584 



KNIGHTS TEMPLARS. 



against him, could not fail, it may be supposed, in 

 getting some evidences of their guilt in Sicily, 

 Naples, and Provence. It is not undeserving of 

 attention, that one of these witnesses, who had 

 been received into the order in Catalonia, (where 

 all who were examined had declared the innocence 

 of the order,) said he had been received there in 

 the usual impious and indecent manner, and men- 

 tioned the appearance and the worship of the cat 

 in the chapter 1 Such is the value of rack-extorted 

 testimony 1 In fine, in every country out of the 

 sphere of the immediate influence of Clement, Phi- 

 lip, and Charles, the general innocence of the order 

 was acknowledged. 



Confessions made on the rack, where even every 

 sigh and groan was malignantly noted down, are 

 generally allowed to be of little value ; but some 

 stress is laid on the circumstance of seventy-two 

 Templars having confessed (June 29 and 30, 1308,) 

 in presence of the pope without the appliance of ! 

 any torture. But these, Mr Raynonard asserts, i 

 had been already subjected to that discipline, and 

 had given way under it. All did not repeat their 

 previous declarations ; Jean de Valgelle protested 

 afterwards before the papal commission at Paris, 

 that he had confessed nothing to the pope, and 

 several of them revoked their depositions, and 

 died asserting the innocence of the order. The 

 grand-master and tlie priors demanded to be brought 

 before the pope, to defend themselves and the 

 order; they were brought as far as Chinon, within 

 a few miles of his anode, but on some frivolous 

 pretexts were prevented from seeing him ; and 

 when what was called their declaration was after- 

 wards read to them, the grand-master crossed him- 

 self several times with amazement at the falsehoods 

 which had been inserted in it. Throughout the 

 entire process from Oct. 1307, to May, 1312, the 

 most determined design of the king arid his minis- 

 ters to destroy the order meets us at every step ; 

 Philip would have blood to justify robbery; seve- 

 ral Templars had already expired on the rack, per- 

 ished from the rigour of their imprisonment, or 

 died by their own hands; but on the 12th May, 

 1310, fifty-four Templars who had confessed, but 

 afterwards retracted, were by his order committed 

 to the flames in Paris as relapsed heretics. They 

 endured with heroic constancy the most cruel tor- 

 tures, asserting with their latest breath the inno- 

 cence of the order, though offered life if they would 

 confess, and implored to do so by their friends and 

 relatives. Similar executions took place in other 

 towns. The pope soon went heart and hand with 

 Philip. In vain did the bishops assembled at 

 Vienne propose to hear those members who came 

 forward as the defenders of the order. A bull of 

 the pope dissolved the order, and transferred its 

 possessions to the knights of St John, who, how- 

 ever, had to pay such enormous fines to the king 

 and pope before they could enter on them, as al- 

 most ruined them ; so that if Philip did not suc- 

 ceed to the utmost of his anticipations, he had little 

 reason to complain of his share. The members of 

 the society of the Templars were permitted to 

 enter that of the Hospitallers, a strange indulgence 

 lor those who had spitten on the cross and prac- 

 tised unnatural vices I In Portugal the order was 

 not even suppressed ; it only changed its appella- 

 tion, becoming that of Christ. 



The grand-master and the four principal digni- 

 taries of the order still languished in prison. They 

 were brought before a commission, composed of 



the cardinal of Albanoand two other cardinals, the 

 archbishop of Sens, and some prelates ; as, accord- 

 ing to the proceedings, they had all confessed, they 

 were (March 11, 1314.) brought out before the 

 cathedral of Paris to hear their sentence read, 

 which condemned them to perpetual imprisonment. 

 Scarcely had the cardinal of Albano commenced 

 reading, when he was interrupted by the giund- 

 master and the commander of Normandy, who pro- 

 tested their innocence, and retracted all the con- 

 fessions they were said to have made. The pre- 

 lates, in surprise, directed the provost of Paris to 

 keep them safe till the morrow, that they might 

 deliberate respecting them, but Philip, who was at 

 hand, declared them relapsed, and had them burned 

 that very evening. While life and articulation re- 

 mained they protested their innocence. We give 

 implicit credit to the dying declaration of Cran- 

 mer should we refuse it to that of Jacques de 

 Molay? 



In examining the origin and history of this order, 

 the spirit of its institution, and the character of its 

 members, an accusation of heresy is certainly the 

 last which we should have suspected it to have in- 

 curred. Founded solely for the purpose of pro- 

 tecting and extending the Christian faith, the 

 names of infidel and enemy were equivalent in 

 their mouths, and from their solemn vow of ren- 

 dering justice to all, the Saracens alone were ex- 

 cepted. During their long and valiant struggles 

 with the enemies of the cross, they seem never to 

 have forgotten the objects of their institution, and, 

 though occasional jealousies broke out between 

 them and the other Crusaders, their enemies had 

 never the audacity to charge them with deserting 

 the standard of their faith, even in the most peril- 

 ous extremity of its hazard. Whatever schemes 

 of ambition might have actuated the various sove- 

 reigns who, at different times, sought to reclaim 

 Palestine from the hands of the infidels, it could 

 only have been a pure enthusiasm which led these 

 misguided warriors to the burning plains of Syria. 

 Nor did their faith waver on more trying occasions. 

 When six hundred of the knights had been made 

 prisoners by the Sultan of Egypt, who, meting out 

 to the Christian soldiers the same mercy which 

 the Saracens experienced at their bands, offered 

 to them the alternatives of apostacy or death, the 

 Templars at once preferred all the terrors of the 

 sword to the shame of staining their names with 

 the imputation of cowardice, or the sin of apos- 

 tacy. It must have required a longer period, and 

 very different occupations from those in which 

 the Templars were engaged, so far to have cor- 

 rupted the spirit and sentiments of the order as to 

 reduce them to the degree of irreligion and depra- 

 vity, into which the evidence of their accusers 

 would make us believe they were plunged. As 

 far as regards their moral character, it is probable 

 that the accusations against them were better 

 founded, though the stress which was laid on their 

 lapse into infidelity and heresy, rather tends to 

 show that the charges of immorality were by no 

 means considered as the strong part of the case. 



But the character and treatment of the wit- 

 nesses, furnish by far the strongest grounds for 

 concluding that the proceedings against this valiant 

 and suffering body of men, were, in the highest 

 degree, unjust and tyrannical. Life, liberty, and 

 riches, were offered to such of the knights as 

 would confess the guilt of their order. The fear 

 of death had few terrors for men who had so often 



