chief seat was the castle of Pontefract, in the West Riding of
Yorkshire. He is said to have been popular, and it would be a fair
inference that many of his troops were raised in this part of England.
King Edward easily got the better of the rebels, and took exemplary
vengeance upon them. Many of the leaders were at once put to death,
and the lives of all their partisans were in danger. Is it impossible,
then, asks Mr. Hunter, that some who had been in the army of the Earl
secreted themselves in the woods, and turned their skill in archery
against the king's subjects or the king's deer? "that these were the
men who for so long a time haunted Barnsdale and Sherwood, and that
Robin Hood was one of them, a chief amongst them, being really of a
rank originally somewhat superior to the rest?"

We have, then, three different hypotheses concerning Robin Hood: one
placing him in the reign of Richard the First, another in that of
Henry the Third, and the last under Edward the Second, and all
describing him as a political foe to the established government. To
all of these hypotheses there are two very obvious and decisive
objections. The first is, that Robin Hood, as already remarked, is not
so much as named in contemporary history. Whether as the unsubdued
leader of the Saxon peasantry, or insurgent against the tyranny of
Henry or Edward, it is inconceivable that we should not hear something
of him from the chroniclers. If, as Thierry says, "he had chosen
Hereward for his model," it is unexplained and inexplicable why his
historical fate has been so different from that of Hereward. The hero
of the Camp of Refuge fills an ample place in the annals of his day;
his achievements are also handed down in a prose romance, which
presents many points of resemblance to the ballads of Robin Hood. It
would have been no wonder, if the vulgar legends about Hereward had
utterly perished; but it is altogether anomalous that a popular