Note 88 — NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS REFERRED TO IN THE FOREGOING LIFE.
Reading edition
“Marian was the assumed name of the beloved mistress of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon, whilst he was in a state of outlawry, as Robin Hood was his. See Mr. Steevens’s note to a passage in Shakespeare’s Henry IV. This character in the morris-dances was generally represented by a boy. See Strutt’s View of Customs and Manners, vol. iii. p. 150. It appears by one of the extracts, given above, that at Kingston it was performed by a woman, who was paid a shilling each year for her trouble.”