Graham Kirkby All rights reserved. NEXT PAGE