Going to be controversial and say Thomas from the Hundred Years Wars novels. I powered through them all last summer.
Thomas of Hookton was pretty cool - it's just for me, in whichever sequel it was, it seemed like he maybe wasn't such a good guy anymore.
I can't remember what specifically made me wonder, but I got the impression he may have turned into, or behaving much more like a Bandit/Rogue Warlord. I could well have been mistaken, I need to re-read them anyway, it's been a while!
I am soon going to be giving Cornwall's Azincourt, another read through, and ISTR liking Thomas Hook, more than Thomas of Hookton - It's strange that Cornwal used such similar names for 2 Characters, not only fighting in the same War (or set of Wars) in a very close time period with both being extremely proficient in the use of the War-Bow.
Next on my reading list is Tuck, the 3rd and I think final novel in Stephen Lawhead's Robin Hood adaption/reboot.
It's very much in his usual style - fairly decent characters, and Christianity almost there as a character itself, and his reasoning for the Reboot is very interesting - and actually caused massive upset in Nottinghamshire, to the point that when they heard that the first novel "Hood" was coming out, and what it was about, Nottinghamshire County Council actually released a press pack having a go at Lawhead, to the point they make themselves look rather pathetic, and like some sort of fascist censors - I have a vague memory the press thing had some random Councillor or Town Hall twonk demanding the book be banned. Because of course, 1 fictional/historical/mildly fantasy novel, about a probably fictional character is going to utterly devastate their Tourist Revenue Stream and Economy!
Stephen mulling ideas for a new series got to thinking about Robin Hood. And he thought that say the guy was real - an Outlaw on the run from the Normans in the early days of when the Normans were beginning to Occupy the Home Nations, England, followed by Wales and Scotland, it still doesn't make sense.
In the time period Hood is generally posited as being from, the War Bow was, on the Island of Great Britain mostly used only by the Welsh, at least as a military weapon, deployed in numbers. Historians often say one of the major reasons it took the Normans nearly 200 years to fully conquer and pacify Wales/the Welsh, when they effectively took all of England after just 1 major battle is the Welsh use of the War Bow - I imagine that an Army based around Heavy Cavalry, and Armoured Knights and Men at Arms, and the associated tactics is never going to have an easy job, even if, like the Normans/English have the numerical and financial superiority, not when your fighting lightly armoured men using guerrilla tactics to hit and run, ambushing your formations, when they have entered steep valleys, and those guerrillas pop up along the ridges and hills armed with a weapon which whilst not as powerful or ranged as a Crossbow, is much, much faster, and has enough range to turn that valley into a field of death, and your troops into pincushions. When North Wales finally fell in 1282, one of the first things Edward Longshanks did, was conscript thousands of Welshmen armed with War bows, the men who had been fighting him into his Army and take them up to Scotland. Lawheads thinking is a band of "Outlaws" in that time, armed with War Bows and extremely proficient in their use is far more likely to be Welsh than English/Saxon.
The other thing that doesn't make sense, and it's one of those things people have never thought of before, is Sherwood Forest. I don't know much about the place, but Lawhead says that in this time period, Sherwood was basically an important place of work, very large, but still, a place of work - it was a money house, has such, logging, hunting, lots of industries based within it, using the natural resources it held, so it was well known/mapped, it was well patrolled precisely to stop people from damaging its revenue stream, to stop Peasants poaching the wildlife, stealing the wood and so on. So it would have been very, very difficult for a band of Outlaws to successfully hide out, and continue hiding out for months/years.
At the time, the only truly "wild" or Primeval I think is the technical term, forests left under Norman rule or within their domain and influence were in Wales. So in the Hood series, Hood is a Prince, son of a Welsh King who was until his murder, a Client King to the Normans, and the local Norman Lords, and for various plot reasons is now an Outlaw, with his loyal men, hiding out in Welsh forests.
