Some of the Templars on their trials told strange stories. They said, for instance, that some men on being admitted to the order were suddenly changed, as if they had been made to share in some fearful secrets; that, from having been jovial and full of life, delighting in horses and hounds and hawks, they seemed to be weighed down by a deep sadness, under which they pined away. It is not easy to say what is to be made of all these stories. As to the ceremonies used at admitting members, it seems likely enough that the Templars may have used some things which looked strange and shocking, but which really meant no harm, and were properly to be understood as figures or acted parables.
The pope seems, too, not to have known what to make of the case; but, as we have seen, he had bound himself to serve King Philip in the matter of the Templars, in order that Pope Boniface's memory might be spared. At a great council held under Clement, at Vienne, in 1312, it was decreed that the order of the Temple should be dissolved; yet it was not said that the Templars had been found guilty of the charges against them, and the question of their guilt or innocence remains to puzzle us as it puzzled the Council of Vienne.
The master of the Temple, James de Molay, was kept in prison six years and a half, and was often examined. At last, he and three other great officers of the order were condemned to imprisonment for life, and were brought forward on a platform set up in front of the cathedral of Paris that their sentence might be published. A cardinal began to read out their confessions; but Molay broke in, denying and disavowing what he had formerly said, and declaring himself worthy to die for having made false confessions through fear of death and in order to please the king. One of his companions took part with him in this; but the other two, broken down in body and in spirit by their long confinement, had not the courage to join them. Philip, on hearing what had taken place, gave orders that James de Molay and the other who took part with him should be burnt without delay; and on the same day they were led forth to death on a little island in the river Seine (which runs through Paris), while Philip from the bank watched their sufferings. Molay begged that his hands might be unbound; and, as the flames rose around him and his companion, they firmly declared the soundness of their faith, and the innocence of the order.
Within nine months after this, Philip died at the age of forty-six (A.D. 1314); and within a few years his three sons, of whom each had in turn been king of France, were all dead. Philip's family was at an end, and the crown passed to one of his nephews. And while the clergy supposed those misfortunes to be the punishment of Philip's doings against Pope Boniface, the people in general regarded them as brought on by his persecution of the Templars. It is not for us to pass such judgments at all; but I mention these things in order to show the feelings with which Philip's actions and his calamities were viewed by the people of his own time.
In other countries, such as England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, and Spain, the Templars were arrested and brought to trial; and, rightly or wrongly, the order was dissolved. Its members were left to find some other kind of life; and its property was made over to the order of the Hospital, or to some other military order. In France, however, Philip contrived to lay his hands on so much that the Hospitallers for a time were rather made poorer than richer by this addition to their possessions.
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