No, there's not a live-action film you don't know about... I'm talking about the classic children's movie with the talking foxes and hissing snake. Oh yes.

Not too long ago, I realised that it was possible to pin Robin Hood down to a very specific point in time. The film ends with King Richard's return, but that's the thing - Richard the Lionheart only visited England twice: once when he was crowned in 1189, and once after being ransomed out of captivity in 1194. He may have also popped back over the Channel during his wars in France in late '94, but after that he never returned.

Since the setting of Robin Hood is very clearly one where Richard has been away for some time, we can pin the film rather precisely to spring 1194. Richard was freed from captivity in February, and we know he was back out to the wars before the year was out. This fits with the visuals, too - the trees of Sherwood are green, but there's no sign of summer fruits or autumn fall.

1194 was also the height of Prince John's power under Richard - because his brother was in prison! In fact, while the brothers' mother was working to collect enough gold to ransom her elder son, John actually offered his captors money to keep Richard in prison. It certainly explains why he didn't want to hear about him, doesn't it?

Now that we've got that settled, here's the thing that really puzzled me: Maid Marian. Normally, she is a noble lady who knew Robin in his childhood, but this film takes things a step further:

Klucky: Believe me, someday soon, your uncle, King Richard, will have an outlaw for an in-law.

Wait, what?! Marian is Richard's niece? That puts her in a tiny category of historical figures: she has to be either the child of one of Richard's siblings, or one of his wife's.

We can narrow that down further by eliminating Queen Berengaria's family entirely: the queen was from Navarre, down between Spain and France, and didn't even visit England until after Richard's death. Since we know Marian knew Robin when she was younger (and since she doesn't have a Spanish accent), we have to assume that she's of the Royal Family of England.

So who could she be? Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine had eight children in total, but the list can be whittled down very easily:

-William, Count of Poitiers, died age 3. She can't be his daughter.
-Henry the Young King died in 1183, childless, at age 28.
-Matilda, Duchess of Saxony, died in 1189, around the time of Richard's ascension. She had five children who survived to adulthood, but four of them were boys, and the fifth (another Matilda) was married off by Richard in 1189.
-Obviously she can't be Richard's daughter, not that he had any.
-Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany, died in 1186, but left behind three children. We'll come back to these.
-Eleanor, Queen of Castile, had a whole host of children... with her husband, the king of Castille. Most of them died young, and the daughters who didn't ended up married to Spanish and French kings.
-Joan, Queen of Sicily, had one daughter (also called Joan), but she wasn't actually born until 1198. No.
-John... well, she could be Bad Prince John's daughter, but I feel like that would probably have come up in the film? Maybe?

Okay, so let's go back to Geoffrey. As stated, he had three children, though one (another Matilda) died before 1189. The youngest child was a son, Arthur, Duke of Brittany, but the eldest was a daughter... Eleanor, Fair Maid of Brittany.

Eleanor is very nearly a perfect fit for Marian.
-Her father died when she was two, leaving her to be raised by her uncle Richard.
-John hated her. She actually had a better claim to the throne of England than he did; in fact on Richard's death she was legitimately second in line, after her 12 year old younger brother. John ended up imprisoning her in 1202 for the rest of her life, a further 39 years. (They left that bit out...!)
-She was out of the country for a time prior to Richard's return, but came back before he did. Specifically, she was sent to Austria to marry Duke Leopold's son, but turned back when the duke died. This would definitely fit with the plot of the film, which has Robin going on about how much she's grown.
-She never (historically) married, despite being described by Wikipedia as 'the most marriagable princess' due to her status. Richard tried to marry her off in 1195, and again in 1198, but it never worked - perhaps because of her secret former-outlaw husband?
-Her name literally has 'Maid' in it.

There are only two real problems with this theory, both of them easily solvable.
-Her name is wrong. Conveniently, in most versions of the Robin Hood tale, Marian spends some time in a convent - and in most convents, the nuns change their names. The most common new name, in fact, is some variant on Mary... say, for instance, Marian?
-Er... Eleanor was about 11 in 1194 (Wikipedia gives her birthdate as 1182-84). That makes Robin Hood super skeevy. And yet... she was being proffered for arranged marriages by 1190, and actually sent to formalise them by 1193. Clearly King Richard had no problem marrying her off at such a young age.

Which does leave the question: if she was such a valuable commodity, why would Richard marry Marian/Eleanor off to some minor outlaw nobleman? The answer, surely, is plain: Arthur of Brittany was a little boy, and Marian was the only other person who could stand in the way of John's claim to the throne. She was still a child... but Robin wasn't, and he had just proven that he could stand up to John. He may not have been the successor Richard wanted, but he was a darn sight better than the alternative.

(I now want to see a sequel about Prince Consort Robin's fight to secure his wife's throne against Bad King John... I can't be the only one, right? :D)

hS, oo-de-lally