Robin Prince of Sherwood : The Story
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Our story begins in 1191 with King Richard
rallying his countrymen to join him on the Crusade
to the Holly Land.
Robin of Loxley
is amongst the first to join up!
In the King's absence, under the auspices of Prince John, corruption spreads
throughout the land.
In Nottingham the Sheriff,
with the help of the evil witch Morgana,
signs his soul away to the Devil
in return for power
and wealth. He is not perturbed by Morgana's
portent of a troublesome hooded
man.
Struggling to survive under the Sheriff's
taxes, dissention mounts amongst the citizens of Nottingham
and while standing up for the towns folk in a confrontation with the Sheriff, the Earl of Loxley,
Robin's father, is taken prisoner together with Marion
who is both Robin's betrothed and the subject
of the Sheriff's lecherous
designs.
Robin senses all is not well
in Nottingham
and decides to return home from the Holy Land.
In Sherwood
he meets Little
John, the
leader of a growing rabble of outlaws, who have to run from
the Sheriff's
reign of terror, to the relative safety of the forest. They mock
the aristocratic posturing
of Robin
and his call for a militant stand against the Sheriff ;
but after loosing a fight with him,
Little John
sees that this is the one man who can galvanize his men into an Army.
Now he tries
to convince them.
Outside the Sheriff's castle, Robin
calls Marion
to the window of the room, where she is imprisoned,
and speak of their love
and the plight of her and his father. She throws down her hooded
cloak,
to help disguise himself as he escapes the attention of the guards. Guy of Gisbourne,
the Sheriff's
right hand man, sees the hooded man.
The Sheriff is again warned by Morgana,
the soothsayer witch, to expect trouble from a "hooded man",
and Guy of Gisbourne
tells the
Sheriff that he
saw such a man at Marion's
window. This time she also
tells of a priest - a man of the
cloth, of whom he must beware.
Robin Hood is Born
After months of training, Robin turns
his band of outlaws into a formidable fighting force, and they
easily overwhelm the Sheriff's soldiers transporting a years worth of taxes
through the forest.
Robin exasperates the Sheriff further by distributing the money amongst the
poor.
When Robin is identified as the young Loxley, the Sheriff realises that he
holds the trump card that
will bring his tormentor in from from his forest fortress.
At Morgana's suggestion, in order to lure Robin out in the open, the Sheriff
announces that he is to
marry Marion. Once the gallant Prince of Sherwood is caught, he will hang the
Loxleys together,
father and son.
Robin is distressed when he
reads the announcement of the marriage but Little John and Will Scarlet
suggest that if Robin can marry her first, any marriage to the Sheriff would be
null and void, and so,
with Friar Tuck to officiate Robin and Little John head off for Marion's prison
window to perform the
ceremony. But the Sheriff is ready and they are captured. With the capture
of Friar Tuck he believes
that, as well as the 'hooded man', he also has the 'man of the cloth', leaving
him free from Morgana's
fateful omen.
Robin, the Earl of Loxley and Tuck are brought out and made ready for their
public hanging.
Suddenly a priest steps forward and demands with resounding authority that the
prisoners be released,
in the name of the King.
As the Sheriff orders his arrest
the stranger throws back his cowl revealing himself to be King Richard.
The prisoners are released and, refusing to surrender the Sheriff dies at
Robin's sword.
The King knights Robin, and finally reunited, Robin and Marion are married with
great ceremony.
The End.
(c) Peter Howarth and Rick Fenn