In the footsteps of Robin Hood
Robin's death
Maid Marian is a late addition in the Robin Hood stories. There is only one woman recorded in the early ones – a nun who would be Robin's nemesis.
Betrayed by a nun
After leaving the king's service, Robin is said to have lived on in
the greenwood for over two decades. Then he went to his cousin, the prioress
at Kirklees Priory, to be bled for his health – a common practice
in the Middle Ages. The ancient document from which we get the ballad
has been damaged, including the part outlining the prioress's motives
for what she was about to do. However, it does describe how this nun betrayed
Robin, leaving him to bleed to death. She then took her own life, and
Little John arrived to bury his friend's body nearby.
Kirklees Priory really existed, dismantled by Henry VIII as part of his dissolution of the monasteries. The only signs of it today are the odd stone and bumps in the ground, but the gatehouse where Robin is said to have died still stands.
Although there is no record of when or how Robert Hood of Wakefield died, it is possible that he was the person who was killed at Kirklees, which is only 10 miles from Wakefield. The ballads tell us that Robin Hood was killed by a relative who was in charge of the priory 22 years after he had left the king's service. Robert left his portering position in November 1324, so if the ballads are about him, he would have died in about 1346 or 1347. The records reveal that, in 1346, the prioress at Kirklees was Elizabeth de Staynton, the cousin, not of Robert, but of Matilda, his wife. Elizabeth is recorded as dying in 1347, the very year that the Geste says Robin's murderer died.
The grave
A later story says that Robin fired one last arrow through the window
and asked to be buried where it landed. This can't be right. From the
room in the priory guest house where he is supposed to have died, the
grave is 650 yards (594 metres) uphill – almost twice the longbow
range of a skilled archer.
The site of Robin's grave at Kirklees has been a place of pilgrimage for centuries. The problem is: it's the wrong place. The grave has been moved at least three times. The original grave slab disappeared some time after 1665. A replica was made, but this was chipped to pieces by 18th-century canal workers who thought a little bit of Robin Hood's gravestone would cure toothache.
When the present site was excavated, nothing was found but earth – which isn't surprising if the grave had been moved. On the second replacement grave slab, there's a 19th-century inscription in fake 'olde English' – a poor attempt to establish the grave's ancient credentials. The book Follies, Grottoes and Garden Buildings describes it as 'a 19th-century precursor of seeing Elvis in K-Mart'.
More Fitz Odo?
The Robert Fitz Odo connection to Robin Hood comes from a relatively
recent piece of research (see Other candidates).
But there's evidence in the churchyard of Loxley, Warwickshire that this
link may simply be part of a tradition that was once well known.
Lying just to the north of the church is a mysterious gravestone. Its design seems to match what may have been the original Kirklees grave slab, which an antiquarian named Nathaniel Johnston sketched in 1665, before it disappeared.
There are three possibilities for the existence of this grave slab in Warwickshire:
- The whole thing is just a coincidence. That seems unlikely, however, given how similar the original drawing is to what is in the churchyard.
- It is a copy of the original grave slab in Kirklees.
- It is the original Kirklees grave slab, which was brought to Loxley by someone who believed that this was the real last resting place of Robin Hood.
What you can see today
Three Nuns Inn, Mirfield, West Yorkshire
The present public house was built in 1939 on the site of a guest
house of Kirklees Priory, run as a hostelry by three nuns from the priory
following the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539. The guest house
was located in what is now the pub's car park.
On the A644, close to the boundaries of the Kirklees Estate, Nunbrook,
Mirfield, half a mile from Robin Hood's grave. OS ref: SE2019.
Kirklees Priory, Hartshead, West Yorkshire
There is almost nothing left today of the old priory at Kirklees.
Its church and cloistaral buildings were demolished soon after its dissolution
in 1539 and the stone used to build Kirklees Hall, which stands on the
same site. What does remain, however, is the priory gatehouse, some 50
yards away. Sadly reduced almost to a ruin after a century of neglect,
the date of this stone and partly timber-framed listed building is subject
to controversy. Some architectural historians have suggested it is an
Elizabethan rebuilding of the original monastic structure, though it is
popularly thought to be mostly late 15th century. The upper room in which
Robin is traditionally thought to have breathed his last is reached by
an outside staircase.
Four miles north-east of Huddersfield, off the M62 at junction 25 towards
Huddersfield on the A644. On the private Kirklees estate and not open
for private viewing. OS ref: SE181212.
Robin Hood's Grave
The original grave slab has long disappeared. It was replaced by the
present neglected and overgrown monument: hammer-dressed stone walls with
ashlar copings surmounted at its four corners by fluted Doric columns
capped by finials, enclosed by cast-iron railings in the 19th century.
Built into the north wall is a tablet with a Victorian inscription:
Hear Underneath dis laitl stean
Laz robert earl of Huntintun
Ne'er arcir ver az hie sa geud
An pipl Kauld im robin heud
Sick utlawz az hi an iz men
Vil england nivr si agen
Obiit 24 Kal. Dekembris 1247
600 metres from Kirklees Hall, near Hartshead, West Yorkshire. On the private Kirklees estate and not open for private viewing. OS ref: SE170160.
