There needed not to blazon forth the Swinton,
His ancient burgonet the boar; &c.“Cambridge Portfolio,” vol. i., pp. 233, 234.
This may be a convenient place to discuss the origin of the name Dymock. Walford (“Tales of Great Families”) says the name is Welsh, being a contraction of Daimadoc, which means David Madoc. He was a descendant of Owen Tudor, Lord of Hereford and Whittington. This chief had three sons; the second married a daughter of the Prince of North Wales, half a century before the Conquest, and was ancestor of David ap Madoc; Dai-Madoc, in course of time, shrinking into Daimoc, or Dymoke. Burke says that the John Dymoke who married Margaret de Ludlow, granddaughter of Philip de Marmion, was a knight of ancient Gloucestershire ancestry, and there is a village of Dymock, near Gloucester. A Welsh origin is likely, as there were Dymokes of Pentre in Wales; the Lady Margaret de Ludlow, who married Sir John Dymoke of Scrivelsby, took her title from Ludlow in the adjoining county of Salop. And another Welsh origin of the name has been suggested. “Ty,” pronounced “Dy” in Welsh, means “house”; “moch” means “swine”; and so Dymoke would mean Swinehouse, after the fashion of Swynburne, Swinhop, Swineshead; all old names. The motto of the Dymokes, adopted at a later date, Pro Rege Dimico, “I fight for the King,” is again a case, though most appropriate, of a “canting” motto.
[211] I am indebted, for these details, to that very interesting work, Walford’s “Tales of Great Families.”
[212a] “Words of Wellington,” by Sir William Fraser, Bart., pp. 41–44. The “Gentleman’s Magazine” for 1821 contains a picture of Sir H. Dymoke, riding on his white charger into Westminster Hall, supported on either side by the Duke of Wellington and Marquis of Anglesey, on horseback; and two Heralds, with tabards and plumes, on foot.
[212b] (a) sword, (b) girdle, (c) scabbard, (d) partisans, i.e. halberts, (e) gilt, (f) pole-axe, an ancient weapon, having a handle, with an iron head, on the one side forming an axe, and the other side a hammer; this, in the hands of a strong man was a fatal instrument of destruction; (g) the chasing staff was a gilt “wand of office” carried before the Champion, to clear the way, (h) a pair of gilt spurs.
[215] Had we continued on the road skirting the Park and passing within 150 yards of Scrivelsby church, we should have presently reached the village of Moorby, with a modern brick church, but having a remarkable old font, and part of an uncommon “minstril column;” thence, turning westward, we might have passed through Wood Enderby, with modern church of sandstone; and so have reached Haltham, our next stage; but this route must be considered as rather beyond a walk or drive from Woodhall Spa, although it would repay the energetic visitor to take it.
[216] This description is mainly taken from an account given by the Rev. J. A. Penny in “Linc. N. & Q.” vol. iv., pp. 161–164.
[217] “Lincs. N. & Q.,” vol. iii., pp. 245, 246. It may be remarked that this kind of tenure is not so uncommon as has been supposed. In an old undated Deed, but of the time of Richard I., William, Clerk of Hameringham, a parish within four miles of Haltham, makes a grant of land to the monks of Revesby on condition of their providing him and his heirs annually at Michaelmas a pair of spurs. Blount (“Tenures of Land and Customs of Manors,” pp. 115, 237) mentions similar tenures in Notts. and Kent (“Lincs. N. A Q.,” vol. i., p. 256). There is a peculiarity about these two “spur” tenures in our neighbourhood worthy of note. An old chronicler says that, when the freebooter’s larder got low, his wife had only to put a pair of spurs in his platter, as a hint that he must issue forth to replenish it. We can, without any great stretch of imagination, picture to ourselves the knight, Ralph de Rhodes, making an inroad on a neighbour’s soil, and therefore the annual gift of spurs would be acceptable, for himself or his men. But to the country parson we can hardly deem such a gift appropriate. He could scarcely be a “clerk of St. Nicholas,” as well as clerk of his benefice; and even were he always to make the round of his parish on horseback, his spurs would hardly need yearly renewal.
[218] The Saxon is Cyning; the Danish Koning, and Konge; English King. In not a few cases history records the occasion when the king’s presence gave the name; as at Kingston-on-Thames, where there is a stone, still carefully preserved, on which the Saxon kings sat to be crowned. King’s-gate, in the Isle of Thanet, is the spot where Charles II. landed at the Restoration. The manor of Hull (Kingston-on-Hull) was purchased by Edward I., and King’s Lynn, Lyme Regis, Conington, Cunningham, Coney-garth, Coningsby, all tell the same tale. They perpetuate their respect for Royalty in the very name they took.—Taylor, “Words and Places,” pp. 201, 203.
[219a] Lord Coningsby had two sons, Humphrey and Ferdinand, whose baptisms are entered in the register of Bodisham, or Bodenham, Herefordshire, with dates 16 Feb., 1681–2, and 6 May, 1683.—“Lincs. N. & Q.,” vol. iii, p. 24.