“Cancel the kitchen scraps for lepers and orphans, no more merciful beheadings, and call off Christmas!”
This was Alan Rickman famously portraying the Sheriff of Nottingham in the 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. The Sheriff of Nottingham is one of history’s best known baddies and, unlike the mythical Robin Hood, Rickman’s character was based on a real person. Who then was the real Sheriff of Nottingham? Was he as bad as the Robin Hood legends suggest and what does his story tell us about the reign of King John and the origins of Magna Carta?
As we know, King John’s reign was not a successful one. His paranoid and vindictive nature, oppressive taxes and failed foreign wars caused great resentment amongst his people and his barons, who eventually rebelled in 1215, leading to the sealing of Magna Carta at Runnymede.
The sheriffs were the public face of Angevin rule and of king’s unpopular demands. Their duties were wide-ranging and included executing the king’s orders in the counties, collecting money owed to the king and presiding over local courts. The sheriff was typically a large landowner in the county where he served and the position was often a hereditary one. This meant that they could build up local power bases and unscrupulous sheriffs could exploit their position for personal gain.
During King John’s reign all of the old sheriffs were replaced, with the exception of the Sheriff of Northumberland, and all the new sheriffs were ex-soldiers from France. The appointment of these foreign soldiers as English sheriffs caused much resentment amongst the English barons who described the men as ‘evil counsellors’. In an attempt to increase his war chest and regain his lost territories in France, John made his new sheriff’s more accountable for the profits of their office. Sheriffs didn’t actually get paid and so they relied on taking a portion of the money they collected for the king, incentivising them to collect as much as possible.
King John’s Sheriff of Nottingham was the Frenchman Philip Marc, an ex-soldier. Even before he became Sheriff of Nottingham we can see the type of man Philip Marc was. In 1207 was ordered to collect £100 from three men in Newark, London and later a further £100 was demanded from other debtors in Lexington. These demands were accompanied by a threat – that unless they paid what they owed, their properties would be burnt to the ground. Clearly the king’s peace came at a price. When Marc was made sheriff in 1208 he and his family were not popular and frequently described as ‘a bad lot’, and accused of extortion and oppression, so much so that he was singled out in clause 50 of Magna Carta which demanded his dismissal.
We will remove completely from their offices the kinsmen of Gerard de Athée, and in future they shall hold no offices in England. The people in question are Engelard de Cigogné, Peter, Guy, and Andrew de Chanceaux, Guy de Cigogné, Geoffrey de Martigny and his brothers, Philip Marc and his brothers, with Geoffrey his nephew, and all their followers.
However, not only did he remain in power in Nottingham, John also jointly appointed him as Sheriff of Lincolnshire with Nicholaa de la Haye, which further expanded his power base.
But he was not the only Sheriff of Nottingham to behave badly. Another possible inspiration for the Sheriff of Robin Hood fame is John of Oxford. John was Sheriff in the 1330s and was guilty of fraud and extortion. Sheriffs like Philip Marc and John of Oxford were part of a widespread and easily corruptible system of exploitation designed to raise money. While kings were constantly in need of money, John was particularly creative and ruthless in his efforts to raise the funds needed for his foreign wars. Likewise, while corruption was widespread in the Middle Ages, in John’s reign the corruption of figures like Philip Marc combined with heavy taxation, military failure and John’s paranoid and vindictive nature led to civil war and the sealing of Magna Carta at Runnymede.
By Claire Kennan.
Claire is a Citizens 800 Project Officer and PhD researcher at Royal Holloway, University of London.
