Champion

Six degrees below freezing last night. I woke at 5 am feeling cold, and put on the small electric fire I keep in my bedroom (we have very little heating upstairs). I slept again, and eventually woke at nine, drawing back the curtains to find the fields covered with snow.

As today was definitely a day for staying in I spent a lot of the afternoon going through my digital photograph collection (which is so vast it is becoming unmanageable). And I came across a sequence of photographs I took two summers ago and never wrote up. So here they are now.

They relate to the hereditary champion of England. This office has been held by one of the oldest county families since the twelfth century. Their duties include turning up at every coronation and literally fighting anyone who challenged the claimant’s right to the crown (this is a proxy role as in the ancient past the king himself would be expected to do the fighting).

Over the years the function became symbolic, and at the 1953 coronation the Hereditary Champion just carried a standard.

I find the “champion” concept interesting as it seems to be an illustration of Sir James Frazer’s work on “the king who slew the slayer and shall himself be slain” which he identified through analysis of the cult at Nemi. This impulse goes to the heart of European culture and explains (in my opinion) modern phenomena as diverse as aggressive corporate behaviour, party political in-fighting, even inner city knife crime. In advertising agencies for instance you are only as good as your last ad.

As a reward for performing this task the hereditary champion would be given a golden cup by the monarch. Once again, this matches Sir James Frazer’s work on “cups of plenty” (see the Ardagh chalice or the cauldron found at Sutton Hoo). It will be interesting to see if the hereditary champion is given a role at the next coronation (assuming the monarchy hasn’t been “modernised” out of existence with a new head of state being chosen from a reality TV show).



Above: the champion at the 1953 coronation.



Above: the helmet and sash the champion wore in 1953 are on display at the county museum.



Above: the 1953 coronation was marked all over the county by ritual fires or “beacons” – again Sir James Frazer has written extensively on the cult of beacons and their symbolic meaning.



Above: the current champion lives in the heart of the county, on the same site as his ancestors (although the house has been destroyed and rebuilt several times). The entrance to the park is marked by this colossal “lion gate” (lions were carved above the gate at Mycenae, which reminded me of Achilles’ single combat with Hector). In a church nearby the graves of past champions are laid out (I have looked for photographs of the graves for most of the afternoon, without success – although I do have them somewhere).



Above: the current house on the site is just a fragment of the former mansion. It is surrounded by a beautiful garden (open one day per year – when I took this photograph). Inside the house is a collection of golden coronation cups although I havn’t seen them (yet).



Above: in the grounds is a fine cedar tree – common enough in country houses, but Sir James Frazer does write about the importance of “sacred cedars”.



Above: the champion’s coat of arms. No supporters as the family does not have a peerage. Note the martial lions and upright sword.