Was there a real Sheriff of Nottingham?

Yorkshire, July 1225. A sheriff is authorised by the king to “seek and take and behead Robert of Wetherby, outlaw and evil-doer of our land”. He tracks down Wetherby and, a few months later, grabs him. The sheriff’s accounts record a sum of 28 shillings for the cost of the pursuit – and two shillings “for a chain” to hang him.

For some historians and folklorists, the headless corpse dangling in the air was that of the original Robin Hood. But what of the man who caught him?

The 2025 Robin Hood series from MGM+ features Sean Bean as the Sheriff of Nottingham, Hood’s primary antagonist in the most popular tellings of the legend. Here, he is portrayed as a measured and principled officer, loyally performing his royal duties – an antithesis of Alan Rickman’s sheriff in the 1991 Hollywood film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

From the very start of the Robin Hood legend, it has been built on fictional entertainment; however, there may well be elements of it that are rooted in fact. The Sheriff of Nottingham was one of the facts – sort of.

Was the Sheriff of Nottingham a real position?

Yes, there were real sheriffs of Nottingham, but not one specific sheriff to match the character of the Robin Hood myth.

The first Sheriffs of Nottingham were William Sadler and Thomas Lyng, appointed together in 1449.

Most Robin Hood films and TV series are set well before this, during the reign of King Richard the Lionheart. MGM+’s 2025 series tells us that it is set in 1189 – the year Richard comes to the throne. At the start of the series, Henry II (Richard’s father) is still very much alive, much to ire of his queen, the long-suffering Eleanor of Aquitaine (played by Gladiator II alumna Connie Nielsen).

Before the mid-15th century, there was the High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and the Royal Forests, a position established in 1068 by William the Conqueror. The Royal Forests did, of course, cover Sherwood Forest.

It is easy to see how this official title would become readily abbreviated into the Sheriff of Nottingham, especially to fit into the Robin Hood stories as they developed, which was almost certainly from the early 13th-century onwards. Whether those stories originated in Sherwood Forest and Nottingham, that’s another matter that cannot be proven one way or the other.

Who was the real Sheriff of Nottingham?

The inspiration for the Sheriff of Nottingham depends on when the story is set. The most familiar modern timing for the story is during the reign of Richard the Lionheart (1189–99). We see this in Robin of Sherwood (1984–6), Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), and the Robin Hood films of 2010 and 2018.

As most of those stories have it, Richard’s younger brother, Prince John – living up to his pantomime villain image – tries to usurp the throne while Richard is on the Third Crusade (and, subsequently, in captivity). Until the king returns to England, the country suffers from corrupt officials, personified by the sheriffs and judges who prospered under John’s attempts to rule.

Hence there is the need for a hero – Robin Hood – to right the wrongs inflicted upon the people until Richard restores equilibrium and justice.

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So who was the Sheriff of Nottingham during this period? It’s still tricky, because there was more than one sheriff during the time of Richard’s absence and John’s rule; according to some accounts, there were as many as four.

As in much of the Robin Hood myth, the information is not complete, and there were frequent periods of vacancy before the post was refilled. Elsewhere, other offices such as Constable of Chester could become associated with the shrievalty [the office of a sheriff], and the turmoil of John’s rebellion against Richard added to the confusion.

There is therefore not just one person who can be fixed on as the sheriff of the Robin Hood stories.

One figure is William Brewer, whom the Public Records Office places in office as the High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and the Royal Forests from Easter 1194. While earning a reputation as a harsh enforcer of laws and taxes – and hence a possible candidate for the original sheriff of the Robin Hood legends – he was appointed by Richard until his dismissal in 1199. In other official posts, petitions were made for his removal on account of his greed.

Another candidate is Ralph Murdac, in post in 1189, who sided with John during the revolt, and was thus in the opposite camp to Robin. Ralph is therefore ‘the’ sheriff of the Robin Hood stories if we adhere to the chronology; but as so often is the case with Robin Hood on screen, the sheriff has no name, simply being called by his title.

This idea of the Robin Hood story taking place in the 1190s was first set out by the Scottish chronicler John Major in 1521 – some three centuries after the legend was spreading. Even then, he wrote, it was “according to my estimate”. Sir Walter Scott’s wildly successful and influential novel Ivanhoe (1819) cemented this period as being the time of Robin Hood in popular imagination.

If we go later into John’s reign (1199–1216), as perhaps we should, then there are yet more possibilities for other wicked Sheriffs of Nottingham. Philip Marc, sheriff from 1209 to 1224, fits the bill nicely. His behaviour was so notorious that in 1215, Magna Carta demanded his removal from office. He was symptomatic of the injustices of John’s reign.

What links the Sheriff of Nottingham with Robin Hood?

It is interesting that our first surviving written texts of the Robin Hood story emanate from the second half of the 15th century, when the new position of Sheriff of Nottingham came into being.

By this time, the position of High Sheriff had been reduced in power and influence across the country. It was a very different state of affairs to the 12th and 13th centuries, when he was the chief instrument of royal government in the shires.

But the huge popularity of the Robin Hood stories has made the Sheriff of Nottingham by far the most famous of all of England’s sheriffs.

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And besides, who the actual sheriff was matters less in the Robin Hood stories than what he represented: the corruption of justice and righteous rule.

Sheriffs had plenty of opportunity to abuse power. They collected revenues and taxes, prepared and presided over courts, arrested criminals and detained them in custody, and, crucially, oversaw forestry laws, which meant dealing with poaching.

These provided ample occasions for bribery, profiteering and extortion. Often this was at the behest of the king.

Was the Sheriff of Nottingham related to Henry II of England?

Though the Sheriff of Nottingham held a lot of power, there is no evidence that he was related to the kings of England.

MGM+’s 2025 Robin Hood makes much of Sean Bean’s Sheriff of Nottingham being cousin to Henry II (and a descendant of William the Conqueror), fitting into a wider narrative of strife between the Norman aristocracy and the Saxons they had supplanted in the wake of the Norman Conquest some 130 years earlier.

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Taking into account the available crossover time spans of the series and the earliest potential timings of the Robin Hood story, the answer here is: no.

The sheriff’s link to the king is a matter of artistic licence, introducing a dynamic that pits the sheriff’s loyalty to his cousin against the pressures of Eleanor of Aquitaine.

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