This pleasing and successful drama is
Robin's sole patent to that title of Earl of Huntington, in
confirmation of which Dr. Stukeley fabricated a pedigree that
transcends even the absurdities of heraldry, and some unknown forger
an epitaph beneath the skill of a Chatterton. Those who desire a full
acquaintance with the fabulous history of Robin Hood will seek it in
the well-known volumes of Ritson, or in those of his recent editor,
Gutch, who does not make up by superior discrimination for his
inferiority in other respects to that industrious antiquary.
[Footnote 1: A writer in the _Edinburgh Review_ (July, 1847,
p. 134) has cited an allusion to Robin Hood, of a date intermediate
between the passages from Wyntown and the one about to be cited from
Bower. In the year 1439, a petition was presented to Parliament
against one Piers Venables of Aston, in Derbyshire, "who having no
liflode, ne sufficeante of goodes, gadered and assembled unto him many
misdoers, beynge of his clothynge, and, in manere of insurrection,
wente into the wodes in that countrie, like as it hadde be _Robyn
Hude and his meyne_.
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