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pontiff. His successor, Benedict XI., is supposed to have 

 been poisoned at the instigation of Philip. Benedict was 

 succeeded by Clement V., who is believed to have pur- 

 chased his elevation from Philip on condition, among other 

 compliances, of co-operating with him ia the destruction 

 of the Templars. This was in 1305. Obnoxious already 

 as the natural allies and defenders of the Holy See, and 

 tempting the attack of the needy and unscrupulous king 

 by their immense, possessions, these knights are also said 

 to have further irritated Philip about this time by their 

 suspected share in exciting an insurrection of the Parisians 

 against a debasement of the coinage, a practice which he 

 repeated so often in the course of his reign, that he ac- 

 quired for himself the name of the money-forger de faux- 

 monnoyeur). 



In 1306 Jacques de Molay, the master of the Temple, 

 was drawn to Europe by a summons from the pope, who 

 professed a desire to consult with him on the expedi- 

 ency of a union of the two orders of the Templars and 

 the Hospitallers. The following year, while Molay was 

 at Paris, the first distinct accusations against the Tem- 

 plars were made by two individuals lying in prison 

 under sentence of death ; Squin de Fltxian. who had for- 

 merly been a member of the order and prior of Mont- 

 faucon, but had been ejected for heresy and other offences, 

 and a Florentine called Noffo Dei, also, according to one 

 account, a degiade.l Templar, by general admission a per- 

 son of the worst character. They made their revelations 

 to Philip himself, and were immediately liberated from 

 prison. Their uputing to the order the 



matic practice and encouragement of all sorts of secret 

 immoralities, as well as the -trangest confusion of heresy, 

 idolatry, and infidelity, arc far too absurd for examination. 

 Very soon after this, on the 12th of September. 1307, royal 

 letters were issued sealed to all the governors of towns 

 and other officers of the crown in authority throughout the 

 kingdom, and transmitted along with orders to them to arm 

 themselves and the persons under their command on that 

 day month, and then to open the letters in the night, and 

 to act as they should find themselves therein directed. 

 The result was that the next day nearly all the Templars 

 in France, DC Molay included, were in custody. Their 

 houses ainl goods were also even where seized; tli 

 stronghold of the Temple at Paris, the cl of the 



order in that kingdom, was entcivd and taken pos- 

 of by Philip himself; and on the following day, the lf>th. 

 the university met there, and examined De Molay and some 

 other knights. 



An act of accusation was forthwith published ; and 

 Philip at the same time wrote to the pope, and aljo to 

 the king of England, intimating what he had don. - 

 calling upon them to second him. Edward II. exy: 

 himself at first disinclined to believe what was said 

 :st the knights ; but on soon after receiving letters 

 ;;ent, he yielded, and the English Templars 

 were also all seized and thrown into confinement about 

 the end of December. Meanwhile the examinations had 

 been going on in France under the direction of the king's 

 confessor, Imbert, a Dominican priest, and as such the 

 inveterate enemy of the order of the Templars. Con- 

 in many cases incredible from their inherent 

 were extracted from many of the knights at 

 Here by the ino-i I : the con- 



fession was in numerous instjr.r 1 by a 



recantation : but a ne\7 application of the wheel, or the 

 fire, to which the act exposed in some cases till 



the roasted flesh dropped from i. their feet, gene- 



rally made them repent th'ir former testimony. This 

 on for many months. In August, 13ost, Clement, 

 whose very per-on Philip had now contrived to get com- 

 pli-ti-ly into his power, issued a bull, calling upon all Christian 

 princes and prelates to aid him in examining into the 

 of the order: and about the same time hi-- li- 

 nt ed a commission, consisting of the archbishop of 

 ->nne and other prelates and dignitaries of the chinch, 

 to meet, at IVristotrytheca.se. This commission how- 



'lid not commence its sittings till the 7th of A 

 l:t:i. A few months later, examinations under j 

 deputed or nominated by the pope, commenced in Kng- 

 land and other countries. Altogether many hundreds of' 

 kniL r ! \amined by these commissions during the 



-I lu'll ; but. it. was only in I 

 when: torture was made use. of, that any admissions were 



obtained of the crimes laid to the charge of the order, or 

 any at least that were not manifestly and undeniably un- 

 worthy of all regard. Even the Paris commission however 

 did not satisfy the impatience of Philip : on its requisition 

 a grestt 'number of knights had stood forward to defend the 

 order, among whom were several of those who had con- 

 fessed and afterwards retracted. Philip, having forced 

 the pope to nominate Philip de Maiigni, bishop of Cam- 

 biay, the brother of Enguerrand de Marigni, his prime- 

 minister, to the archbishopric of Sens, which had just, 

 become vacant, and then included the diocese of Paris, 

 got the new archbishop to convoke his provincial council 

 in the capital, on Sunday, the 10th of May, 1310; and 

 this body, on the \Vednesdaymorning following, had fifty- 

 four of the defenders of the order, who had formerly made 

 confession, brought out as 'relapsed heretics ' to a field 

 behind the abbey of St. Antoine, and there committed to 

 the flames. They all died asserting their innocence and 

 that of the order. This terrible example was speedily imi- 

 tated in the province of Rheinis and elsewhere ; and 

 some months after, the archbishop of Sens held himself 

 another council, and burned foiir more knights. These 

 proceedings put a stop to the attempt at defending the 

 order: the rest of the knights who had undertaken this 

 task now all declared their renouncement of it. Mean- 

 while a general council had been appointed by Clement, 

 to nice! at Vienne in October, 1311. It assembled on the 

 13th of that month, but it was not found so compliant as 

 Philip and the pope had expected ; and Clement, having 

 put an end to the session, assembled the cardinals and a 

 tew other prelates upon whom he could depend in a secret 



'ory, and abolished the order by his own authority, 

 on 11 ic. B3nd of March. 1312. When the council iva"- 

 sembled, pursuant to the adjournment, on the 3rd of 

 April. Philip was seated on Clement's right hand, accom- 

 panied by his brother and his sons, and attended by an 

 imposing military force : and his holiness read the bull of 

 abolition, the council listening in silence. It was formally 

 published on the 2nd of May following. On the 18th of 



. 131 K Molay, the grand-master, and Guy, com- 

 mander or grand-prior of Normandy, who had all this 

 while remained in prison at Paris, were brought, before 

 the archbishop of Sens, condemned to death, and burned 

 on one of the small islands in the Seine, about the spot 

 where the statue of Henri IV. is now erected on the Pont 

 Xeuf. 



After all. Clement and Philip, the former of whom died 

 suddenly about a month, and the latter, of a fall from his 

 horse, within a year after the martyrdom of De Molay, were 

 able to secure to themselves only a small portion of the 

 plunder which they had probably hoped for. The king of 

 France seized and kept, or divided with his confederate, 

 the moveable property of the Templars in that country; 

 but there, and also in England, and throughout the rest of 

 Europe, with the exception of Spain and Portugal, it was 

 found necessary to transfer their landed possessions to the 

 Hospitallers, or Knights of St. John (,at this time commonly 

 known, from the place where they had fixed their head 



nee, :>s the Kmu'hts of Rhodes). In Spain the lands 

 of Hie Templars were bestowed upon the Knights of Our 

 Lady of Montesa, a new order, founded in T317 ; and in 



/a! the society merely took the new name of the 



nl Christ, which still subsists. It is affirmed that 



even in France the order of the Templars has survived to 



our own day: and it is certain that a society calling itself 



by that, name exists in Paris, which professes to be in pos- 



i of tUe original register and records of the antient 

 ; nd to have been governed by an unbroken 

 of grand-masters, many of them of illustrious 

 nee the time of Jacques de Molay. It pretemt.s 

 therefore to be the supreme chapter of the order. In Eng- 

 land, and we believe also in Germany, the Freemasons aie 

 in the habit of holding themselves up as a sort of repre- 

 sentatives of the. antient. Templars. 



It is asserted by Matthew Paris, that about the year 1:11 1 

 tin.' manors or estates in possession of the Templars throngli- 

 out Christendom already amounted to 9000; and it 

 been calculated that the entire revenues of the aider when 

 it was dissolved did not fall short of si\ millions sterling, 



;i it seems impossible that this should not. be a i 



nation. Their possessions in England particularly 



at a comparatively early period of great extent, 



and value, as may be seen from au ' inquuitio,' or account 



