These Lincoln lands the Conqueror gave,
    That England’s glove they might convey
  To Knight renowned amongst the brave—­
    The Baron bold of Fontenaye.

[Illustration:  THE “LADY” BRIDGE, TAMWORTH.]

Robert Marmion, therefore, was the first “King’s Champion of England,” an honour which remained in his family until the death of the eighth Lord, Philip Marmion, in 1291.  This man was one of the leading nobles at the Court of Henry III, and the stubborn defender of Kenilworth Castle, acting as King’s Champion at the Coronation of Edward I on August 19th, 1274.  The duty of the King’s Champion on the day of Coronation was to ride completely armed on a barbed horse into Westminster Hall, and there to challenge to combat any who should gainsay the king’s title.  On the death of Philip de Marmion the Castle of Tamworth passed by marriage to the Trevilles, Sir Alexander Treville, as owner of the castle, officiating; as Royal Champion at the Coronation of Edward III in 1327; but at the Coronation of Richard II, in 1377, the right of the Treville family to act as champion was disputed by Sir John Dymoke, to whom the Manor of Scrivelsby had descended by marriage from another relative of Phillip Marmion.  It was decided that the office went with the Manor of Scrivelsby, and the Dymokes had acted as King’s Champion ever since, their coat of arms bearing in Latin the motto, “I fight for the king.”

As we passed over what is known as the Lady Bridge spanning the River Tame, just where it joins the River Anker at the foot of the castle, we saw a stone built in the bridge called the Marmion Stone, and remembered Sir Walter Scott’s “Tale of Flodden Field” and his famous lines: 

  “Charge, Chester, charge!  On, Stanley, on!”
  Were the last words of Marmion.

But we found other references in Sir Walter’s “Marmion”: 

  Two pursuivants, whom tabards deck,
  With silver scutcheon round their neck
  And there, with herald pomp and state,
    They hail’d Lord Marmion: 
  They hail’d him Lord of Fontenaye,
  Of Lutterward, and Scrivelsbaye,
    Of Tamworth tower and town.

and in the Fifth Canto in “Marmion,” King James of Scotland is made to say: 

“Southward I march by break of day;
And if within Tantallon strong. 
The good Lord Marmion tarries long,
Perchance our meeting next may fall
At Tamworth, in his castle-hall.”—­
The haughty Marmion felt the taunt,
And answer’d, grave, the royal vaunt: 
“Much honour’d were my humble home,
If in its halls King James should come.

* * * * *

And many a banner will be torn,
And many a knight to earth be borne,
And many a sheaf of arrows spent. 
Ere Scotland’s King shall cross the Trent.”

Sir Walter described Marmion as having been killed in the battle together with one of his peasants, and that as both bodies had been stripped and were covered with wounds, they could not distinguish one from the other, with the result that the peasant was brought and buried at Lichfield instead of his lord.