Willikin of the Weald: Was He the Real Inspiration for Robin Hood?
People, Countries and Places Rachel Elwiss Joyce People, Countries and Places Rachel Elwiss Joyce

Willikin of the Weald: Was He the Real Inspiration for Robin Hood?

In my previous historical post, I looked at William de Wenneval, the Sheriff of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire during the years when Richard the Lionheart was absent on crusade and then held captive in Germany.

Wenneval was one of the men who controlled Nottingham Castle while Prince John was plotting against his brother. That does not make him the Sheriff of Nottingham from the Robin Hood stories, but it places a real royal official in the right position, in the right place and at the right moment to have contributed something to the legend.

But what about Robin Hood himself?

There have been many attempts to identify a historical man behind the famous outlaw. One of the most intriguing candidates lived not in Sherwood Forest, but in the wooded country of Kent and Sussex. His name was William of Cassingham, although he became better known as Willikin of the Weald.

Unlike Robin Hood, Willikin was unquestionably real.

He was an archer and local fighting man who gathered a company in the forests, attacked occupying troops from ambush and became a hero to the communities around him. He fought during the reign of King John and was praised by medieval chroniclers for resisting England’s enemies when much of the south-east had submitted to them.

It sounds remarkably familiar.

So could Willikin of the Weald have helped inspire the legend of Robin Hood?

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The Real Sheriff of Nottingham?
People, Countries and Places Rachel Elwiss Joyce People, Countries and Places Rachel Elwiss Joyce

The Real Sheriff of Nottingham?

Every Robin Hood story needs its villain, and for centuries that villain has worn one title above all others: the Sheriff of Nottingham. Cruel, greedy, complicit in every injustice done to the poor of Sherwood while good King Richard bled for Christendom on crusade and wicked Prince John schemed at home. It's one of the most durable double acts in English folklore.

But strip away the ballads and pantomime, and the officeholders behind that legendary title were real men, doing a real and often thankless job. One of the strongest candidates for the historical figure behind the "bad" sheriff of the Robin Hood tales is a man called William de Wenneval (his name also appears as Wendenal, Wendeval, or Wendenall, depending on which chronicle or charter you're reading: spelling in the 1190s was a moving target). He is a minor figure in the great chronicles, mentioned only in passing by Roger of Howden.

But the little that survives of his story is enough to suggest he paid an appalling price for his loyalty.

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Lincoln's Lost Castle: The Rise and Fall of Thorngate
Countries and Places Rachel Elwiss Joyce Countries and Places Rachel Elwiss Joyce

Lincoln's Lost Castle: The Rise and Fall of Thorngate

Everyone who climbs Steep Hill in Lincoln has seen Lincoln Castle. It stands where William the Conqueror planted it in 1068, high on the old Roman upper city, its twin mottes and curtain wall commanding the whole plain. It is one of the best-preserved castles in England, and it still does the Crown's work — the Crown Court sits there to this day.

Almost nobody knows that Lincoln once had a second castle.

Down by the river, at the vulnerable (from a defensive point of view) south-eastern corner of the lower city, there stood for perhaps two or three generations a fortress called Thorngate Castle — castellum de Tornegat. It was not royal like Lincoln Castle (which at one time housed the sheriff, the constable/ castellan, and the bishop). Thorngate belonged to a family, held in their own right, and it existed in a state of quiet tension with the great royal castle on the hill. And then, in the space of a decade, it was pledged away as a bargaining chip in a civil war and demolished so completely that today we cannot even say for certain where it stood.

This is the story of that lost castle: of the family who held it, the war that consumed it, the forced marriages and shifting loyalties tangled around it, and the arguments that still divide historians about where it was and who really controlled it. It is, in miniature, the story of the whole terrible period we call ‘the Anarchy’ — and, as so often, it is a story with a woman at its centre whom history has almost entirely forgotten.

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Why the Plantenet Angevins Ruled Half of Europe
Time Periods, Countries and Places Rachel Elwiss Joyce Time Periods, Countries and Places Rachel Elwiss Joyce

Why the Plantenet Angevins Ruled Half of Europe

When most people think of medieval kings, we generally think of one monarch, one kingdom, and then the people below him.. But Henry II of England—first of the Angevin kings—was no ordinary ruler. By the 1170s, he commanded more territory than any other monarch in Christendom, stretching from the wild hills of Northumberland to the sunlit vineyards of Aquitaine. He was king in only England—he was the Norman and Aquitainian duke, the count of Anjou, Touraine, and Maine. But is was all his dominion, and it was so vast that chroniclers called it an “empire,” though it was stitched together by marriage, inheritance, and sheer force of will.

So how did a French count’s son come to rule half of Europe?

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Bloodbath at the Lionheart’s Coronation
Religion Magic and Belief, Countries and Places Rachel Elwiss Joyce Religion Magic and Belief, Countries and Places Rachel Elwiss Joyce

Bloodbath at the Lionheart’s Coronation

We remember Richard the Lionheart as a crusader king, a warrior who fought Saladin, and whose name resounded across Christendom. But for England’s Jews, his reign began in fire and betrayal.

Benedict of York’s story embodies that betrayal. Beaten at the doors of Westminster Hall, baptised by a friend who meant him no harm, denied even a grave among his people, his fate symbolises the peril of being both essential and despised in medieval England.

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