sible for him to give credit to the charges brought against them, and, at the same time, he bore testimony to the integrity of their faith, and the respect and veneration which their morals and character had secured for them. He even addressed letters to several of the sovereigns of Europe, beseeching them not to give ear to the injurious aspersions which had been cast on the characters of this faithful and valiant soldiery.* But the malignity of Philip would not be thus disappointed. He despatched ambassadors to the court of England, and his son-in-law, yielding at last to his repeated instances, consented to investigate the conduct of the order. The English Templars were cast into prison, but the atrocities which marked the proceedings against the order in France were not committed here, though the pope, in the plenitude of his fatherly affection, mildly censured the English monarch for having forbidden the use of torture. After a confession of heresy and vices from numbers of the English Templars, they were absolved, and again admitted into the bosom of the church, though deprived of their rich possessions.† With regard to these confessions, we shall shortly endeavour to estimate them at their true value. In Germany and Spain, the order was acquitted, and in Portugal it was only thought necessary to change their name, a punishment which does not savour of any great degree of guilt. What then becomes of "the cry of indignation which resounded from the shores of Asia to the borders of the Baltic,"-and of the "kings, prelates, nobles, and people, who joined in the universal exclamation." So easily can declamation overthrow the humble evidence of historical facts!

There is no doubt that the proceedings in all these countries originated at the instigation of Philip the Fair, and were carried on through his influence with the supreme pontiff. It is singular, however, that, by a grant bearing date during the year 1304, Philip should have bestowed many favours on the Templars, at the same time mentioning the order in terms of the highest commendation. This grant is preserved in the collection of French Charters. It is probable, at that time, his pressing necessities had not compelled him to turn his eyes to the riches which the knights had accumulated.

Another motive has sometimes been mentioned as explanative of the animosity which the French king displayed on this

Rymer, vol. ii. p. 10, &c.

The Archbishop of York was so thoroughly convinced of the innocence of the accused, that he directed many of the knights to be supported at his own expense. Dugdale's Monasticon, i. 184.

Edinb. Review, ix. 199.

occasion; and it has been said, that the existence of so powerful a body of wise and valiant soldiers, who were independent, in a great degree, of those bonds which unite the subject to the sovereign, must necessarily have been productive of a feeling of jealousy in the mind of a prudent monarch. This remark does not appear to us to be entitled to much consideration. It is true that the treasury of the Knights-Templars might vie with the coffers of the prince, and that their renown in arms might surpass that of any of their countrymen, yet their very existence as a body of men, was a guarantee against any attempts on the sovereign power of the state. That power could never have been shared amongst a crowd of claimants, and it does not appear that there ever existed amongst them any individual whose ambition attempted to convert the resources and influence of the order to his own guilty aggrandizement. Another strong proof of the absence of any suspicions of this kind, is, that we do not find, in the articles exhibited against them, any charge of state offences, and it is scarcely probable that Philip, who so lavishly inserted accusations which he found it impossible to prove, would have omitted any, which, if substantiated, might hrave in some degree justified him in the eyes of posterity. The Knights Hospitallers were fully as powerful a body as those of the Temple, and much more wealthy, and the dangers which were to be apprehended from the latter might, with equal reason, have caused the destruction of the former; and yet we find that the possessions of the suppressed order were bestowed upon the Hospitallers, which, by increasing their riches, must have rendered them still more formidable. The abolition of the rival order of Templars must also have taken away a considerable check on their attempts to usurp or interfere with the sovereign power, as it would always have been an easy task to oppose the rival knights to each other, and thus to neutralize the mischievous intentions of either.

In order to arrive at an unprejudiced conclusion, respecting the guilt or innocence of the Templars, it will be necessary to examine with care the nature of the proceedings which were taken against them, and the mode in which those proceedings were carried on. The order was accused of heresy and immorality; but the former was the principal charge on which their enemies relied for their destruction.* The reason of this is obvious. In those early times, when the Papal authority

Amongst the eighty-four Articles which were exhibited against the English Templars, it is singular that not more than a dozen should involve charges of immorality. See Wilkins's Concilia, ii. 331. There is a translation of the Articles in Dugdale's Monasticon, i. 181.

exercised so powerful an influence over the opinions of men, and when the repeated conflicts with the infidel possessors of the Holy Land had heightened the detestation which the Christian world entertained for those who despised the true faith, into a hatred towards all who were suspected of opinions inimical to the Catholic church, a charge of heresy was well calculated to overwhelm the accused with the weight of popular odium, and, if innocent, to deprive them of that powerful protection against the exertion of unjust power-the influence of public opinion. This crime, also, was more vague and undefined, and admitted more extensive and looser proofs than any more specific accusation. Words and actions, of innocent or of doubtful import, were easily tortured into a signification of heretical tenets, and the witnesses against the accused might speak, without fear of contradiction, to matters which related only to opinion; but that such a charge should have been selected as the principal one against them, clearly shews how unwilling their enemies were to enter into a strict examination of facts. But there was a still stronger reason for preferring this accusation: in matters of heresy it was usual to proceed summarily, without those formalities, which, in other criminal proceedings, are resorted to, as well for the protection of the accused, as for the attainment of the ends of justice; nor was the assistance of advocates allowed, or the forms of judgment preserved.* 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 incurred.Founded solely for the purpose of protecting and extending the Christian faith, the names of infidel and enemy were equivalent in their mouths, and from their solemn vow of rendering justice to all, the Saracens alone were excepted. 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 perilous extremity of its hazard. Whatever schemes of ambition might have actuated the various sovereigns 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

*Proces. contra Templar. cited in Raynouard, p. 60.

mercy which the Saracens experienced at their hands, offered to them the alternative 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 apostacy. It must have required a longer period, and very different occupations from those in which the Templars were engaged, so far to have corrupted the spirit and sentiments of the order as to reduce them to the degree of irreligion and depravity, 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 shew that the charges of immorality were by no means considered as the strong part of the case.

But the character and treatment of the witnesses, 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. It would be impossible, within the small space to which we are at present confined, to lay open the atrocious machinations of Philip and his creatures, to procure amongst the knights themselves sufficient testimony to ensure the destruction of the order. We shall, however, in a few words describe the daring contempt of all the first principles of justice, the odious promises of reward and favour to those who were willing to destroy their companions, and to pollute their own souls with the aggravated sins of cowardice, falsehood, and treachery, the dreadful threats of punishment denounced against those whose virtue and firmness were proof against every danger, and, lastly, the consummation of this scene of wickedness, in the sickening tortures which have stamped so indelible an infamy on the whole of these transactions.

Life, liberty, and riches, were offered to such of the knights as would confess their own guilt and that of their order. The fear of death had few terrors for men who had so often affronted it, with weaker inducements to firmness, and, at last, their persecutors, speculating on the very virtue and fidelity of the ac cused, presented certain forged letters, which they affirmed had been received from the Grand Master, inviting them to avow their guilt, in hopes that their oath of obedience might thus be turned to their destruction. Even this artifice was unsuccessful, and torture was resorted to, as the speediest method of arriving at the truth. It is revolting to dwell upon scenes like these, and were it not for the awful moral lesson which they inculcate, and the salutary jealousy of all tyrannical power which they necessarily inspire, we should wish that the page of history,

which is blotted with such details, were erased from the volume

for ever. The unfortunate Templars, seized and imprisoned, stripped of the habit of their order, and despoiled of the rich possessions which might have rivalled the treasures of kings, were delivered over to the tender mercies of their examiners. With scrupulous fidelity, the secretary noted down, not only their confessions, while enduring the process of the torture, but even their exclamations of anguish, their sighs, their groans, and their tears.* And well might the endurance of the bravest knights sink under the accumulated inflictions of the processes to which they were subjected. All the various tortures of the Inquisition seem to have been applied. Sometimes, the victim, being stripped naked, had his hands tied behind him, and a heavy weight attached to his feet, and was thus hoisted into the air by a rope tied to his hands, and passing through a pulley in the ceiling. This torture was occasionally varied by letting the rope slip, and then suddenly retaining it, so that the shock generally dislocated some of the limbs, and caused the most extreme anguish. Fire, too, was another expedient of these anxious friends of justice to elicit the truth. The naked feet of the sufferer were placed in an instrument from which he could not disengage them, and, being continually anointed with some unctuous matter, they were thus exposed to a powerful fire. Sometimes, on being questioned upon his guilt, a board was placed between him and the fire, and, if he persisted in his denials, he was again exposed to the blaze. Such, amongst others were the ordinary tortures to which all accused of heresy were occasionally subjected; but, in the case of the Templars, a still more recondite system of torments was employed. One of the witnesses declared, that he had been so long and so frequently exposed to the torture of fire, that the flesh of his heels had been burnt off to the bone. Tortures even of a more shocking description were made use of, from which the heart turns with disgust and abhorrence. Many of the French knights perished under these inflictions, and some, yielding to the weakness of human nature, confessed every thing which their enemies required from them; but of these many afterwards retracted their confessions, thinking it better to suffer the punishments assigned to relapsed heretics, than to preserve their lives and liberty under the heavy load of treachery and consci

Tutti i suspiri, tutti le grida, tutti i lamenti e le lagrime. Il sacro Arsenale, overo pratica del S. Officio Ant. MASINI. Cited by Raynouard, p. 33.

+ Ditto.

t Ditto.

§ Proces. contra Templar.