HISTORIC SKETCHES. 



SHIELD OF A KNIGHT TEMPER. 



Hhun feminine kisses, through which men have very often boon 

 drawn into danger, BO that each, with a pare conscience and 

 secure life, may be able to walk everlastingly in the sight of 



These rules wore confirmed by the Pope, and Hugh do Payens 

 was chosen Master of the Knights. Do Payens travelled 

 through Europe, amassing gifts, and getting recruits for the 

 brotherhood. In England he was well received in the year 

 1128, and there ho founded a branch establishment of the 

 i, under the wardenship of a Prior, who was, on the ap- 

 pointment of sub-priors over other branches in England, called 

 the Grand Prior, and subsequently Master of the Temple, the 

 title of the supreme head in Palestine being at the same time 

 changed into that of Grand Master. 



On the spot where " now the studious lawyers have their 

 bowers," the English Templars dwelt, their Master a peer of 

 1'nrliiiinent. At first, however, they lived in the Old Temple 

 without Uolborn Bars, close to the spot where Southampton 

 Buildings now stand ; and it was not till many years after the 

 establishment of the order in England that they bought the 

 ground on which they built the 

 New Temple, the site of the pre- 

 sent law colleges. Numerous 

 branch depots in the country sent 

 up men and money to the central 

 body in London, and the Master 

 and knights in London supplied 

 the wants of the order at Jeru- 

 salem. In other countries, espe- 

 cially in France, the Templars 

 took deep root, and enormous 

 possessions in land and money 

 were bestowed upon them. The 

 order became very popular, and 

 its numbers increased so that the 

 muster-roll of the knights in- 

 cluded the names of many thousands of warriors, picked men 

 from the flower of European chivalry. In the course of a few 

 years they rose into such prominence that kings were glad to 

 court their favour ; to the King of Jerusalem they were in the 

 stead of a standing army, and upon them devolved the never- 

 ceasing warfare which was necessary to defend the Latin settle- 

 ment from destruction. 



About the year 1146, when the second Crusade was being 

 prepared, the Templars assumed, by permission of the Pope, a 

 red cross, which was worn on the left breast of their mantles, 

 and which obtained for them the name of lied Friars, or Red 

 Cross Knights. They also obtained, at the same period, large 

 additional benefices. Their work was not all rose-water, how- 

 ever ; far from it they had rough and constant employment 

 against enemies both to race and religion, men embittered by 

 years of mutual injury, by fanaticism, by every strong impulse. 

 At times they conquered, at others they fell even their Grand 

 Master on one occasion being taken and kept in prison till he 

 died. Saladin, the hero of many a romance, a most able warrior 

 and statesman, was the great foe of the Christians ; and as 

 under his auspices the Crescent grew, the light of the Cross 

 became pale in Palestine. At one time the whole of the 

 brethren in garrison at Jerusalem having been captured, and 

 offered the alternative of death or the Koran, elected the 

 former, and were beheaded accordingly. By way of reprisal for 

 these things, it often happened that the Knights forgot the 

 Christian quality of mercy, and involved in one common 

 destruction the whole of their captives ; indeed, in the end the 

 war between Cross and Crescent became a war to the knife. 

 The Templars were a terror to all but the best of the Turkish 

 soldiers, and rode through their lines in splendid charges, which 

 made the earth quake beneath them. 



The Knights Templars had been instituted as a rival order to 

 that of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, which was <>r- 

 organised as a military body about 1099. This order was never 

 at any time of its existence so wealthy and powerful as that of 

 the Templars, and on this account always held a higher position 

 in popular favour. The Templars, on the other hand, were being 

 spoiled by prosperity, and their wealth was now beginning to 

 stir up the envy and desire of the needy. In every country in 

 Europe they had property either in laud or money nine thou- 

 sand manors in all, besides other riches ; and their privileges, I 



obtained both from king* and from the pope, were calculated to 

 arouse the jealousy of the people. Riches, too, in the hand* of 

 the " Poor Fellow-soldiers of Jesus Christ," the men who had 

 taken TOWB of poverty, did not cause their possessors to prosper : 

 the military monk* grew less and less chary of going to fight in 

 the Holy Land ; and when, in 1187, Haladin re-conquered Jera- 

 talem, and put all the Templars there, together with the other 

 defenders of the place, to the sword, the rest of the fraternity 

 were still less inclined to make an effort to rescue the city, and tc> 

 re-found the Latin Kingdom in the East. They remained, there- 

 fore, at home, living upon their property, jealously preserving 

 the rights granted to them under widely different circumstance*, 

 and making themselves obnoxious by their pride and worltMi- 

 aess. The annual income of the order was estimated at 

 6,000,000. 



A society so rich and so powerful could not but have enemies. 

 It began to be whispered that not only did they visibly neglect 

 the obligations of their vows, but secretly they conducted them- 

 selves in the most abominable manner ; that they worshipped the 

 devil, and dealt in magic, and that one part of the ceremonial on 

 admission to the order was the act of spitting on an image of 

 the Saviour. These and other grave charges were brought against 

 them, but their pride would not allow of their making any reply. 

 till colour having been given to them by the irregularities of 

 some of the brethren, Philip the Fair, of France, who had an eyo 

 to confiscations, resolved, in 1296, to proceed against them. As 

 they hod no friends, he thought he might safely kick them. 

 After a splendid defence of each one of their posts in Syria, 

 which they lost in succession, overwhelmed by great numbers, 

 after the death in battle of their last notable Grand Master, and 

 after their final expulsion from the Holy Land, their influence 

 diminished with the disgrace that had come upon them. 



Philip gave ear to the scandal bruited concerning the Knights. 

 James de Molay, of a noble Burgundian family, was Grand 

 Master. He was an illustrious warrior, who had fought in all 

 the latest battles in Palestine, and had, in conjunction with the 

 Persian King, to whom he at one time allied himself, re-conquered 

 for a while the lost ground in Syria. He had held King Philip 

 at the baptismal font. He was approved an honest man as 

 well as a noble soldier in the sight of all men, and the voico 

 of calumny was not able to speak against him. Yet Philip, 

 having invited him from Cyprus, his stronghold, flung him into 

 prison, and kept him there five years and a half. Meantime in- 

 formation, much of it of an absurd and ridiculous character, 

 was gladly received from any quarter by the King. Popo 

 Clement V., who was wholly under French influence (the Papal 

 Court was then at Avignon), issued bulls ordering inquisition 

 to be made into the conduct of the monks. In France this 

 inquiry was made under torture, and more than a hundred 

 Knights died under the tormentors' hands. Some confessed, 

 under the smart of pain, to foul and unnatural crimes, which 

 they denied afterwards to the death ; and upon evidence of this 

 kind, and other evidence quite as unsatisfactory, several hun- 

 dreds of Templars were burned at slow fires more than a hun- 

 dred and ten in Paris on one occasion. France was the only 

 country in which this excessive barbarity was practised, but 

 as in all countries the wealth of the order was a great crime. 

 the fate of the order itself was decided simultaneously every- 

 where. Their possessions were confiscated throughout Europe, 

 and given, part to the rival order of the Knights of St. John of 

 Jerusalem, port to the princes who had seen them to their end : 

 and the Pope, in 1327, issued a decree abolishing the whole 

 order. 



James do Molay, the Grand Master, having endured five 

 years and a half of rigorous confinement, and having probably 

 suffered torture therein, was led out in company with three of 

 his chief officers, on the 18th of March, 1313, to recite in the 

 (tearing of the people of Paris the charges he had confessed 

 while under torture. The Bishop of Alba read the confe'- 

 sions, and then called on the prisoners to affirm them. Two 

 of the unhappy Knights, worn out by torture and suffering, 

 assented, but the Grand Master, loaded with chains, called ont 

 with a loud voice that for him to affirm an untruth was a crime 

 of which he would not be guilty ; and he added, " I do confess 

 my guilt, which consists in having, to my shame and dishonour, 

 suffered myself, through the pain of torture and the fear of 

 death, to give utterance to falsehoods imputing scandalous sine 

 and iniquities to an illustrious order, which hath nobly served the 



