5th May 2023
Here is a remarkable, and as this post will contend misconceived and historically illiterate, take on the coronation:
And here is a similarly misconceived message:
Our tolerance for any disruption, whether through protest or otherwise, will be low.
We will deal robustly with anyone intent on undermining this celebration.
🧵🔽
— Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) May 3, 2023
*
Let this blog introduce you to the King’s (or Queen’s Champion).
According to that history website:
“Originally it was the champion’s duty to ride, on a white charger, fully clad in armour, into Westminster Hall during the coronation banquet.
“There he threw down his gauntlet and challenged any person who dared to deny the sovereign’s right to the throne. The king himself of course, could not fight in single combat against anyone except an equal.
“It was only at the Coronation of Queen Victoria in 1838 that the traditional ride and challenge was left out of the ceremony. Henry Dymoke – Queen’s Champion at the time – was created a baronet by way of compensation.”
And here at Wikipedia is more information – and a splendid pic:
*
And akin to the familiar challenge in a wedding ceremony, the challenge was expressly made:
“If any person, of whatever degree soever, high or low, shall deny or gainsay our Sovereign Lord [ ], King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, son and next heir unto our Sovereign Lord the last King deceased, to be the right heir to the imperial Crown of this realm of Great Britain and Ireland, or that he ought not to enjoy the same; here is his Champion, who saith that he lieth, and is a false traitor, being ready in person to combat with him, and in this quarrel will adventure his life against him on what day soever he shall be appointed.”
*
Times change, and the nature of challenges change, but the essence is just the same.
A confident monarchy should welcome challenges on coronation day.
Offering this challenge was part of the reason there were coronations.
From a constitutional and legal perspective, a coronation has little significance: the new monarch rules and can exercise powers on the death of the last monarch.
The function of the coronation is therefore largely symbolic: and part of the symbolism was to show off the confidence of the new monarch by offering a challenge to, well, challengers.
Bearing this in mind, let us go back to the take quoted above.
“The Coronation is not the moment to start an argument about the future of the monarchy” – yet hundreds of years of the king’s champion says otherwise.
“Our tolerance for any disruption…” – imagine the, ahem, disruption of a knight arriving to challenge the coronation.
Perhaps it is understandable though that some pundits and the police don’t realise that coronations were once about challenges as well as about validations.
After all, it would take a sense of history.
***
Comments Policy
This blog enjoys a high standard of comments, many of which are better and more interesting than the posts.
Comments are welcome, but they are pre-moderated and comments will not be published if irksome, or if they risk derailing the discussion.
More on the comments policy is here.
Henry Dymoke was not only the “Queen’s Champion at the time” he would have been any monarch’s champion at the time, for it seems the Dymokes of Scrivelsby, Lincolnshire, are by feudal right hereditary Champions of the monarch, I imagine in the same way that the Duke of Norfolk is hereditary Earl Marshal. (I learn from wikipedia that the Silver Stick in Waiting is – as one might have guessed – assistant to Gold Stick in Waiting.) In a supposed 21st century democracy and no longer an Empire, let alone a world power, surely it is time we lost all this Ruritanian pageantry and flummery. It seems it is the only thing we are still good at. On the other hand the ineffable Marina Hyde has opined that as Norfolk is so good at arranging these things (and in precision time), would it not be a good idea to hand him a clutch of Ministries to manage? As to your point, it is surely not too late for the 34th Dymoke of Scrivelsby (aka Francis Dymoke) to be summoned to undertake his feudal and hereditary duty and be the monarch’s Champion tomorrow? Throwing down the gauntlet of challenge would be more relevant than the anointing of oils.
Would not the challenge have been as to the candidate seeking to be crowned rather than as to the institution of monarchy itself?
Quite.
Presumably the Knight of the Republic that appears when enough people want one, would – by means of his mighty righteousness- face down all comers causing a de facto cessation of the practice of enthronement. A wise king might institute a modern order of Knights to head off such challenges. He could use his great fortune to assemble Knights of the Truth from the ranks of ordinary citizens by annual sortition and charge them with assisting his current government. Specifically, they would serve as of font of wisdom available for consultation that ministers of state may never again have to speculate about what ‘the People’ think: A spokesperson could show up for tea along with the PM of the day to explain how things look from the perspective of ordinary unelected people. His Britannic Majesty would doubtless derive enormous pleasure and edification from the skill with which any random group of his subjects are able to craft endlessly original and temporally relevant weekly feedback for his Ministers to consider as they in turn go about their duty in his Majesties service.
“The Coronation is not the moment to start an argument about the future of the monarchy”
I couldn’t help noticing that this follows the much-exercised US principle of “Immediately after school mass shooting is not the time to start an argument about gun control.”
But coronations come along less frequently.
Indeed they do. So it is reasonable to say that we should just enjoy a party for the coronation and worry later about whether the monarchy should be replaced with President Boris or suchlike. But in America, a rule against contemplating gun control just after a shooting is an effective ban on ever contemplating it, due to the frequency that they occur.
That’s a great comment.
As a retired RAF Officer, I’d like to apply for the position of Crab Stick in Waiting
I’m not so much wishing for Dymoke to attend, as for a challenger to arrive looking for him. Although I can’t imagine that it would actually be a particularly good idea for anyone to try it.
Perhaps, if the lethal aspect were removed, this could be reinstated under the title “It’s a Royal Knockout”.
The Metropolitan Police are hardly in a position to issue threats to the population such as that. Such an appalling tone can only have been encouraged by the very recent Royal Ascent to the Public Order Act, providing harsher penalties against peaceful protest.
If the live facial recognition technology they will be using is as inaccurate is statistics show then there will be an awful lot of innocent people being subjected to searches by “specialist teams”.
Fantastic fun. A sort of ‘come on if you’re hard enough’.
Although I suspect if one did challenge Francis and cut off his head with one’s broadsword or shank him somehow whatever happens next is not good. Perhaps the challenger gets to sweep Camilla up onto his nicked Ducati and carry her off. Maybe not.
At 68 I would not fancy our current champion’s chances in any realistic scuffle. This sort of scenario must have been foreseen in days of old when knights were bold. Maybe there is a pecking order of champions and one can hand the job off to some young Baldrick-like character – with a Ducati.
His father carried the national standard at QE2’s coronation. Francis may be doing the same. But don’t we all long for the full mounted armour number? It would be a lot more fun.
Sometimes it’s useful to get further backcloth to the issue. According to Buckingham Palace, roles to be performed (27 April 2023):
“..Francis Dymoke will carry The Royal Standard.
Mr Dymoke’s claim to undertake a historic role in the Coronation was upheld by the Coronation Claims Office. The title of King or Queen’s Champion has been held by the Dymoke family since the Middle Ages. The King’s Champion would previously ride on horseback into the Coronation Banquet and challenge any who doubted the right of The King or Queen to the throne. There has not been a Coronation Banquet since that held by King George IV in 1821 so the Champion has instead undertaken a different role since, usually bearing a flag or Standard…”
Seems a perfectly rational explanation with no sinister or cynical undertones.
Hoping the Lord High Constable of all Scotland (Earl of Erroll) has a good day too. He’s a great chap & will, I’m sure, aquit himself with aplomb.
In further correspondence on this in the FT, following Simon Schama’s article, I was informed by a very well informed contributor that the right is Sergeanty and is a feudal service of the manor of Scrivelsby which the Dymokes still own rather than an hereditary right of the Dymoke family per se and has been contested at law on a number of occasions. Anachronism upon anachronism. One of those wonders from the arcane byways of the English legal system. Perhaps DAG is aware of other survivors like this of the feudal manorial system.
See @froghole1’s link “The origins of the office of champion and its attachment to Scrivelsby (and formerly Tamworth Castle, Staffordshire) are obscure, but are dealt with here at pp. 378-92: https://archive.org/details/cu31924091024863/page/n417/mode/2up?view=theater (this is J. H. Round’s 1911 book ‘The King’s Serjeants and Officers of State with their Coronation Services’; Round was a notable historian of Domesday Book and the early history of the peerage, as well as a very dyspeptic academic controversialist; the pretext or purpose of the book was partly to provide a guide to the court of claims, which dealt with the coronation claims of George V).”
Having seen the Order of Service Francis Dymoke is indeed bearing the Royal Standard. But who wouldn’t want to be March Pursuivant Extraordinary?
You can’t expect brownies for pointing out nonsense from The Telegraph. That could be a full-time job for many. But seriously, a great and entertaining article, as well as educational for me.
The Ziegfeld Follies would be looking down with admiration of the precision performance of indentured UK armed forces having being part a Royal Crowning Party
The fact that others have contested the Dymoke’s family right ( hereditary or not) and legally and , it would seem, have won the right to be The King’s Champion – is in and of itself a nice bit of irony in a law & constitutional blog.
I news that I quoted earlier from Buckingham Palace that there being no Coronation banquet since 1821, the need for the chap on the White Charger and gauntlet became somewhat obviated, the”rules” were changed “so the Champion has instead undertaken a different role since, usually bearing a flag or Standard…”
This is interesting and perhaps indicates a flexing and evolving coronation convention – a subtlety that ought not be overlooked especially in respect of customs, lores and laws.
In terms of challenge to the sovereign, I found it interesting during the ceremony that when the audience/congregation was invited to endorse the king, each point of the compass was invited to endorse him as “the undoubted king”.
I imagine that such an expression dates from a time when it was not at all clear who was, in fact, the undoubted king, if any. The assertion that the person being crowned was undoubtedly the right person was therefore necessary in order to try and dispel the doubts that often did exist as to who actually was most qualified to be king.
So, as it turned out, protest was not allowed. The Met arrested people who wanted to exercise their right to protest, used new and untested legislation to use possession of every day objects – string, cable ties – as “proof” of illegality, and then, once it was too late for the protests to happen, released the protesters with no further action.
Now what? Has protest been effectively outlawed? By what means can the Met Police be restrained from exceeding its role in a democratic society?
I look forward to this blog’s follow up posting.
So what is the role of a modern day champion for the normal person who got one?