Maid Marian

Maid Marian by Elsa Watson

As an infant, Marian is orphaned and heiress to great lands and fortunes.  She is married off at the age of five to a young nobleman, Lord Hugh of Sencaster.  The marriage joins her inheritance to his and vastly enriches his family.  When she is seventeen, Lord Hugh, whom she hasn't seen in years, mysteriously dies.  Now an unmarried widow, she becomes a ward of the King, who is off on crusade and cannot be bothered with such matters at home.  The Queen, Eleanor of Aquitane, takes it upon herself to marry Marian off, therefore the new husband would pledge his loyalty and silver to King Richard.  Marian knows she is irrelevant in the decision and is determined to stop this marriage.  She seeks out the help of the famous Robin Hood, Saxon outlaw of Sherwood Forest.  Of course, the outlaw, turns out to be not a bad person, but likeable, noble, and handsome.  She devises a plan for Robin and his merry men to intercept a letter from the Queen, which tells Lord Hugh's mother, Lady Pernelle, that Marian is to marry Hugh's younger brother Stephen.  Once married, her land becomes theirs and she could be easily disposed of.  Just before the wedding, during her pre-wedding confessional, Robin dressed as a priest, whisks her out of the castle lands and back to Sherwood Forest, where she begins an outlaw life and the two fall deeply in love.  Queen Eleanor believes Marian to be dead and Robin Hood and his outlaws help her regain her fortune and expose the treachery of her enemies. 

I have read many versions of Robin Hood and Lady Marian, and I found this particular version to be as good if not better than the others. I love to read of the middle ages and cultures of peoples of those times.  This book was published by Crown Publishers in New York and copyrighted in 2004.   I've written a review of other versions of Maid Marian in my archives.  See---->Lady of the Forest and its sequel Lady of Sherwood.