Groundbreaking PhD finding suggests Robin Hood wasn’t actually a good guy

Why did he lie to us?

ballad folklore hero leeds trinity legend phd robin hood text

You may have thought he stole from the rich to give to the poor, but a Leeds boffin has unearthed a lost text that seems to out Robin Hood as a bad guy.

Stephen Basdeo, who is studying for a PhD at Leeds Trinity, has found a text from 1727 which suggests Robin was in fact a corrupt politician.

He found the text in the Brotherton Library’s Special Collections, and brought it to academic notice for the first time.

The text found in Brotherton

In the story, a sequel to the legend, Robin Hood has gained a royal pardon and become a corrupt Minister of the State.

The moral hero of this story is instead the Duke of Lancaster, who tries to expose the now corrupt and embezzling former outlaw.

In an excerpt from the newly discovered tale, Robin isn’t exactly heroic – one extract reads: “How bold Robin-Hood, did abuse his good King, By keeping his Subjects, inclos’d in a Wood.”

This unexpected presentation of one of English folklore’s foremost heroes is, Stephen says, firmly based in the context of the eighteenth century.

The advent of dangerous highwaymen and pickpockets along with the rise of a middle class meant people were reluctant to idolise a thief.

Stephen Basdeo

Stephen believes the writers of the time were less likely to fantasise Robin Hood’s exploits.

He said: “Writers of the 1700s had a more realistic attitude to the kind of man that Robin Hood, if he existed, was probably like.”

The text’s full title is “Little John’s Answer to Robin Hood and the Duke of Lancaster”, and had previously been neglected because scholars believed it to be useless.

It was widely accepted before this that there were no more ballads of Robin Hood left to be found.