Recordings & Info 116. Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and William of Cloudesly
[There are only two recordings listed in the Child Collection index. It was probably intented to be read aloud, not sung.]
CONTENTS:
1) Alternative Titles
2) Traditional Ballad Index
3) Child Ballad Collection
4) Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and William of Cloudesley: Introduction [Edited by Stephen Knight and Thomas H. Ohlgren]
5) Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and William of Cloudesly by Robert Fortunaso
ATTACHED PAGE: (see left hand column)
1) Roud No. 3297: (13 Listings)
Alternative Titles
History of Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and William of Cloudesly
Traditional Ballad Index: Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and William of Cloudesly [Child 116]
DESCRIPTION: Three outlaws live in the forest. William visits his wife, is arrested, is rescued by the others. They seek pardon from the king, succeed by the queen's intervention, then show their archery prowess, including cleaving an apple on a child's head.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST_DATE: c. 1536 (print from John Byddel's press, according to Child); there is a Stationer's Registry entry of Adam Bell from 1557/58, and Copland's edition (the earliest complete text) was in print by 1568
KEYWORDS: outlaw pardon royalty
FOUND_IN: Britain(England)
REFERENCES: (8 citations)
Child 116, "Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and William of Cloudesly" (2 texts)
Bronson 116, "Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and William of Cloudesly" (1 version, though Bronson doubts the connection of the tune with the printed ballad)
Percy/Wheatley I, pp. 153-179, "Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough, and William of Cloudesley" (1 text)
OBB 114, "Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough, and William of Cloudesly" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: R. B. Dobson and J. Taylor, _Rymes of Robyn Hood: An Introduction to the English Outlaw_, University of Pittsburg Press, 1976, pp. 260-273, "Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and William of Cloudesly" (1 text)
Stephen Knight and Thomas Ohlgren, editors, _Robin Hood and Other Oudlaw Tales_, TEAMS (Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages), Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 2000, pp. 235-267, "Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and William of Cloudesly" (1 text, newly edited from the sources)
Katherine Briggs, _A Dictionary of British Folk-Tales in the English Language_, Part A: Folk Narratives, 1970 (I use the 1971 Routledge paperback that combines volumes A.1 and A.2), volume A.2, pp. 369-374, "Adam Bel, Clym of the Clough and William of Cloudesly" (a prose version; compare the following)
Katherine Briggs, _British Folktales_ (originally published in 1970 as _A Dictionary of British Folk-Tales), revised 1977 (I use the 1977 Pantheon paperback edition), pp. 68-74, "Adam Bel, Clym of the Clough and William of Cloudesly" (a prose version of the tale; compare the preceding)
Roud #3297
CROSS_REFERENCES:
cf. "Auld Matrons" [Child 249] (theme)
NOTES: For the connection of this song with the Robin Hood legend, see the notes on "A Gest of Robyn Hode" [Child 117]. There are both general links (the greenwood legend) and quite specific connections (the rescue of William has many similarities to the rescue of Robin Hood in "Robin Hood and the Monk" [Child 119], for instance). There are even some textual parallels. As a result, many scholars have gone so far as to see "Adam Bell" as a source of the Robin Hood tales. But it is much more likely that the dependence is the other way -- indeed, Chambers, p. 159, goes so far as to declare this piece "almost a burlesque of Robin Hood."
Dobson/Taylor, p. 258, declare this "the most dramatically exciting of all English outlaw ballads." It might perhaps be clearer to say that it is more original in incident than most of the others, since it lacks the endless repetition in the Robin Hood ballads (see, e.g. the several dozen "Robin Hood Meets His Match" ballads).
Dobson/Taylor, p. 259, claim there is an allusion to the song in Act I, scene 1 of Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" (lines 258-259 in the Riverside edition, spoken by Benedick). The Riverside edition thinks this "probably" refers to Adam Bell, since there was a mention of ballad-makers a few lines earlier. The Signet Classic Shakespeare also refers it to Adam Bell, and the New Pelican says it is Adam Bell but does not mention ballads. The text however refers only to "Adam," so the matter must be less than certain.
There is a clear mention in Ben Jonson (Dobson/Taylor, p. 259).
We are told that Queen Elizabeth was present when this song was performed in the household of Robert Earl of Leicester in 1575 (Holt, p. 140). - RBW
>>BIBLIOGRAPHY<<
Chambers: E. K. Chambers, _English Literature at the Close of the Middle Ages_, Oxford, 1945, 1947
Dobson/Taylor: R. B. Dobson and J. Taylor, _Rymes of Robyn Hood: An Introduction to the English Outlaw_, University of Pittsburg Press, 1976
Holt: J. C. Holt, _Robin Hood_, second edition, revised and enlarged, Thames & Hudson, 1989
Child Ballad Collection: Child Ballad 116: Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough and William of Cloudesly
Child-- Artist-- Title-- Album-- Year-- Length-- Have
116 Folque Heming Og Harald Kongjen Stormkast 1998 3:44 Yes
116 Folque Heming Og Harald Kongjen Kjempene På Dovrefjell (The Giants in the Dovre Mountains) 1975 3:57 Yes
ADAM BELL, CLIM OF THE CLOUGH, AND WILLIAM OF CLOUDESLEY: INTRODUCTION
Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and William of Cloudesley: Introduction
Edited by Stephen Knight and Thomas H. Ohlgren
Originally Published in Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales
Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 1997
This extended outlaw narrative was popular in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: five different printed versions are known, and there were many reprints of the later editions. But the existence of a saga about these three forester heroes of Cumberland appears to go back almost as far as that of Robin Hood himself. A 1432 Parliament Roll for Wiltshire adds to a list of local members, presumably in a spirit of satire, a sequence of outlaw names -- Robin Hood, Little John, Much, Scathelock and Reynold are there, but, remarkably in so southern an area, the list is led by "Adam Belle, Clim O'Cluw, Willyam Cloudesle." Presumably the first named is also the Allan Bell mentioned as a fine archer in Dunbar's poem Of Sir Thomas Norrey, datable to the early sixteenth century at the latest.
It was under the name of Adam Bell that the poem was entered in the Stationers' Register in 1557-58, indicating it was a mainstream text by then, and this is confirmed by reference to the poem by Shakespeare, Much Ado I.1 -- to Adam; Jonson, The Alchemist, Act I -- to Clim; and Davenant, The Long Vacation in London (see Dobson and Taylor, 1976, p. 259). This popularity led to a late and feeble second part of the ballad being produced, it seems, as early as 1586; in that year a "new" ballad with this title was claimed to exist, which could hardly be credible if it was the same as the one already printed at least four times, including the imprint by the well-known William Copland. This was added to Part I in the Percy Folio. The similarity to Robin Hood was no doubt part of the reason for the original ballad's success, and this also led to another piece of opportunism, a ballad which combined their stories, Robin Hood's Birth, Breeding, Valour and Marriage.
Copland's text of the mid-sixteenth century is the earliest full version (C) and provides the basis for modern editions. As Child showed, there are some earlier fragments which offer good readings when they are available: A, from John Byddel's press from about 1536, provides only lines 452-506 and 642-80. Another fragment, B, may have been printed by Wynkyn de Worde, and at least a little earlier than Byddell's; it offers some valuable readings from lines 211-446. These three are referred to in the notes as "earlier texts." Two "later texts" sometimes referred to are both printed by James Roberts in the very early seventeenth century; there is also a version in the Percy Folio which appears to have been copied from a text of the Roberts type, and has no value for textual purposes.
In its own terms Adam Bell has many virtues. Gray described it as an "excellent long ballad" (1984, p. 11), and Dobson and Taylor found it "the most dramatically exciting of all English outlaw ballads" (1976, p. 258). Some of these qualities resemble patterns found in the Robin Hood myth. Adam Bell is lucidly constructed in three discrete fitts (not unlike Robin Hood and the Potter and, if it were all available, Robin Hood and the Monk). As in those ballads, the first fitt sees one of the outlaws enter the town and encounter danger; in the second fitt there follows an exciting rescue not unlike that in the Gest or Robin Hood and the Monk; in the last fitt the outlaw heroes are forgiven by the king, despite the damage they have caused, as happens in the Gest and is implicit in Robin Hood and the Monk.
Other motifs that are shared with Robin Hood and the Monk (and more generally with other texts) are the brisk but vivid nature opening (there seem to be verbal echoes with Robin Hood and the Monk: the latter seems likely to be the source, as it is sharper-focussed in both language and imagery); a fellow outlaw's advice to avoid the town, which is ignored; the harsh treatment of the jailer; the use of a messenger; the hostile role of sheriff and justice; the use of a royal seal for entry into the town (forged in Adam Bell, stolen in Robin Hood and the Monk); the king's eventual and somewhat reluctant approval.
But Adam Bell also has a range of original features of some importance. Whereas the Robin Hood texts explore pressures felt by outlawed men with no visible family, and Gamelyn deals with a disinherited younger son, Adam Bell concentrates on another type of distressed male, the husband and father separated from his family. While the social bandit, in Hobsbawm's definition, will be without dependants unless, like Jesse James, he was a historical figure actually in that situation, William of Cloudeslye, very much the hero of the ballad, is impelled to return to Carlisle to see his wife and children, and though after his rescue they play little part in the action, they are still included in the royal resolution at the end, when fatherhood is again central to the apple-splitting scene. The connection continues, as William's son is the focus of the sequel.
This stress on familial structures may also be related to the emphasis put on the role of women as well as the wife. William is betrayed by an "old wyfe" who has lived long in his house, and he and his outlaw colleagues are redeemed, from a position of great risk, by the generous queen who calls up a favor given her by the king at their wedding. Theorists of gender relations might well see in the three women who attend William a triad of wife, crone, and queen, projections of the male imagination (or anxiety) when dealing with the female. That feature is almost invisible in the rest of the outlaw ballads unless the Virgin Mary, the Prioress of Kirkley, and the shadowy future figure of Maid Marian were invoked to represent this triune form of the feminine.
Another notable feature of this ballad is the fully resolved nature of its ending. Most Robin Hood ballads end with the outlaw band returning to the stasis that was disturbed by the original incursion into the greenwood of a stranger, or concluding with a renewed delicate balance where the hostile forces are still implicitly alive. Some have a tragic ending: the Gest, The Death of Robin Hood, The True Tale of Robin Hood; and a few later and gentrified ones have a blissfully resolved sense of future security. It is this last unproblematically happy ending that Adam Bell provides, which seems strange in an early, violent, and quite realistic ballad. The end has none of what Gray calls the "open" quality of the last part of Robin Hood and the Monk (1984, p. 17), where the king's ironic appreciation of the outlaws' loyalty (John's tough fidelity in particular) both threatens and validates their state of independence. At the end of Adam Bell William is a court gentleman, his colleagues are yeomen, William's wife a queen's gentlewoman, and promises of advancement are even made to William's son. Medieval literature usually brings such court happiness to rapid misery, but here all that follows is an equally neat verbal resolution, tying up the theme of archery with that of salvation, wishing for all good archers that of heven they may never mysse (line 683).
Redolent of heroic simplicity rather than the more uneasy world of the usual outlaw ballads, this ending does of course follow on from this ballad's single element most unlike Robin Hood adventures, the climactic moment where William proves his skill and his nerve -- and perhaps his inherently unparental character -- by shooting an apple from his son's head. At long distance, with a difficult and deadly weapon (the heavier broad arrow, not the light "bearing arrow" with which he has previously shown his skill) William performs a feat that as Child shows at some length (III, 16-22), is a recurrent motif in international heroic story, not merely the pièce de resistance of William Tell. One scholar localizes this event; the closest version of the story, known as early as Wright's commentary as "a Northern story" (1846, II, 208), might, Holt suggests, belong to the Carlisle region through its close contact with Norse culture (1989, p. 71). That may well be so: it is also one of the elements by which this long ballad is stagey in a way avoided by most of the Robin Hood ballads, whose dramatic interchanges are those of immediate street theater, direct fights, simple disguises, rather than this lengthy, masque-like sequence of activity, more elaborate than the recurrent but usually brief archery contest.
A similar level of elaboration is embodied in the narrative methodology of the ballad, though as it is a feature that realism has handed down as "natural," commentators fail to observe it as a specific technique. Adam Bell is very notable for a narrative which moves briskly and neatly stanza by stanza: each quatrain brings a new event, a new explanation of the way it derives from the previous events. The narrative of Adam Bell tends to explain everything: the sequence where Adam and Clim trick their way into Carlisle has an almost positivist note in the way it gives all relevant details and actions (e.g., the porter cannot read and so is tricked by the forged seals, line 220). The mimesis is insistently realistic and rationalized, even when, or perhaps especially when, the narrative is improbable (as in the carefully outlined apple-shooting episode). The overall tone is lucid, steady, metronomic narrative, most unlike the mildly mysterious stop-start movement of the popular and lyric ballad, and much more like the measured tread of the sixteenth-century historicist poems Chevy Chase or The Battle of Otterburn, and indeed not in this respect unlike the Gest itself, in this as in its compilation status a somewhat bookish text. However, to recognize the unusually realistic mode of the poem does not necessarily lead to a narrow historicism like Joseph Hunter's notion (1845, p. 245) that Adam Bell really existed. Child is more generously dismissive in this case than in dealing with Hunter's equally positivist approach to the Gest (III, 21-22), while Dobson and Taylor simply call Hunter's arguments "extraordinarily unconvincing" (1976, p. 260, n.2).
In terms of stylistic character Adam Bell is of limited interest. Its vocabulary is unremarkable either for imaginative variety or meaningless repetition. There are not many poor rhymes (lines 74/6, 78/80, 122/4, 154/6, 210/2, 226/8 stress, 246/8, 278/80, 445/7, 453/5, 593/5, 609/11, 673/5) and in terms of stanza form, as in many other ballads, the author appears to have been happy with abab when it came to hand easily (lines 109-12, 129-32, 161-64, 452-55, 464-67, 468-71, 492-95, 536-39, 564-67, 632-35, 636-39, 640-63). There seems to be a trace of grouping here, especially in the stanzas relating the apple-splitting episode. In the exciting sequence when William is rescued from Carlisle, the author appears to have adopted the abab stanza as his basic mode (see lines 205-387, and especially 314-87) and he appears to have got so much into the swing of full rhyming that he produced a five-line stanza in the process (lines 293-97).
In these ways, in terms of style, action, and temperament, the ballad of Adam Bell is a little less pointed and vivid than the earlier Robin Hood ballads; and yet in comparison with the feebly literary late-sixteenth-century broadside, it seems to have in full measure the robust and daring directness of the true outlaw ballad. Adam, Clim, and William are indeed examples of the "good yeomen" archetype, realizing both the sturdy values and anxious projections of the other early outlaw texts. It is both a measure of the inherent quality of the story and of the massive pull of the major outlaw myth, that their story has become so closely linked to the tradition of Robin Hood himself.
Selected Bibliography
Texts
Fragments of a copy. London: Byddell, c. 1536, in Cambridge University Library. [Referred to as A in notes.]
Fragment of a copy, perhaps by Wynkyn de Worde and therefore earlier than above. [Referred to as B in notes.]
Adambel, Clym of the cloughe, and Wyllyam of cloudesle. London: Copland, c. 1550-60. [Referred to as C in notes.]
Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and William of Cloudesle. London: Roberts, c. 1605.
Child, F. J., ed. English and Scottish Popular Ballads. 5 vol. 1882-98; rpt. New York: Dover, 1965. Vol. III, no. 116.
Dobson, R. J., and J. Taylor. Rymes of Robin Hood. London: Heinemann, 1976. Pp. 258-73.
Thomas Percy's folio manuscript, Add. MSS 27879, British Library.
Percy, Thomas, ed. Reliques of English Poetry. 3 vols. London: J. Dodsley, 1765. I, 129-60.
Ritson, Joseph. Pieces of Ancient Popular Poetry. London: C. Clark for T. and J. Egerton, 1791. Pp. 1-30.
Commentary and Criticism
Child, F. J., pp. 14-22.
Dobson, R. J., and J. Taylor, pp. 258-60.
Gray, Douglas. "The Robin Hood Ballads." Poetica 18 (1984), 1-39.
Hobsbawm, E. J. Bandits. Second ed. London: Penguin, 1985.
Holt, J. C. Robin Hood. Second ed. London: Thames and Hudson, 1989.
Hunter, Joseph. New Illustrations of the Life, Studies, and Writings of Shakespeare. 2 vols. London: Nichols, 1845. I, 245-47.
Wright, Thomas. "On The Popular Cycle of the Robin Hood Ballads." In Essays on Subjects Connection with the Literature, Popular Superstition, and History of England in the Middle Ages. London: J.R. Smith, 1846. Pp. 164-211.
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Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and William of Cloudesly
by Robert Fortunaso
Apart from Robin Hood and his men there are three other famous ‘Yemen of the north countrey’, the three Inglewood outlaws known as Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and William of Cloudesly. The hero of the three is actually William of Cloudesly, who is captured in Carlisle in the first fytte, rescued by Adam and Clim in the second, and successful in shooting an apple off his son’s head in the third. Despite this the ballad has usually been given the short title of Adam Bell, since it’s first entry on the Stationers Register in 1557-58.(1) Early sixteenth century printed fragments of the tale prove that it existed in the reign of Henry VIII,(2) however the earliest surviving complete edition is that printed by William Copland in c.1560.(3) The number of early editions suggest that Adam Bell was quite popular from the sixteenth century onwards, it was reprinted at least seven times in the course of the seventeenth century.(4) Indirect reference to the poem appears in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing (Act. I, Scene I : ‘and he that hits me, let him be clapped on the shoulder, and called Adam’); Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist (Act I : ‘No cheating Clim o’ the Cloughs’); and William Davenant’s The Long Vacation in London. Robert Laneham gives us a description of the court festivities at Kenilworth in 1575 which reveal that the famous collector of ‘ballets and songs’, Captain Cox of Coventry, was familiar with the ‘stories’ of both Adam Bell and Robin Hood.(5) One attempt to link the careers of the two most famous groups of outlaws in England can be found in the ballad Robin Hood’s Birth, Breeding, Valor and Marriage, (see The Rhymes of Robin Hood) this occurs in the third and fourth stanzas where the Pinder of Wakefield is alleged to have arranged an archery contest between Robin Hood’s father and ‘Adam Bell, and Clim of the Clugh, and William a Cloudelle’. Despite the fact that in survives in texts of the sixteenth century, Adam Bell is undoubtedly of medieval origin and possibly emerged at about the same period as the earliest surviving tales of Robin Hood. Like the Gest, Robin Hood and the Monk, and Robin Hood and the Potter, it was probably designed to be read aloud and it has many characteristic features of the late medieval metrical romance: the seasonal incipit, the division of a long work into fyttes, the minstrel’s direct address to his listeners (especially stanzas 5, 51, 97, 170) the remnants of alliterative poetic diction and the frequent use of an ABAB rhyming pattern within the stanzas.(6)
If we accept Adam Bell as a work of ‘Yeoman minstrelsy’ we can invariably make comparisons with the early Robin Hood ballads. The rescue of William Cloudesly by Adam Bell and Clim of the Clough has a close resemblance to Little John’s and Much’s deliverance of Robin Hood in stanzas 61-82 of Robin Hood and the Monk. Like Robin in the Gest, Adam Bell and his colleagues receive a pardon from the king and a place in the household. Even in the Tale of Gamelyn we find that Gamelyn is made justice of all the free forests, as William of Cloudesly is made chief rider over all the North Country. There can be no doubt that Adam Bell has its own distinctive features, such as its location in Inglewood(7) and the episode of an archer (William of Cloudesly) shooting an apple placed on his son’s head. As Child has pointed out, (III, p.16) ‘The shooting of an apple from a boy’s head, sts 151-62, is, as is well known, a trait in several German and Norse traditions, and these particular feats, as well as everything resembling them, have been a subject of eager discussion in connection with the apocryphal history of William Tell.’(8) It is obvious that the compiler of Adam Bell, was simply adapting one of the most popular stories of north European literature, for his own use.
Joseph Hunter attempted to identify Adam Bell as ‘a genuine personage of history’, and he mentioned that he had ‘the good fortune to recover from a very authentic source of information some particulars of this hero of our popular minstrelsy which show distinctly the time at which he lived.’
Hunter continues with the following:
King Henry the Fourth, by letters enrolled in the Exchequer, in Trinity Term, in the seventh year of his reign [1406], and bearing date the 14th day of April, granted to one Adam Bell an annuity of 4l. 10s. issuing out of the fee-farm of Clipston, in the forest of Sherwood, together with the profits and advantages of the vesture and herbage of the garden called the Halgarth, in which the manor-house of Clipston is situated. Now, as Sherwood is noted for its connection with archery, and may be regarded also as the patria of much of the ballad poetry of England, and the name of Adam Bell is a peculiar one, this might be almost of itself sufficient to show that the ballad had a foundation in veritable history. But we further find that this Adam Bell violated his allegiance by adhering to the Scots, the king’s, enemies; whereupon this grant was virtually resumed, and the sheriff of Nottinghamshire accounted for the rents which would have been his. In the third year of King Henry the Fifth [1416], the account was rendered by Thomas Hercy, and in the fourth year by Simon Leak. The mention of his adhesion to the Scots leads us to the Scottish border, and will not leave a doubt in the mind of the most sceptical that we have here one of the persons, some of whose deeds (with some poetical license, perhaps) are come down to us in the words of one of our popular ballads. (New Illustrations of the Life, Studies, and Writings of Shakespeare, I, 245 f, 1845).
Child found Hunter’s identification of Adam Bell to be unconvincing:
Mr Hunter’s points are, that an Adam Bell had a grant from the proceeds of a farm in the forest of Sherwood, that Adam Bell is a peculiar name, and that his Adam Bell adhered to the king’s enemies. To be sure, Adam Bell’s retreat in tbe ballad is not Sherwood, in Nottinghamshire, but Englishwood, or Inglewood, in Cumberland (an old hunting ground of King Arthur’s, according to several romances), a forest sixteen miles in length, reaching from Carlisle to Penrith. But it would be captious to insist upon this. Robin Hood has no connection in extant ballads with the Cumberland forest, but Wyntoun’s Scottish Chronicle, c. 1420, makes him to have frequented Inglewood as well as Barnsdale. The historical Adam Bell was granted an annuity, and forfeited it for adhering to the king’s enemies, the Scots ; the Adam Bell of the ballad was outlawed for breaking the game-laws, and in consequence came into conflict with the king’s officers, but never adhered to the king’s enemies, first or last, received the king’s pardon, was made yeoman of the queen’s chamber, dwelt with the king, and died a good man. Neither is there anything peculiar in the name Adam Bell. Bell was as well known a name on the borders as Armstrong or Graham. There is record of an Adam Armstrong and an Adam Graham; there is a Yorkshire Adam Bell mentioned in the Parliamentary Writs (II, 508, 8 and I7 Edward II,) a hundred years before Hunter’s annuitant; a contemporary Adam Bell of Dunbar, is named in the Exchequer Roll of Scotland under the years 1414, ……. (IV, 198, 325); and the name occurs repeatedly at a later date in the Registers of the Great Seal of Scotland. (Child, III, pp. 21-22).
John Bell robbed the Chamberlain’s men of cattle, 1337: Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, II, 437. The Bells are included with the Grahams, Armstrongs, and others, among the bad and more vagrant of the great surnames of the border, by the Lord Warden of the Marches of England, 1593 (Rymer’s Foedera, XVI, 183, ed. 1727, cited by Bishop Percy), and had no better estimation in Scotland. (Child, III, notes, p. 22)
1. ‘Adam Bell’ was licensed to John Kynge in the Stationers Registers, 19 July, 1557 and 9 July, 1558. Again, among copies which were Sampson Awdeley’s, to John Charlewood, 15 January, 1582; and, among copies which were John Charlwoode’s, to James Robertes, 31 May, 1594.
2. Two fragments, stanzas 113-128, 161-170 of an edition by John Byddell, London, 1536, (Cambridge University Library, Sym. 7. 50. 9). A fragment of an early sixteenth century edition, by an unidentified printer, once in the possession of J. Payne Collier. This fragment preserves stanzas 53-111.
3. Several lines in Copland’s edition have been cut away or omitted, these omissions have been supplied from other early editions. (see below)
4. Child, III, p. 14.
5. Robert Laneham’s Letter to Humfrey Martin, ed. F. J. Furnivall, as Captain Cox, His Ballads and Books (Ballad Society, 1871), pp. 1i-1iv.
6. Cf. Fowler, Literary History of Popular Ballad, p. 71.
7. Inglewood, a Cumberland forest stretching from Penrith to Carlisle and famous for its hunting; it was also used as the scene for several of King Arthur’s legendary adventures. This could explain the reason why the Scottish chronicler, Andrew of Wyntoun, placed Robin Hood in ‘Ingilwode’ as well as ‘Bernysdale’.
8. A discussion of this theme is provided by Child, (III, pp. 16-21) with a brief summary of tales such as: The Icelandic saga of Dietrich of Bern, c. 1250, The writings of Saxo, c. 1200, and The White Book of Obwalden, c. 1470.
The tale of Adam, Clim, and William, begins with the three being outlawed for breaking the game-laws, they swear brotherhood, then go to Inglewood, a forest near Carlisle. William is married, and one day he tells his brethren that he wishes to go to Carlisle to see his wife and children. Adam does not recommend this, as he fears William will be taken by the justice. William goes to Carlisle, nevertheless, knocks at the window of his house, and is admitted by Alice, his wife. She tells him that the place has been beset for him for half a year and more. As they make good cheer, and old woman, that William had kept seven years for charity, sneaks out and tells the justice and the sheriff that William is in town. They reward the old woman with a gown of scarlett and she returns home. The justice and the sheriff gather a great crowd from Carlisle, and they throng to William’s house. Man and wife defend the house until it is set on fire. William lets his wife and children down with sheets, and shoots until his bowstring is burnt, then runs towards his enemies with sword and buckler, but is taken down by doors and windows thrown on him. He is bound hand and foot and cast into a deep dungeon.The sheriff orders the gates of Carlisle to be shut, and he sets up a gallows to hang William. A boy, known to the family, manages to sneak out a crevice in the wall, and he inform Adam and Clim, who immediately set out for the rescue. They find the gates shut fast, but Adam has a fair written letter in his pocket; they will fool the porter into thinking they have the king’s seal. They beat on the gate until the porter comes, and demand to be let in as messengers from the king to the justice. The porter is hesitant, but they intimidate him with the king’s seal; he opens the gate; they wring his neck and take the keys. First they prepare their bows, then they head for the market-place, where they see William lying in a cart, ready to be hanged. William sees them and takes hope. Adam shoots the sheriff, Clim the justice; both fall mortally wounded; the citizens flee; the outlaws loosen Williams ropes, he then grabs an axe from an officer and proceeds to slash on every side. Adam and Clim shoot until their arrows are gone, then draw their swords. Horns are blown, and the bells rang backwards; the mayor of Carlisle comes with a large force, but the outlaws get to the gates, and are soon in Inglewood, under their trysty-tree.
Alice had come to Inglewood to inform Adam and Clim of her husband’s fate, but naturally had not found them, since they had already gone to William’s rescue. The outlaw’s hear a woman weeping, and upon taking a look, William comes upon his wife and three children. The sight of her husband makes Alice happy, and all is well. Three deer are killed for supper, and William gives Alice the best for standing by him. William decides that they should go to the king to get a charter of peace. He takes his eldest son with him, leaving Alice and the two younger brothers at a nunnery. The outlaws head to London and eventually arrive at the palace gates; they proceed into the hall, bypass the porter and usher, and make their way to the king’s presence. They kneel down, raise their hands, then proceed to ask the king’s grace for having slain his deer. The king asks their names, and when he hears who they are, he declares they shall all be hanged, and orders them to be arrested. Adam again asks grace, since they have come to the king of their own free will, or else that they may go, with such weapons as they have, when they will ask no grace in a hundred years. The king replies that all three shall be hanged. Upon hearing this, the queen reminds the king that when she was wedded he had promised to grant the first boon that she should ask; she had until now asked nothing, but now begs the three yeoman’s lives. Her wish is granted with some hesitation, but soon after there appears messengers from the North Country with letters for the king. He is informed that the outlaws had slain the justice and the sheriff, the mayor of Carlisle, all the constables and catchpolls, the sergeants of the law, forty foresters, and many more. This makes the king so sad he can eat no more, but he calls his best archers to go with him to the butts, for he wishes to see these fellows shoot that have brought him so much woe. Both the king’s and the queen’s archers go to the butts with the three yeoman, and the outlaws hit everything that is set up. William holds the butts too wide for a good archer, and the three set up two hazel rods, twenty paces apart; he is a good archer says William, that cleaves one of these. The king says no man can do it, but William cleaves the wand. The king declares him the best archer he ever saw. William says he will do more mastery: he will lay an apple on his son’s head (a boy of seven) and split it in two at six score paces. The king bids William make haste for to do: if he fails he shall be hanged, and if he even touches his son’s head or gown, all three shall be hanged. William ties the child to a stake, turns his head from him, sets an apple on his head, and after begging the spectators to remain quiet, cleaves the apple in two. The king gives William eighteen pence a day as his bowman, and make him chief rider over the North country. The queen adds twelve pence and makes him a gentleman of cloth and fee, and makes his two brothers yeoman of her chamber. She also gives the boy a place in her wine-cellar, and appoints Alice her chief gentlewoman and governess of her nursery. The yeoman give their thanks, go to Rome (to some bishop, in the later copy) to be absolved of their sins, and live the rest of their lives with the king, and die good men, all three.
I have reproduced the two versions from Child, and as he has pointed out:
The larger part of a has been reprinted by Mr F. S. Ellis, in his catalogue of the library of Mr Henry Huth, I, 128f, 1880; b was used by Mr W.C. Hazlitt for his edition of the ballad in Remains of the Early Popular Poetry of England, II, 131; c was reprinted by Percy in his Reliques, 1765, I, 129, with corrections from f; and by Ritson, Pieces of Ancient Popular Poetry, 1791, p. 5, with the necessary emendations of Copland’s somewhat faulty text; d is followed by a Second Part, described by Ritson, in temperate terms, as ‘a very inferior and servile production.’
Source: (a) Two fragments stanzas 113-128, 161-170, of an edition by John Byddell, London, 1536 (Cambridge University Library, Sym. 7. 50. 9); (b) A Fragment of an early sixteenth century edition, by an unidentified printer, once in the possession of J. Payne Collier. This fragment preserves stanzas 53-111; (c) ‘Adambel, Clym of the cloughe, and Wyllyam of cloudesle’. ‘Imprinted at London in Lothburye by Wyllyam Copeland’ (1548-68). (British Library copy, press-mark C. 21. c. 64); (d) ‘Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and William of Cloudesle,’ James Roberts, London, 1605 (Bodleian Library, C. 39, Art. Selden; (e) Another edition with the same title-page (Bodleian Library, Malone, 299; (f) ‘Adam Bell, Clime of the Cloug(he), and William off Cloudeslee,’ Percy MS., p. 390 (British Museum).
Editions: Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (included in the 1765 and all later editions); Ritson, Pieces of Ancient Popular Poetry, 1791, pp. 5-30; Gutch, 1847, II, 320-43; Bishop Percy’s Folio Manuscript, ed. Hales and Furnivall, III, 76-101; Child, 1888, III, 22-30; Quiller-Couch, 1910, pp. 468-96; Oxford Book of Ballads, 1969, pp. 380-404; Dobson and Taylor Rymes of Robyn Hood, 1976, pp. 260-273