Well, to be fair, Richard did die before he ever returned to England, of an arrow, through the face I believe, the wound had turned septic- altho legend has it that it was a boy, and not a grown man, a cook, who did it. Richard's mercenary captain, Mercadier, is said to have flayed the boy alive after the king died - even after Richard pardoned him for the act. That part I learned from Prof Crouch's book on the Third Crusade...I'm pretty sure that's where I took that from.
The stonemason bit didn't strike me as looking for ties to the Masons...he really was a stonemason; those were blocks he laid to make that foundation to hide the original version of the Magna Carta in, that Robin later unearthed. The Merry Men wouldn't have fit in as such- in the beginning they were archers and men-at-arms (according to the movie), I thought they were done well. Remember, the Merry Men thing hadn't yet occurred til the end of the movie, altho Robin does utter the one line about being merry at the expense of that group that was taking Nottingham's grain to York. I thought the movie laid the groundwork for future installments of Robin Hood and his Merry Men, if they decide to do it.
I wasn't super thrilled when I heard Crowe was doing Robin Hood but one thing he is good at is the stoic warrior type. One other thing that stuck out for me was- where'd he learn to dance as a noble? He is clearly leading the dance w/Marion during the harvest celebration- you'd think a common-born soldier would not have picked that up anywhere, unless he'd spent a lot of time at court but even then, being low-born would've meant he probably wasn't invited to the party all that much. Just my op on that.
