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This is what very good friend and very much respected researcher, Barbarann Ayars, had to say when I questioned her about the DYMOKEs:
Stephen le Eyre married into the Dymoke family ... of Lincolnshire, who were then and still are, the Champions of the Kings of England. What does it mean to be King's Champion? Attendez:
When a Monarch of England is crowned it is the duty of a Dymoke to ride into Westminster Hall and challenge the world against the right of his Sovereign. He is mounted on his charger, clad in armour, with all the necessary trappings of his horse embroidered with two lions passant (his arms) together with other relics of past pageantry. He is supported on either side by noblemen and heralds on foot, and having advanced a certain distance, he throws down his gauntlet, uttering the while his challenge to mortal combat with anyone who denies his Sovereign's right. The challenge goes like this:"If there be any manner of man, of what state, degree, or condition soever he be, that shall say and maintain that our Sovereign-----this day here present, is not the undoubted and rightful inheritor to the imperial crown of this realm, and that of right he ought not to be crowned King, I say he lieth like a false traitor, and that I am ready the same to maintain with him whilst I have breath in my body, either now at this time or at any tme whenever it shall please the King' s highness to appoint, and thereupon I cast him my gage." For this duty he gets a gold cup. It was Catherine Dymoke, the wife of Stephen Eyre, who purchased the Hassop estates from Sir Robert Plumpton in 1498, and whose wealth was the nucleus of their later great possessions.
The above material comes from Old Halls of Derbyshire, Tilley, Vol #1: The High Peak Hundred. Parts of this wonderful book can be found on the net.
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