The world was not his friend, nor the world’s law.

The deer with which the royal forests then abounded, afforded Robin and his companions an ample supply of food throughout the year.  Their mode of life and domestic economy are more easily guessed at than described.  Nevertheless, the poet has endeavoured to give us an outline in the following: 

  The merry pranks he play’d would ask an age to tell,
  And the adventures strange that Robin Hood befel;
  When Mansfield many a time for Robin hath been laid,
  How he hath cousen’d them, that him would have betray’d: 
  An hundred valiant men had this brave Robin Hood,
  Still ready at his call, that bowmen were right good,
  And of these archers brave, there was not any one
  But he could kill a deer, his swiftest speed upon,
  Which they did boil and roast, in many a mighty wood,
  Sharp hunger, the fine sauce to their more kingly food. 
  Then taking them to rest, his merry men and he
  Slept many a summer’s night under the greenwood tree. 
  What oftentimes he took, he shar’d amongst the poor,
  From wealthy Abbot’s chests, and churl’s abundant store,
  He from the husband’s bed no married woman wan,
  But to his mistress dear, his loved Marian,
  Was ever constant known, which wheresoe’er she came
  Was sovereign of the woods, chief lady of the game;
  Her clothes tuck’d to the knee, and dainty braided hair,
  With bow and quiver arm’d, she wander’d here and there
  Amongst the forests wild, Diana never knew
  Such pleasures, nor such harts as Mariana slew.

Robin took away the goods of rich men only, never killing any person unless he was attacked:  nor would he suffer a woman to be maltreated.  Fordun, in the fourteenth century, calls him “that most celebrated robber;” and Major says, “I disapprove of the rapine of the man, but he was the most humane, and prince of all robbers.”

Robin Hood seems to have held bishops, abbots, priests, and monks, indeed all the clergy, in decided aversion; and this hostility was strongly impressed upon his men: 

  Thyse Byshoppes and thyse Archbyshoppes,
  Ye shall them bete and bynde.

The abbot of St. Mary’s, York, from possessing so much wealth, appears to have met with Robin’s especial animosity:  his yearly revenues amounted to L2,850. 1_s._ 5_d_.  Robin was, however, a man of exemplary piety, according to the notions of that age, and retained a domestic chaplain, (friar Tuck,) no doubt, for the diurnal celebration of the divine mysteries.  This we learn from an anecdote preserved by Fordun, “One day, as he heard mass, he was espied by a certain sheriff and officers belonging to the king, who had frequently before molested him.  His people perceiving what was going forward, advised him to fly with all speed, but out of reverence of the Sacrament in which he was then engaged, he refused to do so.  Most of his men fled, fearing death,