MARMIONS OF SCRIVELSBY
DYMOKES OF SCRIVELSBY
In the Scrivelsby parish church of St. Benedict is a mutilated recumbent stone figure clad in chain-mail with sword and shield, and by his side a lady in the severe costume of the time, with muffled chin and plain head-dress. The warrior is Philip Marmion, the last of the Marmions of Scrivelsby, who died 1292, the family having acted as champions from the time of William the Conqueror to Henry III. Together with the championship, Philip Marmion had the right of free-warren and gallows at his manor at Scrivelsby.
The Lion Gate at Scrivelsby.
Philip having no son, his estates were divided among his four daughters. His second daughter, Mazera, married a Ralph Cromwell, ancestor of the Lord Cromwell who built Tattershall Castle, and the Scrivelsby estate fell to Joan, the youngest, who married Sir Thomas Ludlow. His son, Thomas, left one daughter, Margaret, who married Sir John Dymoke and brought the Championship in 1350 into the family, which has held it now for upwards of 560 years. It was probably their son John who married the daughter of Sir Thomas Friskney, whence descended the Dymokes of Friskney and Fulletby.
At the coronation of Edward II., 1307, and Edward III., 1327, the Championship appears to have been in commission, but at that of Richard II., 1377, Sir John Dymoke claimed it in right of his wife. Baldwin Freville counter-claimed as Lord of Tamworth, but the office was awarded to Sir John.
There are many Dymokes buried both in the church and churchyard, the most notable monument being an altar tomb in the chancel with a brass on it of Sir Robert Demoke. Edward IV. had beheaded his father along with Lord Welles after he had taken them under pledge of safety out of sanctuary at Westminster, and he tried to make amends by heaping favours on the son, who lived in five reigns—Edward IV., Edward V., Richard III., Henry VII., and Henry VIII.; and acted as Champion at the coronation of the last three, in 1483, 1485, and 1509. The brass presents him in armour and spurred, but bareheaded and with short neck, long flowing hair, and a huge beard; he stands on a lion, and the inscription runs thus:—
“Here liethe the body of Sir Robert Demoke of Scrivelsby Knight and Baronet who departed out of this present lyfe the XV day of April in ye yere of our Lord God MDXLV upon whose sowle almighte god have m’ci Amen.”
The words “Knight and Baronet” have puzzled many, but in spite of the fact that Sir Brien Stapilton at Burton Joice, Notts., and Sir Thomas Vyner at Gautby, Lincolnshire, 1672, are described as Knight and Baronet, and though they may have been first Knights and then Baronets, in this case of Sir Robert Dymoke, of 1545, it can hardly have been so, for the title baronet was not in use until after 1603, and we must suppose that the words were originally “Knight Banneret,” a 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 bareheaded, a scroll from his mouth says:—