After the loss of Acre, the knights of St. John and the Temple, from every preceptory and commandery in Europe, flocked to Cyprus, impatient for glory and revenge. The military friars soon quitted their settlements in Cyprus. The grand-master of the Hospitallers gained the friendship and the purse of Pope Clement V, and drew a flattering picture of Christian prosperity, if the cavaliers of St. John could set up their banners in some island in the Mediterranean. Rhodes was fixed upon. Fifteen years subsequently to the loss of Acre, a new crusade was published, and the volunteers were invited to repair to Brundusium. The king of Sicily and the republic of Genoa furnished transports. The grand-master headed the army, but it was not until after they had sailed, that the crusaders knew the object of the armament. Rhodes was at that time in the power, partly of the Greeks and partly of the Saracens. The soldiers landed; many battles were fought, and the army of the invaders was at last reduced to the military friars. Their chief hired new soldiers, recommenced his attacks, and the whole island submitted to his authority (1310). The subsequent history of the knights of St. John is interwoven with the general history of Europe.
THE TEMPLARS IN FRANCE
[1307-1311 A.D.]
While the military friars were planning the acquisition of an equivalent to their loss in Palestine, most of the Red Cross knights gradually left Cyprus, returned to their different commanderies, and lived in security and indolence. But circumstances soon made the Templars repent that they had not, like the Hospitallers, attempted a renewal of hostilities with the infidels. Philip the Fair, king of France, acquainted Pope Clement V, that the order of the knights Templar had been accused of heresy and various other crimes against religion and morals. Some members had charged their fraternity with the different abominations of treachery, murder, idolatry, and Islamism. Philip the Fair took the bold step of imprisoning all the knights Templar whom his officers could discover in France, and of sequestering their property. Clement then circulated a bull throughout Christendom, by which instrument of papal authority, nuncios and the resident clergy were commanded to inquire into the conduct of the knights. His holiness says that, pressed by public clamour and by the declarations of the king, the barons, the clergy, and laity of France, he had examined seventy-two members of the order, and had found them all guilty, though in various degrees, of irreligion and immorality. Such of the knights as yielded to blandishments and threats were pardoned, but the torture was applied to those who denied the charges, and thirty-six knights in Paris heroically braved the horrors of the rack, and maintained the innocence of the order, till death closed their sufferings and their virtue. Others confessed in the midst of corporeal agony, and afterwards recanted their confessions. The knights Templar were accused of renouncing, at the time of their matriculation, God, Jesus Christ, the Virgin, and all the saints. It was said that the brethren used often to spit and trample on the cross, in proof of their contempt of Christ, who was crucified for his own crimes and not for the sins of the world. Out of their disdain of God and his Son, they adored a cat, and certain wooden and golden idols. The master could absolve brethren from sins. On the assurance that the king would destroy the order, whether the result of the examinations were favourable or hostile to its continuance, many knights had yielded to pain and hopelessness, stayed the hand of the executioner, confessed every crime, upon their confessing of which, royal pardon and protection were proffered. The court condemned to perpetual imprisonment those from whom no confession of guilt had been extorted. But such as had retracted their forced avowals were declared to be relapsed heretics; they were delivered over to the secular power, and condemned to the fire (May 11th, 1310). The number in the last-mentioned class of the proscribed was fifty-four. All the historians who have spoken of the event, whatever opinion they might have entertained on the general question, friends or enemies, natives or strangers, have unanimously attested the virtuous courage, the noble intrepidity, and the religious resignation, which these martyrs of heroism displayed. Arrived at the place of punishment, they beheld with firmness and placidity the piles of wood, and the torches already lighted in the hands of the executioners. In vain a messenger of the king promised pardon and liberty to those who did not persist in their retractations; in vain their surrounding friends endeavoured to touch their hearts by prayers and tears. Invoking God, the Virgin, and all the saints, they sung the hymn of death; triumphing over the most cruel tortures, they believed themselves already in the heavens, and died in the midst of their songs.
IN OTHER COUNTRIES
[1311-1314 A.D.]
By royal command, the sheriffs of the different counties of England and Wales seized the estates, and imprisoned the persons of the Templars. The cavaliers were more than a year and a half in prison. At the end of that time a papal bull was received in England; and the archbishop of Canterbury appointed courts at London, York, and Lincoln, for the trial of the Templars, July, 1311. The charges were the same in substance as those which had been preferred against the order in France. Forty-seven of the knights who had been incarcerated in the Tower were examined upon oath before the bishop of London, some inferior clergy, and the representatives of the pope. William de la Moore, the grand prior of England, was as earnest as de Molay had been in defence of the French Templars.
Four knights made a general confession of crimes, when they were told that the pope had authorised a full pardon to those who acknowledged their iniquities; but that if they persisted in heresy, they should be considered and punished as heretics. Thirteen newly admitted knights swore that they were not acquainted with the secrets of the order, but that they were prepared to renounce all the erroneous opinions in which it was possible the minds of men could be stained. William de la Moore, the grand prior, was the only man whom no fear of imprisonment or dread of ecclesiastical punishment could induce to deny his first avowal of the innocence of the order. He was requested to make a general confession; but he replied that he was not guilty of heresy, and would never abjure crimes which he had not committed.