Contemporary chroniclers rarely gave outlaws the narrative attention that William Dene did. The Historia Roffensis, attributed to Dene, recounts the crimes of the notorious Coterel Gang in the early 14th century.
Dene crowns the leader of the gang, James Coterel as the ‘King of the Peak’. His account describes the gang’s very real kidnapping and ransom of royal justice Richard Willoughby:
“Then seeking out lord Richard Willoughby, who was paying little attention to such their words, they captured him, after finding him in a certain place, and they brought him to their king, in the country of the Peak, and thus the king of the Peak was called.
Placed before the justices of the king of the Peak, and there for the quindene and more, pleading in that court, he learnt their laws, which he did not formerly know, nor ever heard.
Afterwards, he paid at the Exchequer of the king of the Peak for his issues, one thousand marks and for keeping his word that he would never impeach or charge the king of the Peak and his men upon what had been done there, they promised that he could go away unharmed, fully instructed in their laws and not empty in purse.”
According to the archival records, the Coterels – working alongside the equally infamous Folvilles – ultimately levied 1,300 marks, (roughly £750k in modern buying power). And that, remarkably, still didn’t leave Willoughby “empty in purse.”
It’s not a big leap from episodes like this to the outlaw ballads we know today.