Robin Hood Was
Not a Progressive!
The other night on my way home from a late night dinner, I was
flipping around the radio pretty randomly looking for some music to
fit my mood. During this, I chanced to listen to about a minute and a
half of some random late night talk show. This host (I don't remember
who it was, might have been Michael Savage) was ending a segment by
castigating the Robin Hood
mentality of the left. In many ways, this is how the progressives view
themselves. They have this idea that through their policies they are
being faithful to the Robin Hood image. That is, the "rob from
the rich and give to the poor" line of thinking that constitutes
government redistribution of wealth through heavy taxation and other
means and the justification of, "we're just helping the poor to
take back what those evil rich people took from them to begin with
because after all, no man ever got rich without standing on the backs
of the poor." Well, being familiar with English history, after
thinking about it for a moment or two, it struck me that this is not
really the best interpretation of what Robin Hood did.
There is truth in all such legends and this one is no exception though
we must remember that this tale was written after these events
would have transpired and revised several times thereafter so, like all such
legends, there are real people and events that some of it can be tied to but
many of the details are obscured or outright fiction.
This was the time of feudal England. There was no Parlaiment. The King
was an absolute ruler and his word was law. There were basically two
classes of individuals, the nobility and the peasantry (aside from the
church clergy.)
King Richard I. spent much of his years fighting in foreign lands. On
his way back from the third Crusade, he and his party were shipwrecked
in the Mediterranean and forced to take the long and dangerous land
route across Europe to return home. (England and Richard had foes in
Europe as well as in the Holy Land.) During this journey, he was
captured by Duke Leopold who eventually handed him over to Henry VI,
the Holy Roman Emperor, who demanded of England 150,000 marks in
exchange for his freedom. This is an amount equal to the tax that was
raised just a few years earlier to fund the Crusade to begin with and
far greater than the annual income of the King. To raise this, both
clergy and laymen were taxed for one-fourth of the value of their
property including crops and livestock and great quantities of the
wealth of the church was confiscated. The sum was eventually raised in
its entirety and sent on to the emperor. (That, as I am informed, worked
out to something like 34 tons of gold.)
But there was also intrigue here. John, the King's brother, wanted the
throne and had been working to secure power. He, along with King
Philip of France, conspired to offer 80,000 marks to the emperor to
hold Richard until he could consolidate power and seize the throne
from his brother. (The emperor declined, but the attempt was made.)
John would eventually succeed Richard as king just five years later on
Richard's death and would sit as monarch over one of the most
disastrous periods of English history, made so largely through his own
actions further adding to the misery of the people both nobles and
commoners alike, giving him the sobriquet, "Bad King John."
(It was during this period that the nobility forced John to
sign Magna Carta.)
So let's review... The kingdom had been taxed heavily to support the
crusades, the kingdom had been taxed again to ransom the King, wealth
of all sorts had been seized by the crown, and yet the taxing did not
stop there. (This does not consider running the kingdom itself and the
lavish life styles of the nobility.) After a while, this gets tiresome
for anyone. The peasantry was miserable and felt as though it was
their lot to remain poor all their lives while the rich just got
richer. So, here comes the legend of Robin Hood, robbing from the rich
and giving to the poor. But to understand the more appropriate
interpretation of this, you have to ask, "who, in the world of Robin
Hood, is rich?"
Well, at this time, a man was considered rich not so much because of
his monetary wealth—his gold, silver, and jewels—but because of his
lands. Remember the whole concept of serfs and Lords? When the taxes
come down from the crown, especially for wars and so on, where do you
think the Lords—the land owners—get the money from? They tax their
serfs, the peasants. These Lords have the ability to set up their own
laws and rules in their respective fiefdoms after all, so long as
these laws are not in opposition to the crown.
So since they hold their lands at the sufferance of the King (and in
point of fact, it behooves me to admit that "land owner" is
technically not the proper term, rather, it would be more correct to
say "land holder"), they and the King have to get along and
cooperate in making and enforcing laws, as with the Sheriff of
Nottingham, for the whole of England in addition to their local
laws. Many are actually among the King's counselors. In every way,
shape, and form, the Lords are the government. Thus, when the
products of the peasantry go to their Lord, when their Lord taxes
their belongings, it is not so much the rich as it is
the government taking their wealth. Many of these serfs were
quite resentful of these heavy burdens, feeling that they as a group
were being unjustly used, that the taxes applied were unfair. They
wanted their property, their livestock, and their money back! It is
this sort of desire that ultimately led to the creation of the House of
Commons and also gives rise to the legend.
Such conditions cause individuals, already disenchanted with their
situation, to become ever more frustrated and desperate and at last to
reach a breaking point. Robin Hood, if such a person ever really
existed, could be thought of as this kind of individual. He could have
felt that enough was enough and he was going to take back what he
viewed had been wrongfully wrested from him and his neighbors. Robin
Hood would reclaim from the local Lords and their tax collectors, the
representatives of the government who were responsible for this
injustice and by extension from the royal family itself, the riches he
saw as having been stolen by them and return this wealth to the people
it was unfairly taken from. Robin Hood robbed not from the rich
to give to the poor, but from the tax man to give to the people.
Robin Hood was not a progressive. To me, I look at Robin Hood and I do
not see a cavalier swashbuckler acting out of a spirit of charity and
good will. To me, I see a tax revolt, plain and simple. In that sense,
it could be actually be considered that (if the legend were wholly
factual) Robin Hood and his band of merry men were in effect the
world's first recorded TEA party.
Think about it...
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