Chapter IX.

Molay elected Master — ^Last attempt of the Christians in Syria — Conduct of the Three Military Orders — ^Kiilip the Fair and Pope Boniface VIII. — Seizure of the Pope — Election of Clement V. — The Papal See removed to France —Causes of Philip's enmity to the Templars — Arrival of Molay in France — His interviews with the Pope — Charges made against the Templars — Seizure of the Knights — ^Pro- ceedings in England — Nature of the Charges against the Order.
We have, in what precedes, traced the order of the Templars from its institution to the period when the Latin dominion was overthrown for ever on the coast of Syria, and have described, at some length, its in- ternal organisation, and exhibited its power and extent of possessions. It remains for us to tell how this mighty order was suddenly annihilated, to examine the charges made against it^, and, as we have pro- mised, to establish the falsehood and futility of them — a task far from ungrateful, though not unattended with pain ; for it is of advantage to strengthen our love of justice and hatred of tyranny and oppression, by vindicating the memory even of those who perished their victims centuries agone. It is also of use to furnish one instance more to the world of the opera- tion of the principle which will be found so generally
* The proceedings against the Templars have been pub- lished from the original documents by Mowdenhaler, in Ger- many ; but the work has been bought up by the freemasons, who fancy themselves descended from the Templars, so that we have been unable to procure a copy of it. Wilike has, however, extracted largely from it.
t
THE TEMPLARS. 277
to prevail, that, let falsehood and sophistry exert their utmost to conceal the truth, means will always remain of refuting them, an(l,of displaying vice, how- ever high seated, in its true colours.
In the year 1297, when the order had established its head-quarters in the isle of Cyprus, James de Molay, a native of Besan^on, in the Tranche Comt«5, was elected Master. The character of Molay ap- pears to have been at all times noble and estimable ; but if we are to credit the statement of a knight named Hugh de Travaux, he attained his dignity by an artifice not unlike that said to have been em- ployed by Sixtus V. for arriving at the papacy. The chapter, according to De Travaux, could not agree, one part being for Molay, the other, and the stronger, for Hugh de Peyraud. Molay, seeing that he had little chance of success, assured some of the principal knights that he did not covet the office, and would himself vote for his competitor. Beheving him, they joyfully made him great-prior. His tone now altered. " The mantle is done, now put the hood on it. You have made me great-prior, and whether you will or not I will be great-master also." The astounded knights instantly chose him.
If this account be true, the mode of election at this time must have differed very considerably from that which we have described above out of the statutes of the order. This election, moreover, took place in France, where, in 1297, Molay, we are told, held the fourth son of the king at the baptismal font.
One feeble attempt, the last military exploit of the Templars, was made by the Christians to acquire once more a footing on the continent of Asia during the mastership of Molay. In 1300, the Mongol chief Gazan came to the aid of tlie king of Armenia, against the Turks. As it was the policy of the Tartars, who had not as yet embraced Islam, to stir up enemies to the Mohammedans, Gazan, after over-
278 SHCBET SOCIETIES.
running the country om fur ^s Damascus, sent an embassy to the Pope, Boniface VIII., inviting the Christians, particularly the three military orders, to come and take possession of the Holy Land. The Tem])Iars, Hospitallers, and Henry, king of Cyprus, forthwith manned seven galleys and live smaller vessels. Almeric de Lusignnn, Lord of Tyre, and the Masters of the two order.'!, landed at Tortosa, and endeavoured to maintain that islet against the Egyptian sultan, but were forced to yielrl lo num- bers. The Templars fought gallantly to nii purpose, aud a. few of them, who defended a lower Into which they hail tlirowu themselves, surrendered, and were carried prisoners to Egypt.
The Hospitallers, in the year I30G, renewed their attacks on the isle of Rhodes, where they finally succeeded in expelling the Turks, anil planting tiie standard of their order. The Teutonic knights trans- ferred the sphere of their warfare to Russia, and the adjacent country, whose inhabitants were still hea- thens. The Templars meantime remained inactive in Cyprus, and seem even to have been meditating a. retreat to Europe.
France was at this time governed by Philip the Fair, son of St. Louis. Philip, who had come to the throne at the early age of seventeen jears, had been educated by Giles ile Colonna, afterwards archbishop of Bourges, a man distinguished for his learning aud for the boldness of his opinions. One of his favourite masims was, " that Jesus Christ had not given any teniporal dominion to his church, and that the king of France has his authority from God alone." Such principles having been early instilled into his mlntl, the young monarch was not likely to be a very dutiful son of the Church, and the character of Boni- face VIII., who, without possessing the talents orthe virtues of a Gregory or o.i\ Innocent, attempted to stretch the papal prelen3\u\\9r to ftieu ^tenisai. t^\Kft\,
TH8 TBMPL&RS,
279^^^
soon rqused him to reEistancc. In the plenitude nf his fancied authority, the pope issued a bullj I'or- bidding' the clergy to give any subsidiea to lay-powers without permisaion from Rome. Philip, in return, issued an order prohibiting the exportation of gold, silver, or merchandize from France, thereby cutting ofFa great source of papal revenue. In the course of the dispute, Boniface maintained that princes were subject to him in temporals also. Philip's reply was, — " Philip, by the grace of God, king of the French, to Boniface, acting as supreme pontiti', little or no healtli. Let your entreme folly know, that in temponils wc are not subject to any one." Shortly afterwards be publicly burned a bull of the pope, and proclaimed the deed by sound of tramjwt in Paris. Bonitace, raving with indign to Rome, to deliberate on the means of preaer\'ing the liberties of the Church. Philip convoked a na- tional assembly to Paris, in which, for the first time, there appeared deputies of the third estate, who rea- dily expressed their resolution to stand by their monarch in defence of his rights, and the clergy wil- lingly denied the temporal jurisdiction of the pontiff. Several prelates and abbots having obeyed the sum- mons of the pope, the king seized on their tem- poralities. The pope menaced with deprivation all those who had not attended, and, in his famous bull of Unam aaiictant, asserted that every human being was subject to the Roman ponlifT. Another bull declared that every person, be his rank what it might, was bound to appear personally when summoned to Rome. Philip forbade the publication of these bulls ; and the states general being again convoked ap- pealed to a council against the pope. Commissaries were sent through France to procure the adhesion of the clergy to this act, which was given in some cases '(uhmtarily, in others obtained by means of a little tolesome rigour. The king, his wife, and his sou.
r SOCIETIES.
pledged themselves to .stand by those wiio adhered la the resistance made by France to pu,pal usurpation. £oQirace next excommuaicated the king, who inter- i bull, and prevented its publication, "rhe pope finally offered the crown of Prance to the em- peror Albert of Austria, Matters were now come to an extremity, and Philip ventured on one of the boldest acts that have ever been attempted in the Christian world.
Philip had afforded an asylum at his court to some members of the Colonna family, the personal eaemies of the pope. His chancellor and fast adherent was William de Nogaret, who had been his agent in the affair of appealing to a general council, by presenting to the stales general a charge of simony, magic, and the usual real or imaginary crimes of the day against the pontiff. This man, and sumeof theltolian exiles, atteuded by a body of 300 horse, set out for Italy, aiid took up his abode at a castle between Florence and Sienna, under pretext of its being a convenient situation for carrying on uegociatious with Rome. The pope was meaulime residiug at Anugni, his nar tive town. Nogaret having, by a liberal distribution of money, acquired a sufficient number of partisans, appeared before the gate of Anagni early on the morning of the 7th September, 1303. The gate . was opened by a traitor, and the French and their partisans ran through the streets, crying Live the king of France, die Bonifaee. They entered the palace without opposition ; the French ran here and there in search of plunder, and Sciarra Colonna and his Italians alone came in presence of the pope. Boni- face, who was now eighty-six years of age, was clad in hifi pontitical vestments, and on his knees before the altar, in expectation of death. At the sight of him
the conspirators, whose intention had beet
him, stopped short, filled with involuntary
did not dare to lay a iiani wv
THB TEMPLARS,
days they kept him a, prisoner; on the fuurth the people of the town rose and expelled them, and re- lea.'ied the pontilf. Boniface returned to Rome ; but ran^e at the humiliation which he had undergone de- ranged hia intellect, and in one of his paroxysms he dashed his head against the wiill of his cliamfaer, and died in consequence of the injury which he received*. Ilenedict XI., the successor of Boniliice, absolved I'hjiip, and his ministers and subjects, from the sen- tence of excommunication. As he felt his power, he wus proceeding to more vigorous measures to avenge the insulted dignity of Ihe holy see, when he died of poison, administered, as a contemporary hictorian asserts, by the agents of Philip. During ten moulbs the conclave were unable to agree on his successor among the Italian canlinals. It was then proposed by the partisans of the king party in the conclave should name three ultramontane pielateH, from among whom the other party fihoutd select one. Tlie choice fell on Dertrand de Gotte, archbishop of Bordeaux, who had many serious causes of enmity lo Philip and his brother Charles of Vaiois. Philip's friend, the cardinal of Prato, instantly sent off a courier with the news, advising the king to ncqui- , esce in the election as M>on as he Imd secured him to his intereat, Philip set out for Gascony, and hitd a private interview with the jMintiff elect, in an abbey in the midst of a forest near St. Je^jn d'Angcly. Having sworn mutual secresy, the king told the pre- late that it was in his power to make him pope on condition of his granting him six favours. He showeil him his proofs, and the ambitirius Gascon, falling at his feel, promjifed everything. The six favours de- manded by Philip were a perfect reconciliation with the Church ; admission to the communion for liim-
* Siamoadi Rtpubltquea Ilj.|iei
.,i..p.i«.
282 SfiCRBT SOCIETIES.
self and friends ; the tithes of the clergy of France for five years, to defray the expenses of his war in Flanders ; the persecution and destruction of the me- mory of Pope Boniface ; the conferring the dignity of cardinal on James and Peter Colonna. " The sixth favour," said he, " is great and secret, and I reserve the asking of it for a suitable time and place." The prelate swore on the host, and gave his brother and two of his nephews as hostages. The king then sent orders to the cardinal of Prato, to elect the archbishop of Bordeaux, who took the name of Clement V.
Whether urged by the vanity of shining in the eyes of his countrymen, or by dr^ad of the tyranny exer- cised by the cardinals over his predecessors, or, what seems more probable, in compliance with the wishes of Philip, or in consequence of impediments thrown by that monarch in the .way of his departure, Cle- ment, to the dismay of all Christendom, instead of repairing to Rome, summoned the cardinals to Lyons for his coronation. They reluctantly obeyed, and he was crowned in that city on the 17th Decem- ber, 1305, the king, his brother, and his principal nobles, assisting at the ceremony. Clement forthwith created twelve new cardinals, all creatures of Philip, whose most devoted slave the pope showed himself to be on all occasions. His promises to him were most punctually fulfilled, with the exception of that re- specting the memory of Boniface, which the cardinal of Prato proved to Philip it would be highly impolitic and dangerous to perform ; but Clement cheerfiilly authorised him to seize, on the festival of St. Made* laine, all the Jews in his kingdom, to banish them, and confiscate their property in the name of religion.
What the sixth and secret grace which Philip re- quired was is unknown. Many conjectures have been made to little purpose. It is not at all impro- bable that the king had at the time no definite object
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in view, and that, like the fabled tyrant of Neptuii TheaeuB, it was to be claimed whenevei of Bufficient importance should present itself.
Such as we have described them were Philip and the sovereign pontiff; the oneable,daring,rapacioua, ambitious, and unprincipled; the other mean, sub- misgive, and little scrupulous. As it was the object of Philip to depress the papal power, aud make it subservient to his ambition, he must naturally have desired to deprive it of support The Templars, therefore, who hud been on all occasions the staunch partizans of the papacy, must on this account alone have been objects of his aversion ; tbey had, more- over, loudly exclaimed against his repeated adultera- tion of the coin, by which tbey sustained so much in- jury ; and they were very urgent in their demands for repayment of the money which they had lent him on the occasion of the marriage of his daughter Isabella with the son of the king of England. Their wealth was great ; their possessions in France were most ex- tensive ; they were connected with the noblest fami- lies in tlie realm ; tliey were consequently, now that they seemed to have given up all idea of making any farther eSbrts in the East, likely to prove a serious obstacle in the way of the estabUshment of the abso- lute power of the crown. They were finally very generally disliked on account of their excessive pride and arrogance, and it was to be expected that in an attack on their power and privileges the popular favour would he with the king. These motives will, we apprehend, suHiciently account for PhiUp'a anxiety to give a check to the order, beyond which, as it would appear, bis plans did not at first extend. We cannot venture to say when this project first entered the mind of king Philip; whethei: he had the Hos- pitalers also in view, and whether he impelled the pope to invite the Masters of the two orders to France,
284 SECRET SOCIETIES.
As the rivalry and ill-feeling between the two orders had long been regarded as one of the prin- cipal causes of the little success of the Christians in the East, the idea of uniting them had been con- ceived, and Gregory X. and St. Louis had striven, but in vain, at the council at Lyons, to effect it. Pope Boniface VIII. had also been anxious to bring this project to bear, and Clement now resolved to attempt it. On the 6th June, 1306, only six montbs after his coronation, he wrote to the Masters of the two orders to the following effect ; — ^The kings of Armenia and Cyprus were calling on him for aid ; he therefore wished to confer with them, who knew the country well, and were so much interested in it, as to what were best to be done, and desired that they would come to him as secretly as possible, and with a very small train, as they would find plenty of their knights on this side of the sea ; he directed them to provide for the defence of Limisso during their absence.
The Master of the Hospital, William de Villaret, was, when the letter arrived, engaged in the attack on Rhodes, and, therefore, could not obey the sum- mons. But De Molay, the Master of the Temple, having confided Limisso and the direction of the order to the marshal, embarked with sixty of his most distinguished knights, taking with him the treasure of the order, consisting of 150,000 florins of gold, and so much silver, that the whole formed the lading of twelve horses. When they arrived in France, he proceeded to Paris, where the king received him with the greatest marks of favour and distinction, and he deposited the treasure in the Temple of that city. Shortly afterwards he set out for Poitiers, where he had an interview with Clement, who consulted him^ on the affairs of the East. On the subject of a new crusade, Molay gave it as his opinion that nothing but a simultaneous effort of all the Christian powers
THE TEMPLARS, 2S5
would be of any avail. He objected to the union of the orders ou the following grounds, which were, nn the whole, suBSciently frivolous. He said, 1st. That what is uew is not always the best ; that the orders, as they were, had done good service in Pales- tine, and, in short, used the good old argument of anti-reformists. It works well. 2dly. That as the orders were spiritual as well as temporal, and many a one had entered them for the weal of his soul, it might not be a matter of iuditference to such to leave the one which he bod selected and enter another. 3r!ly. There might be discord, as each order would want its own wealth and influence, and seek to gain the mastery for its own rules and discipline. 4thly. The Templars were generous of their goods, while the Hospitallers were oidy ansioua to accumulate — a dif- ference which might produce dissension. 5thly. As the Templars received more gifts and support from the laity than the Hospitallers, they would be the losers, or at least be envied by their associates, flthly. There would probably be some disputing be- tween the superiors about the appointment to the dig- nities in the new order. He however candidly acknowledged, that the new order would be stronger thau the old one, and so more zealous to combat the infidels, and that many commanderies might be sup- pressed, and some saving effected thereby. Having thus delivered his sentiments, Molay took leave of the pope, and returned to Paris. Vague rumours of serious charges made, or to be made, against the order now beginning to prevail, Molay, accompanied by Rimbaud de Carou, preceptor of Outre-mer, Jeffrey de Goneville, preceptor of AquitaJne, and HughdePerando, preceptor of France, re-pwred once more to Poitiers, about April, 1307, to justify him- self and the order in the eyes of the pope. Clement, we are told, informed them of the serious charges of
2^ SECRET SOCIETIES.
tjift QQittinission of various crimes which had been mm3» against them ; but they gave him such explana- tfbOAs as appeared to content him, and returned to P^is, satisfied that they had removed all doubts from his mind.
The followinjr was the way in which the charges were made against the Templars.
There was lying in prison, at Paris or Toulouse, for some crime, a man named Squin de Flexian, a native of Beziers, who had been formerly a Templar, and prior of Mantfaucon, but had been put out of the order for heresy and other offences. His companion in captivity was a Florentine, named Noffo Dei — ^" a man (says Villani) full of all iniquity." These two began to plan how they might best extricate them- selves from their present hopeless state; and, as it would appear, aware of the king's dislike to the Templars, and hating them for having punished him for his crimes, Squin de Flexian resolved to accuse them of the most monstrous offences, and thus ob- tain his liberation. Accordingly, calling for the governor of the prison, he told him that he had a discovery to make to the king, which would be more for his advantage than the acquisition of a new kingdom, but that he would only reveal it to the king in person. Squin was immediately conveyed to Paris, and brought before the king, to whom he declared the crimes of the order; and some of the Templars were seized and examined by order of Philip.
Another account says that Squin Flexian and Noffo Dei, who were both degraded Templars, had been actively engaged in an insurrection of the people some time before, from which the king was obliged to take shelter in the Temple. They had been taken, and were lying in prison without any hope of their lives, when they hit on the plan of accusing their for- mer associates. They were both set at liberty ; but
THE TEMPLARS. 287
Squin was atlerwards hanged, and Noffo Dei beheaded, as was said with little probability, by the Templars.
It is also said, that, about the same time, Cardinal Cantiluf)o, the pope's chamberlain, who had been in connexion with the Templars from his eleventh year, made some discoveries respecting it to his master.
The charges made by Squin Flexian against the order were as follows : —
1. Each Templar, on his admission, was sworn never to quit the order ; and to further its interests, by right or by wrong.
2. The heads of the order are in secret alliance with the Saracens; and have more Mahommedan infidelity than Christian faith ; in proof of which, they make every novice spit and trample on the cross of Christ, and blaspheme his faith in various ways.
3. The heads of the order are heretical, cruel, and sacrilegious men. Whenever any novice, on disco- vering the iniquity of the order, attempts to quit it, they put him to death, and bury him privately by night. They teach the women who are pregnant by them how to procure abortion, and secretly murder the new-born babes.
4. The Templars are infected with all the errors of the Fraticelli; they despise the pojje and the authority of the Chiurch ; they contemn the sacra- ments, especially those of penance and confession. They feign compliance with the rites of the Church merely to escape detection.
» 5. The superiors are addicted to the most infamous excesses of debauchery; to which, if any one ex- presses his repugnance, he is punished by perpetual captivity.
6. The temple-houses are the receptacles of every crime and abomination that can be committed.
7* The order labours to put the Holy Land into the hands of the Saracens; and favours them more than the Christians.
288 SECRET SOCIETIES.
8. The installation of the Master takes place in secret, and few of the younger brethren are present at it ; whence there is a strong suspicion that he de- nies the Christian faith or promises, or does some- thing contrary to right.
9. Many statutes of the order are unlawful, pro- fane, and contrary to the Christian religion ; the members are, therefore, forbidden, under pain of perpetual confinement, to reveal them to any one.
10. No vice or crime committed for the honour or benefit of the order is held to be a sin.
Such were the charges brought against the order by the degraded prior of Montfaucon — charges in general absurd, or founded on gross exaggeration of some of the rules of the society. Others, still more incredible, were subsequently brought forward in the course of the examinations of witnesses.
Philip and his ministers, having now what they regarded as a plausible case against the Templars, prepared their measures in secret; and on the 12th September, 1307, sealed letters were sent to all the governors and royal officers throughout France, with orders to arm themselves on the 12th of the following month ; and in the night to open the let- ters and act according to the instructions con- tained therein. The appointed day arrived; and, on the morning of Friday, the 13th October, nearly all the Templars throughout France saw themselves captives in the hands of their enemies. So well had Philip taken his measures, that his meditated victims were without suspicion ; and, on the very eve of his arrest, Molay was chosen by the trea- cherous monarch to be one of the four pall-bearers at the funeral of the Princess Catherine, wife of the Count of Yalois.
The directions sent by the king to his officers had been to seize the persons and the goods of the Tem- plars ; to intermurate, torture, and obtain confessions
TIIB TBUPL&Rg.
2S9
from them ; to { fessed ; and to n
On the day of the arrest of the Muster and his knights, the king took possession of the Temple at Paris; and the Master and the preceptors of Aqui- taine, France, and beyond sea, were sent prisoners to CorheiL The foilowing day the doctors of the Uni- versity of Paris and several canons assembled with the royal ministers in the church of Notre Dame, and William de N»^aret, the chancellor, stated to them that the knights had been proceeded against on account of their heresies. On the l&th the Univer- sity met in the Temple; and some of the heads of llie order, particularly the Master, were examined, and are said to have made some confessions of the guilt of the order fur the last forly years.
The king now published an act of accusation, con- ceived in no moderate or gentle terms. He calls the accused in it devouring wolves, a perfidious and idola- trous society, whose deeds, whose very words alone, are enough to pollute Ihe earth and infect the air, &c. &c. The inhabitants of Paris were then assem- bled in the royal gardens; and the king's agents sjwke, and some monks preached to them a^inst the accused.
Philip, in his hostility to the order, would be con- tent with nothing short of its utter ruin. AJmost immediately after his cmip d'etat of the I3th Octo- ber, he despatched a priest, named Bernard Peletus, to his son-in-law, Edward II., king of England, inviting him to follow hia example. Edward wrote, on the 30lh of the same month, to say that the charges made i^inst the Templars by Philip and his agent appeared to him, his barons, and his pre- lates, to be incredible ; and that he would, therefore, summon the senechal of Agen, whence this rumour had proceeded, to inform him thereupon, before pro- ceeding any farther.
3M SBC«8r W01BTIKB.
Clement had been at first nfiended at the hasty and arbitrary proceed] ng;s of the king of fVance agniiiBt tbe Templars ; but I'liiiip easily managed (o apjiease him; and on the 22d Nuvember the pope wrote to the king of England, assuring him that the Master of tlie Temple had spontaneously con- fes!!ed thut the brethren, on their admission, denied Christ ; and that several of the brethren in diffbrent parts of France had acknowledged the idolatry and other crimes laid to the charge of the order ; and th&t a knifht of the highest and mnst honourable charac- ter, whom he had himsell' examined, had contessad the denial of Jesus Chrtet to be a |iart of the cere- mony of admission. He therefore calls on the king to arrest all the Templars within his realms, and to place their lands and goods in safe cnstody, till their guilt or innocence should be ascertained.
Edward, in a letter, dateil November 26, inquired particularly of the senechal of Agen, In Guienne, respecting the charges e^inst the Templars. On (he 4th December he wrote lo the kings of Portugal, Castile, Aragnn, and Sicily, telling them of what be had heard, and adding that he had given no credit loit; and begging of them not to hearken to these rumours. On the 10th, evidently before he had re- ceived [he bull, he wrote tu the pope, stating his disbelief of what he hud heard, and praying of his holiness to institute au inquiry. But when die papal bull, so strongly asserting the guilt of the order, arrived, the good-hearted king did nut venture to refuse compliance with it ; and he issued a. writ on the 1 5th December, appointing the morn of Wed- nesday after Epiphany, in the following month, for seizing the Templars and their property, but direct- ing them to be treated with all gentleness. Similar orders were forwarded to Scotland, Wales, and Ire- Jniid, on the 20th; and on the 36th he wralc to
TBI TBMPLAR8. 291
assure the pope that his mandates would be speedily obeyed. The arrests took place accordingly ; and the Templars and their property were thus seized in the two countries in which they were mostpowerfiil*. The reluctance of the king of England and his parliament to proceed to any harsh measures against the Templars affords some presumption in their fa- vour, and would incline us to believe that, had Philip been actuated by a similar love of justice, the order would not have been so cruelly treated in France. But Philip had resolved on the destruction of the society, and his privy councillors and favourites were not men who would seek to check him in his career of blood and spoliation. These men were William Imbert, his confessor, a Dominican monk, one of an order inured in Languedoc to blood, and deeply versed in all inquisitorial arts and practices ; William Nogaret, his chancellor, the violator of the sanctity of the head of the church ; William Plasian, who had shared in that daring deed, and afterwards sworn, in an assembly of the peers and prelates of France, that Boniface was an atheist and a sorcerer, and had a familiar demon. ' The whole order of the Domini- cans also went heart and hand in the pious work of detecting and punishing the heretics. We must constantly bear in mind that the charges made against the Templars, if they may not all be classed under the term heresy, were all such as the Church was in the habit of making against those whom she perse- cuted as public heretics. And in this, Philip and his advisers acted wisely in their generation; for treason, or any other political charge, would have sounded dull and inefficient in the ears of the people, in compa- rison with the formidable word heresy,
* The airests were made in England in the same secret 4lld juddtn manner m in France. Bymor iii« 34« 43.
s 2
THE TEMPLARS.