Of the Royal Championship.
Whether we consider its uninterrupted exercise, and that by one family, for so many centuries, its feudal import, or its present splendid and imposing effect, the office of champion certainly eclipses all the other services of the coronation.
Since the coronation of Richard II. A.D. 1377, (of which there is in Walsingham a detailed account) this office has been performed by a Dymoke, the head of the family of that name who have held the manor of Scrivelsby in Lincolnshire, worth about £1200 per annum, by the tenure of this service. During the reigns of Edward II. and III. the right was in dispute: prior to that period and from the days of the Conqueror it was vested in the far-famed family of Marmion, whose chief, as
"——Lord of Fontenay,
Of Lutterworth and Scrivilbaye,
Of Tamworth tower and town,"
came from Normandy with William, and is there supposed to have held the first of these possessions, on condition of performing the service of champion to the successive dukes.
At the conquest the feudal system was established in England in its maturest and strictest forms; and the present office being the most perfect relic of that system known to modern times, a slight sketch of its peculiarities will not be uninteresting.
The foundation of all the subsequent customs of homage, suit, service, purveyance, &c. is to be traced in the original connexion between the vassal and his lord, or the chief and his retainers, which Tacitus notices as remarkable in ancient Germany. According to this, every follower was to be found fighting by the side of his chief in time of war, as the very first duty of social life—and in time of peace to look up to him as the only legitimate fountain of honour and justice.
Certain it is, that this relation was, in substance, as well known and supported by our Anglo-Saxon ancestors, before the accession of William, as it was by our Highland neighbours, down to the rebellion in 1745. A striking instance of the romantic and desperate courage to which it gave rise occurs as early as the reign of Cynewulf, king of Wessex, A.D. 784. Sigebircht, the deposed predecessor of this prince, was, in the first year of his rival's reign, found murdered in the forest of Andreswald: but left a brother, of the name of Cyneheard, who cherished for thirty-one years the secret purpose of avenging his death. At last he returned, with eighty-four retainers, into the neighbourhood of Winchester, the royal residence; and, tracing the king to a country seat at Merton, the abode of a favourite lady, surrounded the house at midnight. Cynewulf was quickly roused; but his followers were scattered throughout the place, and could not be collected until, after a brave personal conflict with the enemy, the king's life-blood had satiated his vengeance. Cyneheard now offered the royal train their liberty and possessions, on condition of their peaceable departure; but they rejected his proposals with scorn, and to a man died on the threshold of their master. On the intelligence reaching the court, in the morning, Osric and Wavirth, two powerful chieftains, surrounded themselves with their vassals, and rode to Merton, where they were met by Cyneheard, with professions of friendship. He called their attention to the injuries of his family, the duty of avenging which had devolved upon himself; urged his claim to the vacant throne; made them the most liberal offers, in case of their acknowledgment of him; and concluded by reminding them, that many of his adherents were their own near kinsmen. "Our kinsmen," they indignantly answered, "are not dearer to us than was our lord. To his murderer we shall never submit. If those who are related to us wish to save their lives, let them depart." "The same offer," rejoined the followers of Cyneheard, "was made to the attendants of the king, who refused it. We will prove to-day that our attachment is equal to theirs:" and Cyneheard, and all his adherents except one, were slain[60].
But the Conqueror, owing his crown to the sword, more strictly adapted the system which he found in use to his own military notions and future safety. Having divided all the principal estates of the country amongst his vassals, he converted the English military tenures into a regular obligation, called knights' fees, which compelled each tenant in chief to have a certain number of knights, or horsemen, always ready to assert the rights of the crown, and to fight under its banner, in any cause, "We will," says a law on this subject, yet extant, "that all the freemen of our kingdom possess their lands in peace, free of all tollage and unjust exaction: that nothing be required or taken from them but their free service, which they owe to us of right, as has been appointed to them, and granted by us with hereditary right for ever, by the common council of our whole kingdom." "And we command that all earls, barons, knights, serjeants, and freemen, be always provided with horses and arms as they ought; and that they be always ready to perform to us their whole service, in manner as they owe it to us of right, for their fees and tenements, and as we have appointed to them by the common council of our whole kingdom, and as we have granted to them in fee a right of inheritance[61]." This free service required the due quota of horsemen, which each vassal was to furnish, to come, completely armed, on his requisition, and to be maintained under the royal command, at the charge of the party sending them, for forty days. Even the dignitaries of the church, and monastic bodies holding lands, were not exempt from this service.
Each tenant in chief subdivided his property into sub-vassalships, imposing a similar service, and carrying downwards all the obligations of homage, fealty, and personal attendance on all important occasions.