Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood: Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other MatterWalter, J. Conway (James Conway)
History
Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood: Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter
Walter, J. Conway (James Conway)
Woodhall Spa (England)
passed to his younger daughter, Joan, whose granddaughter, Margaret de
Ludlow, married, in the reign of Edward III., Sir John Dymoke, who acted
as Champion at the coronation of Richard II., and from that time, more
than 500 years, the Dymokes have acted in that capacity for their
respective Sovereigns, down to the last century, the ceremony, however,
having been dispensed with, to the regret of many, on the accessions of
William IV., Queen Victoria, and our present Most Gracious Majesty King
Edward VII.
As this, formerly, State ceremony was so imposing, and of such antiquity,
it deserves more than a passing notice. We here give a description of
it, as observed at the coronation of Queen Mary, from the account of
Planché, in the Royal Records. “At the close of the second course of the
Coronation Banquet, the Champion, Sir Edward Dymoke, entered Westminster
Hall, riding on a roan destrier (war horse) trapped in cloth of gold,
with a mace in one hand and a gauntlet in the other. He was escorted to
the upper end of the hall by the Lord High Constable, and the Earl
Marshall, and the Herald of the Queen with a trumpet; and after he had
made obeisance to the Queen’s highness, he turned him a little aside, and
with a loud voice made proclamation, ‘If there be any manner of man, of
what estate, degree, or condition soever he be, that will say, and
maintain, that our Sovereign Lady Queen Mary, this day here present, is
not the rightful, and undoubted, heretrix to the Imperial Crown of this
realm of England, and that of right she ought not to be crowned Queen, I
say he lieth as a false traitor, and that I am ready the same to maintain
with him, whilst I have breath in my body, either now at this time, or at
any other time, whensoever it shall please the Queen’s highness to
appoint; and thereupon the same I cast him my gage.’ Then he cast the
gauntlet from him, the which no man would take up, till that a herald
took it up and gave it to him again. Then he proceeded to another place,
and did in this manner, in three several places in the said Hall. Then
he came to the upper end, and the Queen drank to him; and after sent to
him the cup, which he had for his fee, and likewise the harness and
trappings, and all the harness which he did himself wear, and then he
returned to the place from whence he came, and was gone.” On the last
occasion, when this ceremony was observed, viz., at the coronation of
George IV., the rightful champion being in Holy Orders, his son Henry,
afterwards Sir H. Dymoke, Bart., was allowed to act for his father, who
was the eighteenth of the hereditary champions of his family. Sir Walter
Scott was present, and, writing to a friend, says, “Young Dymoke is a
fine-looking youth, but bearing perhaps a little too much the appearance
of a maiden knight to be a challenger of the world.” But he adds, with
the eye of an antiquary, “His armour was in good taste, except that his
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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