distinction which was conferred on Sir Robert by Henry VIII., and that the present wording was probably a correction by an ignorant restorer in the seventeenth century, after damage done in the civil wars. The eldest son of the Champion who had been so unjustifiably put to death by Edward IV., was Lionel, who died before his father, and whose brass in Horncastle church represents him kneeling on a cushion in full armour, holding a scroll in his hand, date 1519. The figure is kneeling in a stiff attitude, armed and spurred, and bare-*headed, a scroll from his mouth says:—
"S'cta Trinitas Unus Deus Miserere nob:"
The inscription on the brass is:—
"In honore S'cte et individue Trinitās orate p' 'aia Leonis
Dymoke milit' q' obijit xvij die Me'se Augusti ao D'ni M'cccccxlx:
cui ai'e p' piciet' DE' Amen."
Below on either side were figures of two sons and three daughters.
The sons are now missing.
THE CHAMPION Lionel's brother Robert was only ten when he obtained the title. He was succeeded by his son Edward, who performed the office of Champion for the three children of Henry VIII. His son Robert, though never acting at any coronation, deserves mention as a martyr, in Elizabeth's reign, to his religious convictions. This queen, always dreading a Romish reaction in favour of her rival, Mary Queen of Scots, allowed a Puritanical bishop to persecute any Catholic in his diocese, and Robert, though in feeble health, was stout of heart and kept firm to his faith and died a prisoner at Lincoln, 1580.
The mother of Edward Dymoke who was Champion to Charles II. was buried at Leverton in 1640. Sir Edward was summoned in 1660 before the Parliamentarians at Westminster and accused of "delinquency" because he bore the Royalist title of King's Champion. He was fined £7,000, an enormous sum for the time, and he had to pay between four and five thousand. Hence the impoverishment of the Dymoke family. He lived to see the Restoration, and officiated for Charles II. in 1660, dying in 1663. He was knighted in 1661 "for his loyalty and great sufferings both in person and estate."
A brass plate commemorates his son, Sir Charles Dymoke, who died in 1686. He officiated at the coronation of James II.
