The Hooded Rebellion

In 1191, the Norman occupation of Eglantia has lasted 125 years, since Duke Wulhelm crossed the Narrow Sea and defeated the last Aelish king at Harrow Field. Norman warriors control the Crown, nobility, high Church, law, and land, while the Aelish remain yeomen, villeins, laborers, and the dispossessed. Norman French is the language of power; Aelish speech, customs, forest rites, and old stories survive among the people. The wound never healed. Norman land seizures destroyed the old Aelish clan system. Taxes, tithes, and labor obligations flow upward while the Aelish receive little in return. Garrisons enforce the hierarchy, weapons are restricted, and rebellion is crushed. Yet the system is not simple: some soldiers are poor Aelish or common Normans, some knights question the cruelty, and parish priests are caught between spiritual duty and institutional survival. King Rydric, the lion-marked crusader king, is absent and imprisoned after the crusade. His ransom is impossibly high, and Prince Jorin rules as regent while trying to prove his competence. Jorin responds with the harshest taxation in living memory, seizing land, increasing labor demands, and driving families into starvation and displacement. Harvests fail, craftspeople cannot work, and Aelish yeoman holdings collapse. The romantic crusade story has become a betrayal. By 1191, five generations of extraction have reached a breaking point. The Crown begins seizing and executing prominent Aelish leaders, destroying even the thin layer of autonomy the yeoman class possessed. Robert the Locker, an Aelish hero who once left to fight in the crusade, returns to find his people starving and his homeland under deeper control. His retreat into Sherwood is not mere hiding. The forest is old Aelish territory, beyond easy Crown control, filled with displaced communities and resources outside Norman monopoly. There, Robert begins organizing resistance. The rebellion is only the spark. The wood has been dry for gener