Another Coronation ‘tradition’ The King’s Champion
The Coronation Claims Office exists to validate or otherwise claiming that they have some historic role to play in King Charles 111’s Coronation.
The role of King’s Champion will be carried out by Francis John Fane Marmion Dymoke.
He is the Mayor of Scrivelsby in Lincolnshire a title given to one of his predecessors in 1066.
The Dymoke family inherited the role of King’s Champion and a Dymoke first performed it at Richard 11’s Coronation on 16th July 1377. The office holder is supposed to ride into the Coronation Banquet on horseback in full armour and thrown down a gauntlet to challenge anyone present who thinks the monarch at the Coronation is not the rightful heir to speak up.
There has not been a Coronation Banquet since 1821 so these days the King’s Champion just carries a flag.
In short the role has been redundant for over two hundred years and in an apparently slimmed down Coronation one wonders what the purpose of Dymoke being there actually is
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