Robin Hood 'based on William Wallace'

Nottinghamshire is generally thought to have been the home of the outlaw who stole from the rich to give to the poor, with neighbouring counties Yorkshire and Leicestershire also claiming links.

But historical novelist Jack Whyte claims that the roots of the character forever associated with Sherwood Forest may be north of the border.

He found what he claims are striking similarities between the lives of Robin Hood and the of Scottish knight William Wallace – Mel Gibson's character in the 1665 film Braveheart – while researching his latest book The Forest Laird.

Mr Whyte, 70, who left Scotland over 50 years ago to lives in Canada, believes the only surviving example of Wallace’s seal provides supporting evidence.

It appears on The Lubeck Letters which he sent to the German city in 1297, a month after his victory at the Battle of Stirling Bridge, to inform European traders that Scotland was still open for business.

Mr Whyte said: “The seal shows his personal emblem is a long bow. There, I thought, is the evidence that Wallace was a bowman.

“When you dig into the research, it shows he worked for his uncle Malcolm Wallace of Elderslie, Renfrewshire, and that he was a woodsman, the medieval equivalent of gamekeeper. He was accused of poaching and outlawed, so he spent much of his youth hiding in Selkirk forest.

“So here's this guy, an outlaw, a bowman, living in a forest, who has a girlfriend called Mirren, which is Scots for Marion. She is abducted and supposedly killed, as suggested in the film Braveheart, by the Sheriff of Lanark, William Heselrigg.”

“You don't have to be a genius to add up two and two and get Robin Hood. And I firmly believe that this man, as a young man, was the archetype from which the legend of Robin Hood grew.”

It is not the first time connections have been suggested between Scotland and Robin Hood, with David of Scotland, the Earl of Huntington, suggested as a possible role model.

But Dr David Crook, a Robin Hood expert at the University of Nottingham, said he believed the figure was a real thief whose story has been embellished over the years.

He said: “It happens all the time. None of the theories I've ever heard of are on to anything as far as I'm concerned.”

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/scotland/8235948/Robin-Hood-based-on-William-Wallace.html 

Probably explains why he was always "riding through the Glen" in that film!!!