Meet the King’s Hereditary Champion: Retired accountant, 68, must be willing to duel with any challenger to the throne – including to the DEATH – in historic Coronation role that has been carried out by his family since William the Conqueror
- Francis Dymoke is the 34th King’s Champion in an unbroken family line
- Should anyone challenge Charles or Camilla it is his duty to fight them
For nigh on a thousand years, his family have played a distinguished role at every Coronation. Should anyone challenge the new King or Queen to a duel, it is the duty of the hereditary Champion to fight them on the monarch’s behalf – to the death.
And on May 6, that honour will fall to a 68-year-old former accountant from Lincolnshire. For Francis Dymoke is the 34th King’s Champion in an unbroken family line since William the Conqueror gave the job – and the Lordship of the Manor of Scrivelsby – to a Norman forebear.
By his own admission, Mr Dymoke is not a fighter. Nor is the father of three the right size for squeezing into either of the last two remaining suits of armour standing in the hallway of his ancestral home. However, he turns out to be an active champion of King Charles III in many other regards.
The past few weeks have involved a nervous wait as Mr Dymoke’s invitation was not formally confirmed until this week. ‘As the 34th Champion, I’ve had the other 33 looking over my shoulder,’ he laughs, pointing at the portrait of his ancestor Sir Henry Dymoke, King’s Champion at the coronation of George IV.
That was the last occasion on which the Champion performed the time-honoured role of riding into the banquet, fully armoured, on a horse. He would then throw down his gauntlet three times, demanding any challenger step forward or forever hold his peace.
Francis Dymoke is the 34th King’s Champion in an unbroken family line since William the Conqueror gave the job. Pictured: Mr Dymoke with George IV’s Coronation cup
Mr Dymoke, pictured with his wife Gail, is also the Lordship of the Manor of Scrivelsby
The King’s Champion is a genuine living link to the age of knights in shining armour
If none appeared – and none ever did – then the King would toast the Champion’s health with a gold cup which was then presented as his fee.
Since Sir Henry’s day, there have been no more gold cups (with the last ones living in a bank vault these days), and it has been the Champion’s role to carry a standard or flag into Westminster Abbey. So, next Saturday, Mr Dymoke – wearing morning dress, not armour – will carry the Royal Standard.
The King’s Champion is a genuine living link to the age of knights in shining armour. Yet the squire of Scrivelsby Court does not live in stately splendour. His father inherited a crumbling Tudor house and 3,000 acres of tenanted farmland after the Second World War. Most of the house was later demolished.
As the son of an Army officer, Mr Dymoke spent most of his childhood on the move. After education at Marlborough and Hull University, he pursued a career in accountancy before finally taking on the estate.
The past few weeks have involved a nervous wait as Mr Dymoke’s invitation to the Coronation was not formally confirmed until this week
‘As the 34th Champion, I’ve had the other 33 looking over my shoulder,’ Mr Dymoke said
Scrivelsby Hall is the home of the Dymoke family, traditional holders of the title of King’s Champion
‘Then someone asked if I would be a mentor for the Prince’s Trust,’ he tells me. He loved volunteering for the new King’s most famous creation so much that he ended up as a long-serving member and later chairman of the Lincolnshire branch. Over fifteen years, he helped several businesses get off the ground and is particularly proud of helping two young men turn a grant of £5,000 into a wood business employing 40 people.
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Mr Dymoke also shares another of the King’s great passions in restoring old buildings, serving on the board of the Heritage Trust of Lincolnshire for several years. Like the King, he holds an honorary rank – Colonel of the county Cadet Force.
Both he and his wife, Gail, drive electric cars, too. ‘I think the King has been spot on about all this stuff for years,’ he says. He is also a tree-lover, planting more than 25,000 new trees across the estate. Gail, meanwhile, has converted the walled garden into a thriving wedding venue.
However, the two men have only met briefly twice, once during a local royal visit and once at a Palace garden party for the Prince’s Trust. Mr Dymoke says: ‘There was only time for a short chat and we didn’t discuss the family connection.’
Although lack of space means Mr Dymoke is allowed no ‘plus one’, Gail is just relieved he is going at all. ‘We’d all be very disappointed if it wasn’t continued,’ she says.
It certainly meant a great deal to the previous Champion in 1953. ‘For the rest of his life, my father always remembered that day,’ says Mr Dymoke. Indeed, before his death in 2015, the late Col John Dymoke left one clear instruction for his funeral: He wished to depart this world to the same Coronation anthem which his son will hear in the Abbey next week – Handel’s Zadok The Priest.
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