‘My family have been to every coronation since 1066 – I’m waiting for my invitation’

For the 2,000 people who will receive an invitation to Westminster Abbey on Saturday May 6, hearing that envelope land on the doormat will be a thrill – inside is their ticket to a front row seat to history. For Francis Dymoke, it’ll be a feeling more akin to relief. If he is invited to the coronation, he will be the 34th Dymoke to watch a King or Queen crowned since William the Conqueror.

At Queen Elizabeth’s coronation, the Dymokes were given a special mention, says Francis, a 67-year-old accountant-turned-farmer who lives in Lincolnshire. “When my father marched into [Queen Elizabeth’s] coronation carrying the Union Standard, Richard Dimbleby said: ‘This is Captain John Dymoke, whose family have been doing this nigh on 1,000 years’.”

Francis Dymoke’s family history begins on Christmas Day 1066. Robert De Marmion, Dymoke’s 34th great-grandfather, had been the King’s Champion – William’s right-hand man in France. On Coronation Day, he was called upon to ride in on a charger and challenge to a duel anybody who thought they should be the rightful King. It was just a bit of theatre – “they needed to jazz it up a bit,” says Dymoke.

The family was given an estate in Scrivelsby, Lincolnshire in exchange for their service, and from that day on, whenever there was a coronation, the “Dymoke of the day” was called upon to don the family suit of armour and take up the role of King’s Champion. They would ride into the banquet at Westminster Hall, stop, throw down their gauntlet and pause to see if anyone wanted to challenge them. “They’d do it three times and the last time in front of the King or Queen. […] On the third one the [monarch] would drink a toast from a cup and give it to us.”

In the bright, modern kitchen at Scrivelsby, on the very spot his family has farmed for 957 years, Dymoke is holding the fringed gauntlet, which looks rather like something one of the three musketeers would have worn. “One of the problems is I’ve got 33 great-grandfathers looking over my shoulders saying: ‘You’ve got to do the job, mate’,” he says, holding up the battered glove. “You’ve got to do it properly and represent the family and keep it going’.”

An invitation to perform a role at the coronation is no longer guaranteed. After George IV was crowned in 1821, the banquet at Westminster Hall was dropped and with it the business of having a knight ride in on a charger. “Since then we’ve been on borrowed time,” says Dymoke. “All I can do is request to take part.”

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In days gone by, he would simply have sent a letter to the Duke of Norfolk (Norfolks having organised coronations since 1386), but it being 2023, two weeks ago he went on www.gov.uk and sent off a form to prove he had a hereditary right to perform a ceremonial role. He is waiting to hear back. “I wrote along the lines that […] my family has done it since William the Conqueror, and though I appreciate it’s not a right any more […] it would be a good thing to be involved.”

Dymoke can still recall his late father, John, speaking of his pride at being asked to hold the Union Standard at the Queen’s coronation in 1953. At the time, John’s own father was still alive but ill with cancer, so it fell to him to come back from Sumatra, where his regiment was stationed, to take up the role of Champion.

On the day, John, “a young captain the same age as the Queen”, was “hanging around the Abbey for three hours” in his scarlet uniform, “which probably was a bit nerve-wracking.”

“He was 27 years old and nervous but he always wanted to do it, of course, as we all do.

“The bit that he told me he found most important was the sincerity with which the Queen made her promise. When she did her vows he was quite close and he could see that she really meant it, and she proved it over 70 years, didn’t she?”

Dymoke is entirely unassuming. He is a father of three and a grandfather, who only moved from a house nearby into what remains of the family seat (just the gatehouse is still standing, the original medieval structure having burned down in the 1400s) two years ago. His spaniel, Stan, is at his feet and his wife, Gail, is at the hob making a stew with their own venison. “What wealth we had is all gone and was gone centuries ago,” says Dymoke, as we talk over coffee. He was up early this morning working on the farm, where the main crop these days is electricity — he and his eldest son, Henry, run an anaerobic digester fuelled by their maize.

He is aware that when it comes to his family connection to coronations, nothing is guaranteed. “I personally have earned no right to do this,” he stresses.

Unlike earldoms or baronetcies, a strange quirk of the title is that it is attached to the land, not the family. “It’s the right of myself as owner of this estate, not necessarily the family... I could sell it to an American I guess.” It’s also a role that only exists for one day, and depending on how the Champion’s life tallies with the length of a monarch’s reign, that day might not even come. For Dymoke, it has been a vague, unknown point on the horizon since he was born.

Dymoke isn’t the King’s right-hand man, as his forebears would have been; he and Gail “don’t move in smart circles”. He has had to teach himself the family history and is constantly finding out new tidbits. “One of my favourites is that Robert Dymoke was a friend of Henry VIII,” says Gail. “He was Champion to three Henrys but he managed to retain his faith even though he was Catholic.

“When Henry divorced Catherine of Aragon, she was sent to a convent in Northamptonshire. Robert Dymoke was sent to be the controller of the household, to keep an eye on her, I think probably because he was trusted but also because he was still Catholic, and obviously there was all the worry about her getting in touch with her brother and causing trouble. I think he was an early double agent.”

Today, there are some hints of this extraordinary family history around – a painting of one ancestor standing proudly in his suit of armour at George IV’s coronation hangs in the hallway; Gail recalls that when they first moved in, they found his great-grandfather’s invitation to George V’s coronation in the downstairs loo.

“The family went more or less bust in 1870 and sold everything. When my father inherited, everything was sold off. We retain a suit of armour, which is in Leeds Castle armouries. But that’s not really of any interest to anyone.”

Before I leave, he is keen to show me what he considers to be the most precious bit of remaining family memorabilia. He leaves the room, returning with a large locked wooden box. A paper label hangs from the key with the words ‘Coronation Cups’ in neat cursive. Inside are seven gleaming goblets. “This is what matters,” he says. “This is what remains. I’m not losing this.”

Each one is finely etched with a crest. There is one for James II and one for Queen Anne. There’s a William and Mary cup, a George II, a George III and a George IV. Where are the rest? “Tragically, the story is we had 21 and one of the Dymokes fell asleep on his sun chair [in the 17th century] and someone came and nicked a whole lot.”

What about the Union Standard his father carried 70 years ago, when he marched into Westminster Hall? “He was offered the chance to buy it but he had no money, which is sad. He was a captain on £150 a year.”

If Dymoke’s claim is accepted and he is granted the chance to attend on May 6, what will it mean to him? “It is, to me…” he pauses. “This is the one moment in my life that really matters.”