But these theories are open to an objection stronger even than the silence of history.  They are contradicted by the spirit of the ballads.  No line of these songs breathes political animosity.  There is no suggestion or reminiscence of wrong, from invading Norman, or from the established sovereign.  On the contrary, Robin loved no man in the world so well as his king.  What the tone of these ballads would have been, had Robin Hood been any sort of partisan, we may judge from the mournful and indignant strains which were poured out on the fall of De Montfort.  We should have heard of the fatal field of Hastings, of the perfidy of Henry, of the sanguinary revenge of Edward,—­and not of matches at archery and encounters at quarter-staff, the plundering of rich abbots and squabbles with the sheriff.  The Robin Hood of our ballads is neither patriot under ban, nor proscribed rebel.  An outlaw indeed he is, but an “outlaw for venyson,” like Adam Bell, and one who superadds to deer-stealing the irregularity of a genteel highway-robbery.

Thus much of these conjectures in general.  To recur to the particular evidence by which Mr. Hunter’s theory is supported, this consists principally in the name of Robin Hood being found among the king’s servants shortly after Edward the Second returned from his visit to the north of his dominions.  But the value of this coincidence depends entirely upon the rarity of the name.[10] Now Hood, as Mr. Hunter himself remarks, is a well-established hereditary name in the reigns of the Edwards.  We find it very frequently in the indexes to the Record Publications, and this although it does not belong to the higher class of people.  That Robert was an ordinary Christian name requires no proof; and if it was, the combination of Robert Hood must have been frequent also.  We have taken no extraordinary pains to hunt up this combination, for really the matter is altogether too trivial to justify the expense of time; but since to some minds much may depend on the coincidence in question, we will cite several Robin Hoods in the reigns of the Edwards.

28th Ed. I. Robert Hood, a citizen of London, says Mr. Hunter, supplied the king’s household with beer.

30th Ed. I. Robert Hood is sued for three acres of pasture land in Throckley, Northumberland. (Rot.  Orig.  Abbrev.)

7th Ed. II.  Robert Hood is surety for a burgess returned for Lostwithiel, Cornwall. (Parliamentary Writs.)

9th Ed. II.  Robert Hood is a citizen of Wakefield, Yorkshire, whom Mr. Hunter (p. 47) “may be justly charged with carrying supposition too far” in striving to identify with Robin the porter.

10th Ed. III.  A Robert Hood, of Howden, York, is mentioned in the Calendarium Rot.  Patent.