Up until 1821, the King’s Champion would openly challenge anyone who doubted the new king’s legitimacy at the Coronation banquet.
Back in the medieval age, knights could and did settle disputes through trial by combat. This formal process began by throwing onto the ground an armoured glove, or gauntlet. If the other person picked it up, the challenge was accepted, and the duel commenced. The victor won not only the fight, but the argument.
The Dukes of Normandy employed selected knights to fight such duels on their behalf, particularly when their right to rule was questioned. So came about one of the more arcane and romantic rituals surrounding the coronation of British monarchs.
When William, the Conqueror — who was also Duke of Normandy — seized the English throne in 1066, he asked his friend Robert Marmion to act as his Champion. Marmion’s role was to literally throw down the gauntlet, openly challenging anyone doubting the new king’s legitimacy, to prove their case through armed combat. In return for putting his life on the line, Marmion was given an estate at Scrivelsby, in Lincolnshire. The grant for this sets out that:
“The manor of Scrivelsby is holden … the service of finding on the day of Coronation, an armed knight who shall prove by his body, if need be, that the King is true and rightful heir to the kingdom.”
Over the centuries, Scrivelsby, and with it the role of Champion, has remained with Marmion’s descendants who, since 1350, have been the Dymoke family. Their family motto is the Latin phrase Pro Rege Dimico, a play on their name, meaning “I contend for the King”.
The Coronation Banquet of George IV in Westminster Hall
Artist not known, oil on canvas, made around 1821. (ID no.: 38.292).
Traditionally, the challenge took place during the Coronation banquet, held in Westminster Hall. A painting in the Museum of London’s collection shows the scene at George IV’s banquet in 1821. At the centre of events, amidst the medieval splendour of the hall rides, in full armour, Henry Dymoke (acting on behalf of his clergyman father). He is accompanied by Lord Howard of Effingham (the Deputy Earl Marshal), and the Duke of Wellington (the Lord High Constable), both of whom wear ceremonial robes and coronets.
At the far end of the hall, beneath an elaborate canopy, facing the Champion and his entourage, sits King George. Stretching the length of the chamber are rows of tables, at which grandees such as the dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts and barons sit. Above these are two-tiered galleries for the lords’ wives and the landed gentry. Lady Caroline Greville, whose admission ticket to George’s banquet is in the museum’s collection, would have been seated in one these. Lucky though she may have been to witness the Champion’s challenge, Greville probably left hungry, for those in the galleries did not, apparently, get to eat.
Admission ticket to the Coronation Banquet of George IV
It was issued to Lady Caroline Greville; embossed and printed paper, 1821. (ID no.: 40.53).
Nevertheless, George IV’s banquet was amongst the most lavish on record, costing around £250,000, or over £14 million in today’s money. The dishes were prepared from 23 kitchens, producing 160 tureens of soup, courses of fish, roast venison, beef, mutton, veal and vegetables, moistened with sauce from 480 gravy boats. Attendees washed all of this down with 9,840 bottles of wine and 100 gallons of iced punch. Anyone not satisfied by all of that could help themselves to any of the 3,721 cold dishes provided, which included hams, pasties, seafood and jellies.
George IV’s coronation was the last time the Champion actually performed the ceremony of throwing down the gauntlet. Ten years later, William IV made significant cuts to expenditure, when he assumed the throne, and the Champion was reduced to more modest duties. At the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, in 1951, the role of then Champion, John Dymoke, was simply to carry the Royal Standard.
The banquet no longer takes place in Westminster Hall and, in any case, it is unlikely that King Charles III will provide so extravagant a menu for his guests on 6 May. John Dymoke’s son, Francis, will be King’s Champion on this occasion. Buckingham Palace announced on 27 April that he would, like his father, carry the Royal Standard at the coronation. In this way, he will continue a duty performed by his family for the monarch for close to a thousand years.
Header image: Two engraved portraits, one of the Royal Champion holding aloft the Coronation Cup and one of the Champion holding aloft the Coronation glove. (ID no.: 99.132/1047)
