Notwithstanding, however, the aversion in which he appears to have held the clergy of every denomination, he was a man of exemplary piety, according to the notions of that age, and retained a domestic chaplain (Frier Tuck, no doubt) for the diurnal celebration of the divine mysteries. This we learn from an anecdote preserved by Fordun (22), as an instance of those actions which the historian allows to deserve commendation. One day, as he heard mass, which he was most devoutly accustomed to do (nor would {x} he, in whatever necessity, suffer the office to be interrupted,) he was espied by a certain sheriff and officers belonging to the king, who had frequently before molested him in that most secret recess of the wood where he was at mass. Some of his people, who perceived what was going forward, advised him to fly with all speed, which, out of reverence to the sacrament, which he was then most devoutly worshipping, he absolutely refused to do. But the rest of his men having fled for fear of death, Robin, confiding solely in Him whom he reverently worshipped, with a very few, who by chance were present, set upon his enemies, whom he easily vanquished; and, being enriched with their spoils and ransom, he always held the ministers of the Church and masses in greater veneration ever after, mindful of what is vulgarly said: “Him God does surely hear Who oft to th’ mass gives ear.” Having, for a long series of years, maintained a sort of independent sovereignty, and set kings, judges, and magistrates at defiance, a proclamation was published (23) offering a considerable reward for bringing him in either dead or alive; which, however, seems to have been productive of no greater success than former attempts for that purpose. At length, the infirmities of old age increasing upon him (24), and desirous to be relieved, in a fit of sickness, by being let blood, he applied for that purpose to the Prioress of Kirkleys nunnery in Yorkshire, his {xi} relation (women, and particularly religious women, being, in those times, somewhat better skilled in surgery than the sex is at present), by whom he was treacherously suffered to bleed to death. This event happened on the 18th of November 1247, being the 31st year of King Henry III. and (if the date assigned to his birth be correct) about the 87th of his age (24). He was interred under some trees, at a short distance from the house; a stone being placed over his grave, with an inscription to his memory (25).