On the 16th of October the general council of the church which had been convened by the pope to pronounce the abolition of the order, assembled at Vienne, near Lyons in France. It was opened by the holy pontiff in person, who caused the different confessions and avowals of the Templars to be read over before the assembled nobles and prelates. Although the order was now broken up, and the best and bravest of its members had either perished in the flames or were languishing in dungeons, yet nine fugitive Templars had the courage to present themselves before the council, and demand to be heard in defence of their order, declaring that they were the representatives of from 1,500 to 2,000 Templars, who were wandering about as fugitives and outlaws in the neighbourhood of Lyons. Monsieur Raynouard has fortunately brought to light a letter from the pope to king Philip, which states this fact, and also informs us how the holy pontiff acted when he heard that these defenders of the order had presented themselves. Clement caused them to be thrown into prison, where they languished and died. He affected to believe that his life was in danger from the number of the Templars at large, and he immediately took measures to provide for the security of his person.
The assembled fathers, to their honour, expressed their disapprobation of this flagrant act of injustice, and the entire council, with the exception of an Italian prelate, nephew of the pope, and the three French bishops of Rheims, Sens, and Rouen, all creatures of Philip, who had severally condemned large bodies of Templars to be burnt at the stake in their respective dioceses, were unanimously of opinion, that before the suppression of so celebrated and illustrious an order, which had rendered such great and signal services to the christian faith, the members belonging to it ought to be heard in their own defence.[163] Such a proceeding, however did not suit the views of the pope and king Philip, and the assembly was abruptly dismissed by the holy pontiff, who declared that since they were unwilling to adopt the necessary measures, he himself, out of the plenitude of the papal authority, would supply every defect. Accordingly, at the commencement of the following year, the pope summoned a private consistory; and several cardinals and French bishops having been gained over, the holy pontiff abolished the order by an apostolical ordinance, perpetually prohibiting every one from thenceforth entering into it, or accepting or wearing the habit thereof, or representing themselves to be Templars, on pain of excommunication.[164]
On the 3rd of April, the second session of the council was opened by the pope at Vienne. King Philip and his three sons were present, accompanied by a large body of troops, and the papal decree abolishing the order was published before the assembly. The members of the council appear to have been called together merely to hear the decree read. History does not inform us of any discussion with reference to it, nor of any suffrages having been taken. A few months after the close of these proceedings, Brother William de la More, the Master of the Temple in England, died of a broken heart in his solitary dungeon in the Tower, persisting with his last breath in the maintenance of the innocence of his order. King Edward, in pity for his misfortunes, directed the constable of the Tower to hand over his goods and chattels, valued at the sum of 4l. 19s. 11d., to his executors, to be employed in the liquidation of his debts, and he commanded Geoffrey de la Lee, guardian of the lands of the Templars, to pay the arrears of his prison pay (2s. per diem) to the executor, Roger Hunsingon.
Among the Cotton MS. is a list of the Masters of the Temple, otherwise the Grand Priors or Grand Preceptors of England, compiled under the direction of the prior of the Hospital of Saint John at Clerkenwell, to the intent that the brethren of that fraternity might remember the ancient Masters of the Temple in their prayers.[165] A few names have been omitted which are here supplied. Magister R. de Pointon. Rocelinus de Fossa. Richard de Hastings, (A. D. 1160). Richard Mallebeench. Geoffrey, son of Stephen, (A. D. 1180). Thomas Berard, (A. D. 1200). Amaric de St. Maur, (A. D. 1203). Alan Marcel, (A. D. 1224). Amberaldus, (A. D. 1229). Robert Mountforde, (A. D. 1234). Robert Sanford, (A. D. 1241). Amadeus de Morestello, (A. D. 1254). Himbert Peraut, (A. D. 1270). Robert Turvile, (A. D. 1290). Guido de Foresta, (A. D. 1292). James de Molay, (A. D. 1293). Brian le Jay, (A. D. 1295). William de la More the Martyr.[166]
The only other Templar in England whose fate merits particular attention is Brother Himbert Blanke, the Grand Preceptor of Auvergne. He appears to have been a knight of high honour and of stern unbending pride. From first to last he had boldly protested against the violent proceedings of the inquisitors, and had fearlessly maintained, amid all his trials, his own innocence and that of his order. This illustrious Templar had fought under four successive Grand Masters in defence of the christian faith in Palestine, and, after the fall of Acre, had led in person several daring expeditions against the infidels. For these meritorious services he was rewarded in the following manner:—After having been tortured and half-starved in the English prisons for the space of five years, he was condemned, as he would make no confession of guilt, to be shut up in a loathsome dungeon, to be loaded with double chains, and to be occasionally visited by the agents of the Inquisition, to see if he would confess nothing further.[167] In this miserable situation he remained until death at last put an end to his sufferings.
James de Molay, the Grand Master of the Temple, Guy, the Grand Preceptor, a nobleman of illustrious birth, brother to the prince of Dauphiny, Hugh de Peralt, the Visitor-general of the order, and the Grand Preceptor of Aquitaine, had now languished in the prisons of France for the space of five years and a half. The secrets of their dark dungeons were never brought to light, but on the 18th of March, A. D. 1313, a public scaffold was erected before the cathedral church of Notre Dame, at Paris, and the citizens were summoned to hear the order of the Temple convicted by the mouths of its chief officers, of the sins and iniquities charged against it. The four knights, loaded with chains and surrounded by guards, were then brought upon the scaffold by the provost, and the bishop of Alba read their confessions aloud in the presence of the assembled populace. The papal legate then, turning towards the Grand Master and his companions, called upon them to renew, in the hearing of the people, the avowals which they had previously made of the guilt of their order. Hugh de Peralt, the Visitor-general, and the Preceptor of the Temple of Aquitaine, signified their assent to whatever was demanded of them, but the Grand Master, raising his arms bound with chains towards heaven, and advancing to the edge of the scaffold, declared in a loud voice, that to say that which was untrue was a crime, both in the sight of God and man. “I do,” said he, “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 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 here interrupted by the provost and his officers, and Guy, the Grand Preceptor, having commenced with strong asseverations of his innocence, they were both hurried back to prison.
King Philip was no sooner informed of the result, than, upon the first impulse of his indignation, without consulting either pope, or bishop, or ecclesiastical council, he commanded the instant execution of both these gallant noblemen. The same day at dusk they were led out of their dungeons, and were burned to death in a slow and lingering manner upon small fires of charcoal which were kindled on the little island in the Seine, between the king’s garden and the convent of Saint Augustine, close to the spot where now stands the equestrian statue of Henri IV.[168] Thus perished the last Grand Master of the Temple.
The fate of the persecutors of the order is not unworthy of notice.
A year and one month after the above horrible execution, the pope was attacked by a dysentery, and speedily hurried to his grave. The dead body was transported to Carpentras, where the court of Rome then resided; it was placed at night in a church which caught fire, and the mortal remains of the holy pontiff were almost entirely consumed. His relations quarrelled over the immense treasures he left behind him, and a vast sum of money, which had been deposited for safety in a church at Lucca, was stolen by a daring band of German and Italian freebooters. Before the close of the same year, king Philip died of a lingering disease which had baffled all the art of his medical attendants, and the condemned criminal, upon the strength of whose information the Templars were originally arrested, was hanged for fresh crimes. “History attests,” says Monsieur Raynouard, “that all those who were foremost in the persecution of the Templars, came to an untimely and miserable death. The last days of Philip were embittered by misfortune; his nobles and clergy leagued against him to resist his exactions; the wives of his three sons were accused of adultery, and two of them were publicly convicted of that crime. The misfortunes of Edward the Second, king of England, and his horrible death in Berkeley Castle, are too well known to be further alluded to.”
“The chief cause of the ruin of the Templars,” justly remarks Fuller, “was their extraordinary wealth. As Naboth’s vineyard was the chiefest ground of his blasphemy, and as in England Sir John Cornwall Lord Fanhope said merrily, not he, but his stately house at Ampthill, in Bedfordshire, was guilty of high treason, so certainly their wealth was the principal cause of their overthrow.... We may believe that king Philip would never have taken away their lives if he might have taken their lands without putting them to death, but the mischief was, he could not get the honey unless he burnt the bees.” King Philip, the pope, and the European sovereigns, appear to have disposed of all the personalty of the Templars, the ornaments, jewels, and treasures of their churches and chapels, and during the period of five years, over which the proceedings against the order extended, they remained in the actual receipt of the vast rents and revenues of the fraternity. King Philip put forward a claim upon their lands in France to the extent of two hundred thousand pounds for the expenses of the prosecution, and Louis, his son, claimed a further sum of sixty thousand pounds: “J’ignore,” says Voltaire, “ce qui revint au pape, mais je vois evidemment que les frais des cardinaux, des inquisiteurs déléguès pour faire ce procès épouvantable monterent à des sommes immenses.” The holy pontiff, according to his own account, received only a small portion of the personalty of the order, but others make him a large participator in the good things of the fraternity.[169]