by Glen Craney
With these myriad diplomatic undercurrents in mind, the bishop now debated the wisdom of pressing his controversial proposal, particularly in light of Robert’s fragile confidence. But he felt such a declaration was so critical to Scotland’s survival that he decided to take the risk. “What I would next divulge,” he told Robert, “must be for your ears only, and those of your most trusted advisors.”
Robert held an incredulous glare on his old confessor. After mulling the strange request for a private audience, he curtly dismissed the assembly and, in a pique, marched from the nave while beckoning James, Randolph, and Lamberton to follow him to his private quarters.
Inside his chambers, Robert found the leaders of the refugee Knights Templar—including Jeanne de Rouen, William Sinclair, and Peter d’Aumont—waiting for him.
Jeanne stole a questioning glance at James, having not spoken to him in months. After Marjorie’s death, she had remained with Robert’s infant grandson at Renfrew rather than return to Lintalee, and now James’s cold manner confirmed that he was still rankled by what he perceived as her abandonment.
Robert was livid at the Templars for taking the risk of being seen in his court. “Did I not order you to remain in the Isles?”
“You did, my lord,” d’Aumont conceded, but offering no explanation for the disobedience.
Robert’s mood was not improved by the Auvergene Templar’s reticence to be more forthcoming. “You came to my aid at Bannockburn. For that, I granted you sanctuary. But I cannot have you openly traveling the country. The Church will never remove the edict of excommunication—”
“I ordered them here,” Lamberton revealed.
Robert’s jaw fell open. “I see your thinking, Bishop. You intend to coax the Church by surrounding me with hunted heretics and felons.”
Undeterred by the biting sarcasm, Lamberton nodded to d’Aumont.
The Templar retrieved a bible from a small altar and extended it to Robert. “I must ask you to swear that what I tell you will never leave this room.”
Robert bristled. “This is how I am repaid for saving your necks? Questioning the looseness of my tongue?”
D’Aumont did not waver from his insistence on the condition. “What the bishop now asks of me requires the breach of my own vows of secrecy.”
Intrigued, Robert reluctantly gave the oath, as did James and Randolph.
Having gained their compliance, D’Aumont stared at the bible, debating how best to preface his revelation. “This war you wage with England was foreordained many years ago.”
“Well then,” Robert quipped nastily. “We are wasting our time worrying about its outcome. That was certainly worth an oath.”
D’Aumont did not rise to take the bait. “When our Order held Jerusalem, our brothers there found certain scrolls near the Temple Mount. They also captured inhabitants of the city who kept apart from the Moslems.” He looked directly at Robert to drive home the significance of his next revelation. “Native Arabs who did not worship Allah.”
“Jews?” Robert inquired, perplexed.
The Templar shook his head. “These prisoners claimed to be descendants of Our Lord’s first followers. Yet they denied the authority of Rome. The sect was neither Roman Christian nor infidel. They called themselves Nasoreans.”
James reminded the Templars, “Our Lord was called a Nasorean.”
When d’Aumont did not deny the significance of that observation, which seemed more than coincidence, Robert moved to put a stop to all of the coyness. “What does any of this have to do with me?”
D’Aumont walked nearer to the crackling fire, to avoid being heard by possible lurkers beyond the door. Finally, he revealed in a subdued voice, “We had the scrolls translated and were told they contained several passages identical to those in Holy Scripture. But there were other teachings and verses.”
“And?” pressed Robert.
D’Aumont’s eyes shifted off. “Verses … not in the Gospels.”
Robert and James leaned closer, trying to comprehend that discovery.
“These Nasoreans proved to our satisfaction that the saints were not the true authors of the New Testament.”
“How could that possibly be?” Robert demanded.
“The holy Gospels were copied from earlier accounts,” d’Aumont said. “More complete accounts.”
James asked d’Aumont, “Are you saying that certain passages were left out of Scriptures on purpose?” When the Templar did not deny it, James kept pressing him. “But why?”
D’Aumont wiped a bed of sweat from his brow, clearly uncomfortable with this line of James’s inquiry. “After Our Lord’s death, there arose a dispute between two factions of His disciples. One schemed to destroy the evidence proving that Christ never intended to allow one man spiritual dominion over another.”
James took a step closer. “Which faction prevailed?”
“The followers of St. Paul. Those disciples who remained loyal to Our Lord’s brother, James the Just, were cast aside as unbelievers.” The Templar glared at James to drive home his point. “These banished followers of James were the same Nasoreans who authored the first written accounts of Christ’s teachings.”
James and Robert turned looks of disbelief upon Lamberton, who nodded a sheepish admission that he had not previously divulged all that he knew of Scotland’s history.
“The Culdees were descendants of these Nasoreans,” the bishop confessed. “The successors of St. Paul ordered all writings of this brother of Christ be destroyed. But a few survivors of the purge escaped Jerusalem and brought their copies here to Britain.”
“During our defense of the Holy City,” d’Aumont added, “my Templar brothers discovered a second set of copies hidden by these Nasoreans.”
Lamberton waited for James and Robert to wrap their understanding around the implication of these connections. The Dominicans in the Holy See had cleverly manipulated the French king to suppress the Templars. In truth, both the Temple and the Culdees had been persecuted for a more sinister reason: They possessed evidence of the papacy’s machinations to subvert the teachings of Christ.
D’Aumont was reluctant to finish his report, but their insistent glares drove him to the task. “Christ taught that each of us is responsible for our own soul. Salvation can be attained only by searching for truth, not by blind belief.”
“That is the Gnostic deviancy!” Robert protested.
D’Aumont glanced toward the door, as if fearful that the Dominicans may have infiltrated agents into the court here. Raising his hands in a plea for the king to lower his voice, he explained, “Our Lord warned that priests would try to twist his words. The scrolls speak of a cosmic war fought again and again by souls who reincarnate into this world. The Nasoreans called it a war between the forces of Darkness and Light. The Cathari of Occitania also possessed copies of these scrolls.”
“The Cathari were exterminated as heretics,” James reminded him.
“For good reason,” d’Aumont said. “The Occitan martyrs were spiritual descendants of these same Nasoreans. And hence they knew the truth.”
Robert shot his councilors a questioning glance, as if convinced they had all fallen into the company of the deranged.
But James had already connected the strands: The Templars, Culdees, and Cathari were striplings nurtured from the same seed, all eliminated by the Church for the same crime: knowledge of the truth. He turned back to d’Aumont and asked, “Did these scrolls say who will prevail in this war?”
“The forces of the Light. But only if a New Jerusalem is first built.”
James bored in on the Templar. “Built where?”
Jeanne stepped forward to answer for her reticent comrade. “Across the sea, beyond Ireland. In a land protected by a goddess and her star.”
A stunned silence extended across the chamber, until Robert snorted with disbelief. “That’s nothing more than a bard’s fable. Any fool knows the world drops off beyond Ireland.”
Jeanne r
etreated to rolled blanket that had been placed on a table. She opened it and brought forth what appeared to be some form of exotic vegetation. She pealed the husks on one of the plants and displayed rows of what appeared to be yellow teeth.
Robert examined the odd kernels. “This grows in Palestine?”
D’Aumont impaled the oblong plant on the tip of his sword and held its core over the fire. After roasting its teeth brown, he carved off a row of the kernels for the Scots to taste. “Five years ago, we sent a fleet west from the Orkneys. Navigating under the constellation of the Virgin, we came upon a new land that resembles your Isle in both climate and landscape. The natives there, dark-skinned as Arabs, call this plant ‘maze.’ The other they call ‘aloe.’ Its juice provides a healing balm for wounds. Our brothers brought back planting seeds from the vegetation.”
“These scrolls you discovered,” James said. “Where are they now?”
D’Aumont maintained a stony glare. “That we cannot reveal.”
Robert flushed at the curt refusal to answer. “Do you forget that you address a king?”
“Not our king,” d’Aumont insisted with steeled defiance. “We serve only the Blessed Virgin, the queen who rules over all kings.”
James suspected these Templars were revealing just enough of their mysterious arcana to serve their ulterior designs. He studied Jeanne, wondering what other secrets she had withheld from him. If the monks had discovered a new land of bounty, why did they return to Scotland? There was nothing here but strife and barren moors. And then it came to him: Why had the papal missionaries rowed across the Channel to conquer the Culdees? Why had England nearly bankrupted its treasury to conquer the North? Why did any foreigner with designs of subjugation ever come to Scotland? With a knowing glare, he challenged d’Aumont with a theory, “You came back for the Stone of Destiny.”
The Scots tightened their circle, finally driving the monk to an answer. “We came back to see your war won. … And to insure the safety of your Stone.”
“What possible purpose could the Stone serve for you?” James asked.
Jeanne shook her head, exasperated at his persistence in delving into such esoteric matters. Knowing that he would not be dissuaded from an answer, she reluctantly revealed, “Your coronation Stone held the Ark of the Covenant in Solomon’s Temple. The New Jerusalem cannot be built until all of the relics from the Israelite tabernacle are reunited.”
“If you seek the foundation Stone,” James said in a sharp cross-examination, “then you have already found the Ark.”
When the Templars did not deny that charge, Robert turned to the man responsible for bringing these French heretic monks to Scotland. “Do you believe this wild tale, Bishop?”
“I do. You know that I have always believed we Scots were given a great task in God’s plan. The angels were with us at Bannockburn. Our freedom, and the freedom of those who will follow us, depends upon our refusal to bend to papist calumny. If we stand defiant, others may gain courage to do the same.”
James watched Robert closely as he walked a few steps away to weigh the bishop’s proposal to defy the pope. The wrangling of churchmen always left Robert enervated; he had never understood why all Christians could not accept the teachings of the Church without striving to twist them into some worldly advantage. He was no doubt also worried that his grandfather now languished in Purgatory because he had failed to fulfill their vow to go to Jerusalem. If he brazenly rejected the spiritual legitimacy of the excommunication as the bishop now counseled, they would never be permitted to take up the Cross and make good on their boyhood oath.
Either you are the heretic, or the pope is.
There was harsh truth in that cold assessment of their situation. These Templars, not the pope, had stood with them at Bannockburn, and if he and Robert had to throw their lots with Satan’s legions, at least they would stand with those who had demonstrated loyalty in the face of death. What Scotsman worth his salt would choose theological righteousness over steadfastness in battle? He nodded firmly at Robert to spur him to the right decision.
Prodded on despite his misgivings, Robert sighed and crossed his breast after finishing a silent prayer for guidance. “This declaration you seek, Bishop. You have some phrasing in mind?”
Lamberton quickened with hope. “Aye, my lord.”
Robert shot a nettled glare at James, convinced that his old friend enjoyed watching him suffer under such dilemmas. “If I go to Hell’s fires for this, you’ll not be far behind me.”
“When have I ever been behind you? I dragged your London-coddled ass up Ben Lomond to put it on that throne out there.”
Robert shook his head in dismay. Was it any wonder the Church refused to recognize his kingship when his own subjects spoke to him so cavalierly? He walked toward the door and, without turning, ordered the bishop, “Draft your writ. If it moves me, I will consider its promulgation.”
AND SO, DURING THE WEEKS that followed, Bishop Lamberton labored day and night on Scotland’s reply to the new pope. To assist him, he recruited an old comrade, Abbot Bernard of Arbroath Abbey, who had carried the relics of St. Columba at Bannockburn and was a renowned Latinist, more skilled than any Scotsman in the art of rhetoric. After many hours of heated debate over whether to take a strident or conciliatory tone, the two clerics finally reached an accord.
Lamberton acquiesced in the obsequious formalities that Bernard insisted should be included for diplomatic salve. He also accepted certain odious references that tacitly recognized the pope as the arbiter of the Faith, for Bernard had rightly calculated that their demand to choose their own king without interference by the Church was radical enough; an attack upon the pontiff’s legitimacy in spiritual matters would be left for another day. In exchange for these concessions, he had extracted the one condition that he considered more crucial than all the legalities combined: Bernard promised not to lay down his quill until he had summoned language so poetic and powerful that it would hearken music from the angelic realm when read to John XXII and his Curia.
Thus, in April of that year, 1320, Robert stood before Parliament in Arbroath Abbey and watched as the barons filed by to press their clan seals to Lamberton’s unprecedented document. Soules, Mowbray, and Brechin held back, but they too were finally driven to sign by the king’s judging glare. Brechin appeared particularly agitated, his brow damped with perspiration and his eyes in constant motion. After the young knight finally committed the deed, Robert examined the relief of his seal and observed, “That is the imprint of your wife’s clan, if I am not mistaken, Lord Brechin?”
Brechin glanced nervously at Soules. “Aye, my lord. I carelessly neglected to bring my signet.”
“For a man who fought in Palestine, you seem a bit ajar,” Robert observed dryly. “I trust you did not tremble so when you faced the Saracens?”
Brechin daubed sweat from his forehead. “I have not been well.”
James waited at the rear of the line to be the last to lay his mark on what many were affectionately calling the Scottish Declaration of Freedom. As his turn came and he pressed his ring to the parchment wax with a flourish of his wrist, he smiled at Lamberton in congratulations. Finding one paragraph particularly to his liking, he dipped the quill and emboldened its words to emphasize to the Holy Father that he would personally see to its enforcement:
For so long as there shall but one hundred of us remain alive we will never give consent to subject ourselves to the dominion of the English. For it is not glory, it is not riches, neither is it honours, but it is liberty alone that we fight and contend for, which no honest man will lose but with his life.
A WEEK LATER, AS JAMES rode back north toward Dunfermline, he consulted Robert’s baffling new order again. Only a few days after his return to Lintalee, he had been commanded to arrest David Brechin in Roxburgh and, engaging in no conversation with him, deliver the prisoner with all haste to the king’s judiciary. Now, reaching the palace, he dismounted and escorted Brechin into the abbey
where the Parliament was in session. He found Soules, Mowbray, and seven former Comyn allies standing chained in the docks.
Robert shot to his feet on seeing Brechin shuffle down the aisle in leg irons. “Traitor! Has he confessed, Lord Douglas?”
James was taken aback by the accusation. “My liege, confessed to what?”
“Are you not charged with the surveillance of my enemies?”
James was confounded by both the indictment of treason and Robert’s implication that he had played a role in whatever had happened. He turned to Brechin for an explanation.
The former Comyn knight kept his eyes lowered. “I did not partake of the act.”
“Did not partake! Robert screamed. “You absolve yourself by sitting idle while these traitors thrust the knife?”
“They swore me to secrecy before revealing their plans,” Brechin said. “I did nothing but abide by my vow to God.”
“You would see the crown stolen from me!”
“Not stolen. Rightly placed on a legitimate head.”
Robert shouted so vehemently that he doused Brechin with spittle. “What harm did I ever cause to be done to you?”
“I took the Cross,” Brechin said. “I cannot give allegiance to an excommunicate without darkening my soul.”
“Damn your base pride!” Robert shouted. “I have heard my fill of your exploits in foreign lands! You toured Palestine garnering laurels while I crawled on my belly in an Arran cave to keep your fiefs safe!”
“You ask me to turn against my faith,” Brechin reminded him.
“You are a Scotsman!”
“I am a Christian first.”
Robert flailed his arms as he strode fulminating before the other prisoners. “Soules, your rank saves you from the block! You can contemplate the fate you’ve brought down upon your fellow conspirators while you rot in Dumbarton prison! They are condemned to death because of your preening ambition!” He turned on Brechin and drove the young knight a step back with a punishing finger. “And you, crusader!”—he parsed that word with syllabic disdain—“you who twice swore a personal bond of loyalty to me! You shall be dragged through the streets of Perth, then drawn and quartered! That should satisfy your heated lust for Heaven’s reward!”