This article examines how the Robin Hood tradition was reshaped in the seventeenth century to express explicit anti-Catholic sentiment. Focusing on Robin Hood’s Golden Prize (1631) by the prolific broadside writer Laurence Price, earlier medieval critiques of corrupt churchmen were transformed after the Reformation into polemic aimed at Catholic priests.
“Robin Hood’s Birth, Breeding, Valour, and Marriage” was published in 1662 and celebrated England’s new queen from Portugal, Catherine of Braganza.
“To arms, Citizens! To Arms!” was the cry of many of the now forgotten common people who fought for Brazilian independence, and whose writings are revealed by José Carvalho, Lucia Bastos, and Marcello Basile.
A paper delivered at Pernicious Trash? Victorian Popular Fiction, c.1830-c.1880, Leeds Trinity University 12 September 2016.
Dick Turpin (1705-1739) is perhaps the most famous highwayman in English history after Robin Hood. He is remembered today as a heavily romanticised noble, gallant figure, having allegedly rode his horse from London to York in one day upon his trusty horse, Black Bess, the real Dick Turpin, as you would expect, was a wholly different man. This post gives a brief overview of his life and the legend which grew around him.
During the 18th century crime was the talk of the town in England. In 1751, the crime rate had reached such hellish proportions that the Magistrate of Westminster, Henry Fielding (the author […]