Robert Dymoke, Dymock or Dymocke, of

Scrivelsby Scrivelsby is a village and ecclesiastical parish in the East Lindsey district of the County of Lincolnshire, England. It is situated south of Horncastle and is on the B1183 road east from the A153 road. It is administered by the civil parish ...

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-west, Leicestershire ...

(born 1531; died at

Lincoln Lincoln most commonly refers to: * Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the sixteenth president of the United States * Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England * Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S. * Lincoln ...

, England, 11 September 1580) was

Queen's Champion The Honourable The King's (or Queen's) Champion is an honorary and hereditory office in the Royal Household of the British sovereign. The champion's original role at the coronation of a British monarch was to challenge anyone who contested the ...

of England and a devout Catholic

recusant Recusancy (from la, recusare, translation=to refuse) was the state of those who remained loyal to the Catholic Church and refused to attend Church of England services after the English Reformation. The 1558 Recusancy Acts passed in the reign ...

who was named a

martyr A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...

after his death.

Life

In 1579 Dymoke received the Catholic priest,

Richard Kirkman William Lacy (Lacey) (died 1582) was an English Catholic priest and martyr. He and fellow priest Richard Kirkman were executed at York on 22 August 1582. Biography William was born at Houghton or Tosside, West Riding). He married a widow, name ...

, at his manor of

, and maintained him as a schoolmaster to his sons. He was himself, at the time, an occasional conformist to the

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...

state religion. He was reconciled to the Catholic Church in 1580, either by Kirkman or by

Edmund Campion Edmund Campion, SJ (25 January 15401 December 1581) was an English Jesuit priest and martyr. While conducting an underground ministry in officially Anglican England, Campion was arrested by priest hunters. Convicted of high treason, he was ...

. In July 1580, Dymoke and his wife were indicted for hearing

Mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...

and for recusancy. He was by then quite helpless owing to

paralysis Paralysis (also known as plegia) is a loss of motor function in one or more muscles. Paralysis can also be accompanied by a loss of feeling (sensory loss) in the affected area if there is sensory damage. In the United States, roughly 1 in 50 ...

. Dymoke was ordered by Thomas Cooper,

Bishop of Lincoln The Bishop of Lincoln is the ordinary (diocesan bishop) of the Church of England Diocese of Lincoln in the Province of Canterbury. The present diocese covers the county of Lincolnshire and the unitary authority areas of North Lincolnshire and ...

, to be carried off to gaol in Lincoln, where he was visited in his last hours by Protestant ministers, while he was dying there.

Family

He was the son of Sir Edward Dymoke, of Scrivelsby, Lincolnshire (d. 1566), Hereditary

King's Champion The Honourable The King's (or Queen's) Champion is an honorary and hereditory office in the Royal Household of the British sovereign. The champion's original role at the coronation of a British monarch was to challenge anyone who contested the ...

. The office ran in the

Dymoke The Dymoke family of the Manor of Scrivelsby in the parish of Horncastle in Lincolnshire holds the feudal hereditary office of King's Champion. The functions of the Champion are to ride into Westminster Hall at the coronation banquet and challe ...

family, for many centuries. His wife, whom he married sometime around 1556, Lady Bridget Clinton (born c. 1536), by whom he had ten children, was the eldest daughter and coheiress of

Edward Clinton, 1st Earl of Lincoln Edward Fiennes, or Clinton, 1st Earl of Lincoln KG (151216 January 1584/85) was an English landowner, peer, and Lord High Admiral. He rendered valuable service to four of the Tudor monarchs. Family Edward Clinton, or Fiennes, was born a ...

and

Elizabeth Blount Elizabeth Blount (// – 1540), commonly known during her lifetime as Bessie Blount, was a mistress of Henry VIII of England. Early life Blount was the daughter of Sir John Blount and Catherine Pershall, of Kinlet, Bridgnorth, Shropshire. Si ...

.Camm OSB, Bede. "The Blessed Richard Kirkman", ''Lives of the English Martyrs Declared Blessed by Pope Leo XIII, in 1886 and 1895: Martyrs under Queen Elizabeth'', Burns and Oates, 1905, p. 581
/ref>

References

;Attribution * {{DEFAULTSORT:Dymoke, Robert 1531 births 1580 deaths

Robert The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honou ...

16th-century English people People from Scrivelsby 16th-century Roman Catholics Recusants Prisoners who died in England and Wales detention