by P. L. Snow
Once forced out of the Holy Land, they set up headquarters in Paris, and on Cyprus. They still received the support of rich and powerful men, who gave them lands and property. With the knowledge and skills that they had learned in the Middle East, they brought in methods of architecture which they put to use in building churches, bridges and roads, and in the founding of towns. They introduced a system of bank credit very similar to the credit card of today. It was also the Templars who discovered the art of twice cooking a small wheaten cake; they invented the biscuit. But it was the construction of churches for which they were remembered. For them, to build a church was symbolic of the inner task of building a spiritual temple. The transformation of bricks and mortar into something dedicated to the spirit was an outer sign of the transformation of the substance of the earth into a place fit for the New Jerusalem, and of the transformation of the flesh and blood of their bodies into a fit vessel for the Christ.
They became known, respected and often feared and hated all across Europe and beyond, as they spread their influence over the course of two centuries. But they made a powerful and unforgiving enemy. Philippe IV of France was known as Philippe ‘the Fair’. Handsome though his outsides may have looked, in his dealings with the Templars he showed vicious and treacherous cruelty.
The enmity of Philippe le Bel
His wars against the English had bled his country almost dry. One day in the year 1306, while riding through Paris in his coach, he was recognized by the mob, which pursued him, and would have torn him to pieces. He leaped from his carriage and ran to the nearest house, and banged on the door in fear of his life. This building, it turned out, was the headquarters of the Temple Knights. They took him in, and two of them went out to calm the crowd. Philippe saw how they listened to these men, and dispersed on their orders, and was filled with envy and chagrin as much as relief that his life had been saved. These men had a mastery that he lacked. He pressed them to show him round their house, and here he saw how much wealth these men held in trust. This could pay his debts, but he was wary of them, and the power that they could wield. He knew that the English King Henry had been told by Templars: ‘You shall be king as long as you are just.’
These impressions worked on Philippe, and mingled in his breast with another emotion. As a young man, he had applied to become a Templar knight himself, but had been rejected by the Order. This rejection still rankled. A criticism that some made of the Templars was that they recruited among their ranks some men that were not worthy of the name of Templar. Philippe was not one of those. He had been refused, and he still felt angry. The thought began to take shape in his soul: to get revenge on the Templars; to gain their wealth and to destroy their Order.
The seat of the Popes at this time was not Rome but Avignon. Philippe had already made sure that a favourite of his, one Bertrand de Got, should be made Pope, on five conditions. The first four he named at once, but he waited to name the fifth. Bertrand de Got was inaugurated as Pope, with the name Clement V. The fifth condition was now named: help Philippe to destroy the Order of the Poor Knights of the Temple.
Philippe went to work with patience and subtlety. There were many who had fallen foul of the Templars, and many who resented the extent of their power and influence. Here already were allies for Philippe. There was also, here and there, a waif word about strange rituals conducted by the Templars; hints, even of heretical practices. With his intelligence sources now as widespread as the Church, through the agency of Clement, two renegade Templars were found; men who had been thrown out of the Order. These were Roffi Dei, from Florence, and the Prior of Montfaucon, who had been sentenced to life imprisonment by the Grand Master of the Templars for his many crimes. They were more than ready to work against the Order.
Templar knights were arrested in various places, and put to torture. There were certain members of the Dominican Order who found themselves only too willing to use torture to extract confessions from such powerful and virtuous men.
The arrest of Jacques de Molay
The great prize was still to be achieved. The Grand Master himself, Jacques de Molay, was in Cyprus when he received an invitation to confer with the Pope on the subject of the Holy Land, and how it was to be won back from the Musulman armies.
De Molay arrived in France in 1307. Before travelling to Paris however, he stopped at a castle in the South West of France of which today, nothing but ruins remain. Here, he gathered the twelve Masters of the Order. The castle where they met was built in such a way that the long chamber was actually shorter than it appeared to the eye, and hidden chambers could exist, whose existence visitors would not suspect. Here in these hidden chambers, the very highest of the Templar initiations could take place, but only after a series of other, lesser initiations had already been carried out elsewhere.
The Grand Master de Molay had received an inkling of what awaited the Templars. He advised the other Masters that they should perform their highest initiation again, but this time, in reverse, in order to give it back to those lofty spiritual sources whence it sprang. Many of the Masters were not happy that the Order should cut itself off from the highest sources of its inspiration, but for de Molay, it was necessary. If the Order was to perish, then it should do so in full awareness of its original mission. Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed Nomini Tuo da gloriam! (Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name be the glory given). Self-sacrifice in Christ’s name was demanded of each man.
After the visit to the castle in the south, Jacques de Molay made his way north with sixty knights to Paris, with 150,000 golden florins and twelve horses laden with silver. These funds were deposited in the Temple in the city. Philippe then greeted him, treating him with every courtesy and respect. He made de Molay godfather of one of his sons, and invited him to be a pall-bearer at the funeral of his sister-in-law the following day. Even as he made the Grand Master welcome, sealed orders were being sent out to order the arrest of all Templars in France.
These arrests took place on Friday, October 13, 1307, including that of the Grand Master. He was imprisoned for several years and, under torture, confessed to all the crimes of which the Templars were accused: heresy; sodomy; spitting on the cross; worshipping a demonic head; worshipping an idol made of the flayed skin of a man, stuffed with straw and basted with the fat of roasted children; worshipping the devil in the form of a cat; burning the bodies of dead Templars and giving the ashes to younger members of the Order to eat and drink, mixed in with their food: accusations that tell us more about their accusers than the men accused.
At last the Grand Master was led out with Guy, the Grand Preceptor, to be slow-roasted over a charcoal fire on March 18, 1313. At his execution, Jacques de Molay took back all of which he had been accused — except one detail, the spitting on the cross — saying that he had confessed under the hardest duress. He also warned Philippe and Clement that they would each stand before the Judgment Seat of God within the year. Philippe and Clement did, indeed, die, within the year.
The destruction of the Order
Thus the Order came to an end. Philippe and the English King Edward II divided up the spoils between them. Clement V complained at first that he was being left out of the division of spoils, and published a Bull in exculpation of the Templars: the so-called Document of Chinon. However, the two kings relented, and allowed him a share of the loot, and Clement threw in his lot once again with his royal masters. He still complained, later, that he had been cheated.
In other countries, responses differed. In Italy, much of the land and property belonging to the Templars was given to the Order of the Knights Hospitallers, though they were heavily taxed on them, so that they almost had to disband themselves. A Papal Bull dated May 6, 1312, suppressed the Order of the Temple, but in Spain and Cyprus, the Order was acquitted of all guilt. In Germany, a Grand Master led a band of Templar Knights into a meeting of bishops, fully armed and armoured, and angrily rebutted all accusations against the Order. He received no argument from the Holy Fath
ers. In Portugal, the king simply ordered the Templars to change their name to the Knights of Christ, and they continued business much as before. We shall see in the next chapter what happened in Scotland.
Yet the Templars still continued to influence life in Europe. In Portugal, Christopher Columbus was closely connected through his family to the Knights of Christ. Templar fleets, with the skull and crossbones flag, had sailed across the Atlantic in search of plants and medicines, but had kept secret their knowledge of the land that they called Lamerika.
But the days of the Templar Order had come to an end. Some members joined other military monastic orders, such as the Knights Hospitallers, or the Teutonic Knights. The Order that protected pilgrims, invented banking systems, built towns, cities, roads, bridges and churches was finished. In fact, Jacques de Molay and the twelve Masters had themselves abolished the Order in a way that Philippe could never have understood, before he carried out his revenge. The carvings in Rosslyn are a homage to those men; a way of preserving a memory of their greatness.
* The dog is also a common hidden meaning of the Dominican Inquisition, said to be a play on words in the Latin Dominicani (the Dominicans) = Domini canes (the Dogs of God)
18. The Heart of Robert the Bruce
Almost hidden in the east end of the chapel, in the Lady Chapel is a face with staring eyes, the brows gathered as though in concentration, while the surrounding stonework seems about to swallow it, like a swamp. The face is clean-shaven, and a close inspection shows damage, as though of battle scars and leprosy. This face is the death mask of King Robert the Bruce.
The body of Robert the Bruce lies buried in Dunfermline, and his heart has recently been discovered in Melrose Abbey. It is no surprise that the great fourteenth century king of Scotland is honoured in Rosslyn.
The death mask of Robert the Bruce.
Bruce’s struggle for the Crown of Scotland
Robert the Bruce was born in 1274 into a noble family, with royal connections on his father’s side. His mother belonged to the Gaels of the West of Scotland; a fact which was to have some helpful influence for him later.
With the tragic, accidental death of King Alexander III, the throne of Scotland became the centre of controversy. At first, Alexander’s only remaining relative, his young grand-daughter, Margaret, the ‘Maid of Norway’ was the only contender for the throne from the House of Canmore. At the age of eight, she sailed to Scotland from Norway, where she had been brought up. However, she died, apparently of the effects of the sea voyage. This left several contenders for the throne, among them Robert’s grandfather, John Comyn, known as ‘the Contender’, and John Balliol. The English King Edward I was asked to arbitrate in the dispute, and he chose Balliol, a man whom he knew he could control. Indeed, he subjected him to various humiliations before forcing him to abdicate by invading Scotland.
The Bruce family refused to back Balliol. At first, they supported Edward’s invasion of Scotland in 1296 that removed Balliol from the throne, but when William Wallace, the Braveheart of popular mythology, rose in rebellion against Edward I, Robert the Bruce supported the Scottish rebel. This rebellion was put down fiercely by Edward.
Bruce was allowed to keep his lands, in spite of having supported the Braveheart Wallace, and he became one of the so-called Guardians of Scotland. Another of these was John Comyn. There was no love lost between Comyn and Bruce.
Comyn murderously attacked Bruce in Selkirk Forest, in the year 1299, the matter between them being the Crown of Scotland. Comyn claimed descent from a by-blow of Donal Bane, son of King Duncan I, whereas Bruce claimed direct and legitimate descent from King David I, who was the youngest son of Saint Margaret, Queen of Scotland, and was known to have made the Templars ‘guardians over his soul by day and by night’.
In 1306, the Bruce took his dagger and stabbed John Comyn on the chancel steps of Greyfriars Church in Dumfries. Comyn’s uncle tried to go to his aid, but he was struck down in his turn by Christopher Seton, Bruce’s brother-in-law. Monks came forward to nurse the wounded man, but when asked if Comyn was indeed dead, Bruce exclaimed that he would ‘mak siccar’ and went back to finish the job, dragging the dying Comyn back to the steps before the altar to do so.
Bruce was excommunicated for this violent act which polluted a sanctified building, and all of Scotland was placed under an interdict. This meant that mass was not celebrated, baptisms could not take place, funerals and weddings were hugger-mugger affairs at the church gate, if anywhere. It was a spiritual disaster for the country.
But something had changed, or come into its own in the soul of Robert the Bruce. He now felt his destiny as certainly as the weapons he took in his hands. Edward I proclaimed the Bruce outlaw, but his response was to ride through the country seeking support for his claim to the throne. He had himself crowned at Scone in 1306, by two Archbishops, Lamberton of Saint Andrews and Wishart of Glasgow.
The outlaw king was deposed soon after this by the English King Edward II; his family imprisoned, and three of his brothers executed. Bruce fled to an island off the coast of Antrim in Northern Ireland, a short trip across the sea, but soon returned to Scotland to gain support for his reinstatement as king, and to wage a guerrilla war against the English. The story is told that, in his brief exile, he had entered a cave, and, while watching a spider patiently spinning its web in spite of all obstacles in its path, saw this as a sign to himself to continue his path to the throne of Scotland; a Scotland separate and independent of England. The picture of entering a cave is often connected with communion with one’s higher self. Violent and forceful man as he was, there was that in Bruce that saw not only his destiny clearly, but that of his country, and the spiritual ground upon which that country stood.
The arrival of the Templars
During these events, the Templars were the victims of the French King’s treachery and deceit, outlined in an earlier chapter. However, not all of the members of the Order in France were arrested. Some escaped with the Templar fleet, which had been moored at La Rochelle, in Brittany. They sailed northwards, between Britain and Ireland, keeping close to the Irish coast. There were not many commanderies in Ireland, but those that existed were stripped of their arms by the escaping Templars, who made their way finally to Argyll, where they settled. Many of their graves are still to be found scattered in the West of Scotland.
Argyll at the time had recently been freed from Viking domination following the Battle of Largs in 1263, but the undisputed ruler of the region was Macdonald, Lord of the Isles. The escaping Templars were safe under the protection of Macdonald, and Argyll was very difficult to reach, except by sea, at that time. The islands and Argyll however, came under the spiritual guidance of the Archbishop of Trondheim, who never visited his distant flock. It is unlikely that the influence of the bishop was either felt or feared, very much.
The Holyrood trial
Templars in Edinburgh were already feeling the tension of the destructive forces ranged against them by the French and British kings. Edward II and Philippe IV were dividing the loot that their campaign against the Templars had yielded, and now, in 1309, a papal envoy, one John Soleirio, arrived in Edinburgh to oversee the trial of two members of the Order, held at Holyrood.
There were plenty of witnesses to testify against the knights, including two members of the Sinclair family. However, what was most noticeable about the charges against them was that they were mild, compared with what had been adduced in more severe courts in France, Italy and England. They were accused, for instance, of being bullying neighbours, and of having secret rituals, though these were not specified. Neither was any evidence brought forward that had been achieved through torture in other courts, notably that of the Inquisition. This indicates a marked difference in the style and mental atmosphere of this Scottish trial, as opposed to those farther away.
The president of the court was Archbishop Lamberton of Saint Andrews, who had supported Robert the Bruce to the extent of assisting at his coronation
at Scone. As the trial progressed, the court was held in a state of suspense — possibly for the benefit of the papal envoy — over the approach, ever nearer, of the outlaw king. The day before the verdict was due to be brought in, Soleirio left to return to the continent, satisfied that justice was being done in Holyrood.
It is unlikely that he would have rejoiced at the verdict, however. In Scots law, there were three possible verdicts: Guilty, Not Guilty and Not Proven. The latter implied that though the guilt of the accused was morally accepted by the court, the evidence had been insufficient to secure a conviction. Thus the court at Holyrood had clearly done all in its power to uphold the wishes of the neighbouring kings, but reason, forensic logic and justice could bring in no other verdict. The two Templars were set free. The case against them had not been proved.
In time, however, the property of the Temple in Scotland was handed over to the Hospitallers in Edinburgh, who made it clear in their acceptance that they were holding the lands and goods in trust, until such time as they might be returned to their rightful owners.
Bannockburn
In 1314, Robert the Bruce, the King of Scotland, led an army against the forces of the English. Among the troops rallying to his cause came an army from Argyll. Bruce’s Gaelic antecedents had helped him to persuade Macdonald, Lord of the Isles, to send troops in support. Macdonald was effectively a law unto himself, and felt under no obligation to Bruce, but the Scottish king’s diplomatic approach, as one ruler to another, couched in good Gaelic, was enough persuasion for the Lord of the Isles. And among those troops from Argyll were a number of the newcomers, not fighting as Templars, but as vassals to Macdonald; though there is an old tradition that the Templar battle flag, the black and white Beauséant was flown at Bannockburn.