Disclaimer:: Robin Hood does not belong to me. If Robin Hood and his gang did belong to me, then… well, I don't know what I would do. Maybe stare at them with my mouth hanging open for ever more.
If you wish to listen to a song while reading this, listen to "everything I do, I do it for you!" (you know, the prince of thieves theme tune…)
Enjoy!
If you had told me, when I was a girl that I would be standing in front of you today, I would not have believed you. I would have laughed at you, and told you that you were wasting your time even believing that this man could have been Sheriff of Nottingham. If you had known him when I knew him, you would have known a spoilt, selfish brat, who believed that nobility was a birth right. He would bully the village children, and he would order around the servants like he had every right to be there and they had none.
And then he went away to fight in the Holy Lands. A fools errand, a fools cause, not to mention a selfish one, for there were many problems to be found in England that he could have been fighting to change, instead of making a war where there need not be one. But away he went, and we received no word of him for five long years.
His father died, and his lands were seized by the Sheriff and given to Guy of Guisborne for caretaking. This was a shock in itself for when he returned, recovering from an injury that had resulted in orders for him to return to England.
The holy lands had changed him. No longer was there a selfish, bullying boy, but a selfless, giving man, who saw the horrors and injustices around him for the first time. Outlawed almost as soon as he returned to England, he resided in the Forests of Sherwood, close to his home town of Loxley.
The group of men who joined his course he loved beyond all others. Little John, Much, Will, Jack… all of them who stood by him day after day, helping him fight his own war against the Sheriff. For three long years they laboured in the forests, giving help where they could, providing money for taxes, food for the hungry and aid and hope where there was none at all. The little he did every day adds up to an insurmountable amount of sacrifice that he made for the people of the countryside.
When the news came to his ears that the Sheriff had died in his sleep, and Guisborne had been summoned back to London, he rode out to Nottingham to ensure that it was true, to save endangering all the people he had worked so hard to save. He ended up endangering himself, as the Sheriff had not died as the rumours had said, and hand stationed guards around every perceivable entrance to Nottingham, who captured him on site. This is you all know, and as for what happens next, no one is sure. But the next day, he appeared, injured yes, but still alive, back in the camp in the Forest.
A week later, the Sheriff stormed that hideaway, and didn't leave. The Sheriff died there, with an arrow in his chest, shot from the bow of our man. That tore him up. To be the cause of the death of another was unforgivable in his eyes, no matter what evils that other had done. When the locals clamoured for him to accept the post that King Richard was offering to him, the post of Sheriff of Nottingham, he reluctantly accepted, and together we all began to change the area for the better.
A better Sheriff Nottingham has never seen, and a better man I have never met. We will never forget you, Lord of Loxley. You will always remain the outlaw of our hearts, and we shall ensure your name lives on in Ballard and story. Rest in Peace, Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves.