Dr David Crook, a senior research fellow at the University of Nottingham and the National Archives, is proposing that the original Robin Hood may have been a Yorkshire outlaw called Robert of Wetherby, who the Crown perceived as a threat and commissioned a posse to capture and kill.
Shortly after Wetherby had been decapitated and hung in chains, it is recorded that the Crown claimed all the money that had been seized from a Yorkshire outlaw called Robert Hod (also spelt Hood).
Because both events occurred in the same county in rapid succession and because both were outlaws, Dr Crook has suggested that Robert of Wetherby and Robert Hod may have been the same person. If that were the case, he could have been referred to by both names.
Robin was merely a diminutive nickname for Robert.
Wetherby was most likely the town Robert of Wetherby or his father hailed from.
We’d put up a blue plaque if we knew where in town Robert or his dad lived!
Read a full report of Dr Cook’s research and book here: