The Three Edwards (23 page)

The results were completely satisfactory from the standpoint of the king. Of the prisoners in Paris, 138 confessed, including the Grand Master, who, being old and frail, could not stand the agonies inflicted on him. At a public appearance Jacques de Molay confessed to denying the divinity of Christ and spitting on the cross. He swore to his innocence on all other charges.

A new Archbishop of Sens had been appointed, a creature of the king’s named Philip de Martigny. His authority extended over Paris, and one of his first acts was to drag before the Provincial Council of Sens all Templars who had made confessions and then revoked them. They were accused of being relapsed heretics and were condemned to death by fire. The next morning fifty-four Templars were led to execution into the open country at daybreak near the Porte St. Antoine des Champs at Paris and were fastened to stakes surrounded by fagots and charcoal. They persisted in their innocence and were burned to death in a most cruel manner in slow fires. They met their fate with great fortitude.

Meanwhile hundreds of other Templars were dragged from Paris dungeons before the Archbishop of Sens and his council. Neither the agony of torture nor fear of death could force confessions from some of them, and these were condemned to perpetual imprisonment as
unreconciled heretics
. Those who made the required confessions of guilt and continued to repeat them received absolution, were reconciled to the Church and set free.

Later still, 113 more were condemned as relapsed heretics and burned at stakes in Paris. Others were burned in Lorraine, Normandy, Carcassonne; twenty-nine others were burned by the Archbishop of Rheims at Senlis. One dead Templar who had been the treasurer of the Temple in Paris was dragged from his grave and his moldering corpse burned as a heretic.

But Philip the Unfair realized that the order could not be abolished without the co-operation of the other monarchs. Not consulting Pope Clement, who was still highly distressed and unwilling to proceed to the final extremity, he wrote to the kings of England, Aragon, Castile, Portugal, and Germany, demanding that they follow his lead. To the great credit of his son-in-law, he found Edward of England not prepared to do anything without making a thorough investigation, even though the arch instigator sent a special agent, one Bernard Pelletin, to coerce him. Edward even wrote to the other kings, questioning the wisdom of following the French course. The Spanish kings showed reluctance and Portugal refused flatly to take any action.

In the meantime the tom-toms of incitement were being beaten frantically in all parts of France. New charges were constantly being added to the shocking catalogue. It was now said that the Templars had confessed to worshiping an idol covered with animal skin and with carbuncles for eyes, and of burning the bodies of diseased members and mixing their ashes into a powder to be given to new members.

The Pope now took an active part in the conspiracy. In 1308 he issued a bull demanding the arrest of all Templars. This had the expected effect. Action was taken in England, as will be explained later, in the Spanish countries, and in Cyprus. Some of the knights defended themselves in their strong castles of Monzon and Castellat, but both were finally reduced. In October of 1311 a Grand Council was summoned by the Pope at Vienne, where Philip took his seat at the right hand of the Pope. The latter came out into the open in a sermon which condemned the order officially. In a second bull,
Ad providam
, published in May 1312, the properties of the order, except in a limited number of countries where the prosecution had been light, were assigned to the Knights of St. John. This decision was the first reverse Philip had experienced; he wanted all the property himself. However, there were methods of circumventing the papal order which he pursued later.

The final act of the great tragedy had the old and feeble Grand Master as main character. Up to this point Jacques de Molay had played an inglorious
part because of his inability to withstand torture. He had confessed to some of the indictment and had later reiterated his avowals at public hearings.

Philip, shaken by the decision to transfer the property to the Knights of St. John, decided on a dramatic step. As the Grand Master had never failed to shrink into weakness when threatened with the fires of recantation, it was believed that he would do so again. Accordingly he was summoned from his cell to appear on a scaffold in front of Notre Dame. With him were Gaufrid de Charney, the master of Normandy, Hugh de Peralt, the vicar-general, and Guy, the son of the dauphin of Auvergne. There was a large gathering to witness the final humiliation of the heads of the order.

The four knights, loaded with chains, were brought to the scaffold by the provost of Paris. The Bishop of Alba read their confessions aloud and the papal legate called upon the prisoners to confirm their depositions. Hugh de Peralt and one other, Gaufrid de Charney, assented. But when the name of Jacques de Molay was called, the Grand Master, whose hair had turned white in prison and whose face was thin and pallid, stepped to the front of the platform and raised his chained arms to heaven.

“I do confess my guilt,” he cried, “which consists in having, to my shame and dishonor, suffered myself, through the pain of torture and the fear of death, to give utterance to falsehoods, imputing scandalous sins and iniquities to an illustrious order which hath nobly served the cause of Christianity. I disdain to seek a wretched and disgraceful existence by engrafting another lie upon the original falsehood.” He was interrupted by the provost and his officers, and the platform was hurriedly cleared.

Philip moved then with fierce determination and dispatch. He did not consult the officials of the Church or the Inquisitor. The next day the Grand Master and his younger companion were taken to what was called “the little island” in the Seine which lay between the king’s gardens and the convent of St. Augustine. Here they were bound to stakes over small fires of charcoal and slowly burned to death.

The horrified spectators heard the voice of the Grand Master cry out from the flames: “We die innocent. The decree which condemns us is an unjust decree, but in heaven there is an august tribunal to which the weak never appeal in vain. To that tribunal I summon the Roman pontiff within forty days.”

The witnesses shuddered when the tortured voice continued: “Oh, Philip, I pardon thee in vain, for thy life is condemned. At the tribunal of God, within a year, I await thee.”

All that is left to tell is that Clement V, that weak and ambitious man, died of dysentery early the next year and that Philip the Fair expired a few months after.

The summary execution of the Grand Master and his companion did not provoke the officials of the Church to any protest. The only action came from the Augustinians, who objected to the trespass on their land!

For a short while, and to his honor, Edward II forbade the infliction of torture upon Templars in his dominions. He really believed in their piety and the decency of their morals, but, being a weak character, he was speedily overcome by the influence of the Pope, who wrote him in June 1310 upbraiding him for not submitting the Templars “to the discipline of the rack.”

Influenced by admonitions of the Pope and solicitations of the clergy, Edward on August 26 sent orders to the constable of the Tower, John de Cromwell, to deliver all Templars in his custody, at the request of the inquisitors, to the sheriffs of London, so that the inquisitors might proceed more conveniently and effectually. On the same day Edward directed the sheriffs who received the prisoners from the Tower to place them in care of jailers, appointed by the inquisitors, who would confine them in prisons in various parts of London at such places as they and the bishops considered most expedient. They were to do with “the bodies of the Templars whatever should seem fitting in accordance with ecclesiastical law.”

On September 21, 1310, the ecclesiastical council in London met and had further inquisitions and depositions taken against the Templars. These were read aloud, and immediately disputes arose touching on various alterations observable in them. Now began further questioning of the Templars to try to extract the “truth,” and if “by straitenings and confinement they would confess nothing further, then the torture was to be applied.” But it was provided that the examination by torture should be conducted without the “
perpetual mutilation or disabling of any limb, and without a violent effusion of blood
.”

The inquisitors and bishops of London and Chichester were to notify the Bishop of Canterbury of the results of the torture, that he might again convene the assembly for purposes of passing sentence, either of absolution or condemnation.

On October 6 the king sent fresh instructions to the constable of the Tower and to the sheriffs. Apparently the Templars were shuttled back and forth to various prisons at the will of the inquisitors. At this time it is recorded that many of the jailers actually showed reluctance in carrying out orders and were often merciful and considerate of the unhappy Templars.

Orders were also sent to the constable of the Castle of Lincoln, the mayor and the bailiffs of the city, where many Templars were being held. On December 12, 1310, by command of the king, they were taken to London and placed in solitary confinement in different prisons and even in private houses, where soon came orders to load them down with fetters and chains.

In some way the Templars had heard reports of the fate of their brothers in France and that they were promised freedom if they swore to untruths. They refused the offer. They continued to declare that everything that had been done in their chapters in respect of absolution, reception of brethren, and other matters, was honorable and honest and might well and lawfully be done. After such affirmations the Templars were sent back to their dungeons loaded with more chains. During April 1311 seventy-two witnesses against the Templars were examined in the chapter house of the Holy Trinity in London. Nearly all were monks—Carmelites, Augustinians, Dominicans, and Minorites. The evidence was
entirely hearsay
.

The final outcome of all this examining and torturing, this shuffling of prisoners from one dungeon to another, was that the order was dissolved and all property of the order was confiscated. There were no executions, no rising of flames about the writhing bodies of innocent men. The knights were permitted to drift into civil life.

In view of the nature of the evidence, this seems drastic and unwarranted; but, knowing what had happened to their brothers in France, the English Templars counted themselves fortunate.

A
first visit to Stirling Castle is an experience never to be forgotten. The deep interest aroused is not supplied by the castle itself. It is large and old, but it is not the stark gaunt structure which stood so high on the edge of the precipice of rock in the days of Wallace and Bruce. Some of the original foundations may still be there.

It is the view from the battlements which fills the eye and causes the imagination of the visitor to soar. A glance to the south, across the battlefield of Bannockburn, provides a picture of the Lowlands. To the east is flat country traversed by the Forth, which winds and curls and winds again on its way to empty itself into the Firth. Then the eye turns to the north, where the range of the Ochils extends above the river and recalls memories of the crafty battle that Wallace fought there. North and west of the Ochils are the mighty Grampians, from which the initiate can identify the peaks of Ben Lomond, Ben Nevis, and Ben A’an standing up in aloof grandeur against the sky. There is a wildness, a sense of mystery and of violence in the mountains of the north, like a key to Scottish history. Lying between north and south, Stirling is the door to the Highlands and the scene of many of the most dramatic episodes in Scottish history.

No castle in Scotland, certainly, has been more frequently and more insistently besieged. When Robert the Bruce moved his force down to the Torwood, his ragged and often shoeless men singing their favorite marching song,
Hey, Tuttie Taitie
, Stirling had been continuously beleaguered for more than ten years. Sometimes the garrison was Scottish and it was the English who vainly strove to force their way up the one steep and winding approach. Sometimes the stronghold was held by the English, while the Scots blocked the roads and tried by devious means to gain an entrance.

There is a reason why the indolent English king was compelled in 1314
to assemble the strongest army of the day and advance to fight the Scots at Bannockburn, which lies three miles south of the castle. Robert the Bruce and his valiant lieutenants, his sole remaining brother Edward, his friend the Black Douglas, Sir Robert Keith the marshal, and the hard-fighting Randolph, Earl of Moray, had all been so insistently at work that only three castles of any strength remained in the hands of the English: Edinburgh, Stirling, and Roxborough. In 1313 the Black Douglas took Roxburgh and Randolph captured Edinburgh by a daring climb up the steep rock. That left Stirling; and it fell to the lot of Edward Bruce, the most daring and ingenious of them all, to lay siege to the granite towers on the precipitous hill.