by those treasonous words,
I swear that thou lyest in heart.”
“No ill have I done thee,” quod Rhiban to king,
“In thought or in word or in deed,
Better I’ve served than the abbot’s foule men,
Who robbéd from them in sore need.
“And never I yet have any man hurt
That honest is and true;
Only those that their honour give up
To live on another man’s due.
“I never harmed the husbandman,
That works to till the ground;
Nor robbed from those that range the wood
And hunt with hawk or hound.
“But the folk you appointed to rule my stead,
The clergymen, shire reeves, and knights,
Have stolen our homes and impoverish’d our kin
And deny’d us what’s ours by full rights.”
The good king withdrew to consider the case
And did with his counsellors sit,
In very short time they had come to agree
On a ruling all saw justlie fit:
“King Bran, thenceforward, full pardon shall have,
By order of royal decree.
And the lands that his fathers and grandsires kept,
Have no other ruler than he.”
Quod Rhiban: “Praise Christ! This suits me full goode,
And well it becomes of us both.
For kings must be e’er protecting their folk
So hereby we swear you our troth.
“And vow we this day, to the end of the earth,
shall grief ne’er come ’tween us twain.”
And the glory of Rhiban Hud, eke his king,
i’this worldsrealm always shall reign.
Thomas led the crowd a merry chase through the greenwood and the exploits of the noble rogue Rhiban and his struggle to regain his birthright. Justice denied and at last redeemed was a theme that always swayed an English crowd, and it seemed now as if he played upon the very heartstrings of his audience as blithely as he plucked the psaltery. Both king and sheriff listened with rapt expressions; there were occasional sighs from the ladies, and grunts of approval from the men. Deeper and deeper did the spell become, recounting those days long ago—times all but forgotten now, but kept alive in his song. Inevitably, stanza gave way to stanza and the song moved to its end, and Thomas, singing for his king as he had rarely sung before, delivered the final lines:
The seasons pass quickly in the realm of King Bran—
As seasons of joye always do.
John and Will Scadlocke many children now owne
And each have another past due.
Strong sons and fayre daughters to them and their wyves
The Good Lord upon them has blest.
But the fairest and strongest and smartest who is,
None of them e’er has guess’d.
And Rhiban the Hud now feasts in his hall,
For marriéd now has he beene.
And summer has settled in clear, peaceful lands,
For Mérian reigns as his queene.
But we see not the fryer who wedded them two,
What has become him his luck?
Lo, newly installed in the bishopric there,
Is one: Bishop Fryer Tuck.
Good gentlefolk all, we have finished our laye—
A song of brave Rhi Bran the Hud;
Taking only from others what never was theirs,
He restoréd his land to the good.
But one final ride has our Rhiban to make,
Before his and our paths shall part.
See, he has outlived his queene and his friends
And bears he within a sadde heart.
He rides on his steede with a bow by his side,
Much as he has done of olde.
His long hair is white and his eyesight is weak
But he calls in a voice strong and bold:
“Once again, O, my fine merrye men,
We shall in the greenwood meet,
And there we’ll make our bowstrings twang—
A music for us, very sweet.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The High Cost of Heaven
And so . . . the legend grew, extending its reach far beyond the place and time of its birth. Not only did it travel, it changed in the telling as poets, singers, and wandering storytellers the likes of Alan a’Dale and grandson Thomas charmed their audiences by adjusting their tales to more closely conform to current local tastes. Rhi Bran y Hud the British freedom fighter may have faded in the process—transformed at last into Robin Hood the loveable outlaw—but the legend endured, and still delights.
Some readers may bridle at the central premise of this series: that a scant handful of homegrown volunteer warriors could successfully stand against the combined might of an entire army of heavily fortified professional soldiers.
As unlikely as it seems, this exact scenario was repeated time and again in British history. One of the best examples took place in 1415 in what has become famous as the Battle of Agincourt. Not only did a vastly inferior British force confront the best and boldest knights of France on a muddy farm field a stone’s throw away from the little northern town, but