On the 4th of May, after thirty-three days of constant fighting, the great tower considered the key of the fortifications, and called by the Moslems “the cursed tower,” was thrown down by the military engines. To increase the terror and distraction of the besieged, sultan Khalil mounted three hundred drummers, with their drums, upon as many dromedaries, and commanded them to make as much noise as possible whenever a general assault was ordered. From the 4th to the 14th of May the attacks were incessant. On the 15th, the double wall was forced, and the king of Cyprus, panic-stricken, fled in the night to his ships, and made sail for the island of Cyprus, with all his followers, and with near three thousand of the best men of the garrison. On the morrow the Saracens attacked the post he had deserted; they filled up the ditch with the bodies of dead men and horses, piles of wood, stones, and earth, and their trumpets then sounded to the assault. Ranged under the yellow banner of Mahomet, the Mamlooks forced the breach, and penetrated sword in hand to the very centre of the city; but their victorious career and insulting shouts were there stopped by the mail-clad Knights of the Temple and the Hospital, who charged on horseback through the narrow streets, drove them back with immense carnage, and precipitated them headlong from the walls.
At sunrise on the following morning the air resounded with the deafening noise of drums and trumpets, and the breach was carried and recovered several times, the military friars at last closing up the passage with their bodies, and presenting a wall of steel to the advance of the enemy. Loud appeals to God, and to Mahomet, to Jesus Christ, to the Virgin Mary, to heaven and the saints, were to be heard on all sides; and after an obstinate engagement from sunrise to sunset, darkness put an end to the slaughter. The miners continued incessantly to advance their operations; another wide breach was opened in the walls, and on the third day (the 18th) the infidels made the final assault on the side next the gate of St. Anthony. The army of the Mamlooks was accompanied by a troop of sectaries called Chagis, a set of religious fanatics, whose devotion consisted in suffering all sorts of privations, and in sacrificing themselves in behalf of Islam. The advance of the Mamlook cavalry to the assault was impeded by the deep ditch, which had been imperfectly filled by the fallen ruins and by the efforts of the soldiers, and these religious madmen precipitated themselves headlong into the abyss and formed a bridge with their bodies, over which the Mamlooks passed to reach the foot of the wall. Nothing could withstand the fierce onslaught of the Moslems. In vain were the first ranks of their cavalry laid prostrate with the dust, and both horses and riders hurled headlong over the ruined walls and battlements into the moat below; their fall only facilitated the progress of those behind them, who pressed on sword in hand over the lifeless bodies of men and horses, to attack the faint and weary warriors guarding the breach.
The Grand Masters of the Temple and Hospital fought side by side at the head of their knights, and for a time successfully resisted all the efforts of the enemy. But as each knight fell beneath the keen scimitars of the Moslems, there were none in reserve to supply his place, whilst the vast hordes of the infidels pressed on with untiring energy and perseverance. Brother Matthew de Clermont, Marshal of the Hospital, after performing prodigies of valour, fell covered with wounds, and William de Beaujeu, as a last resort, requested the Grand Master of that order to sally out of an adjoining gateway at the head of five hundred horse, and attack the enemy’s rear. Immediately after the Grand Master of the Temple had given these orders, he was himself struck down by the darts and the arrows of the enemy; the panic-stricken garrison fled to the port, and the infidels rushed on with tremendous shouts of Allah acbar! Allah acbar! “God is victorious!” Thousands of panic-stricken Christians now rushed to the sea-side, and sought with frantic violence to gain possession of the ships and boats that rode at anchor in the port, but a frightful storm of wind, and rain, and lightning, hung over the dark and agitated waters of the sea; the elements themselves warred against the poor Christians, and the loud-pealing thunder became mingled with the din and uproar of the assault and the clash of arms. The boats and vessels were swamped by the surging waves; and the bitter cries of the perishing fugitives ascended alike from the sea and shore. Thousands fled to the churches for refuge, but found none; they prostrated themselves before the altars, and embraced the images of the saints, but these evidences of idolatry only stimulated the merciless fanaticism of the Moslems, and the Christians and their temples, their images and their saints, were all consumed in the raging flames kindled by the inexorable sons of Islam. The churches were set on fire, and the timid virgin and the hardened voluptuary, the nun and the monk, the priest and the bishop, all perished miserably before the altars and the shrines which they had approached in the hour of need, but which many of them had neglected in days of prosperity and peace. The holy nuns of St. Clare, following the example and exhortations of their abbess, mangled and disfigured their faces and persons in a most dreadful manner, to preserve their chastity from violation by the barbarous conquerors, and were gloriously rewarded with the crown of martyrdom, by the astonished and disgusted infidels, who slaughtered without mercy the whole sisterhood!
Three hundred Templars, the sole survivors of their order in Acre, had kept together and successfully withstood the victorious Mamlooks. In a close and compact column they fought their way, accompanied by several hundred christian fugitives, to the convent of the Temple at Acre, and shut the gates. They then assembled together in solemn chapter, and appointed the Knight Templar, Brother Gaudini, Grand Master. The Temple at Acre was surrounded by walls and towers, and was a place of great strength, and of immense extent. It was divided into three quarters, the first and principal of which contained the palace of the Grand Master, the church, and the habitation of the knights; the second, called the Bourg of the Temple, contained the cells of the serving brethren; and the third, called the Cattle Market, was devoted to the officers charged with the duty of procuring the necessary supplies for the order and its forces. The following morning very favourable terms were offered to the Templars by the victorious sultan, and they agreed to evacuate the Temple on condition that a galley should be placed at their disposal, and that they should be allowed to retire in safety with the christian fugitives under their protection, and to carry away as much of their effects as each person could load himself with. The Mussulman conqueror pledged himself to the fulfilment of these conditions, and sent a standard to the Templars, which was mounted on one of the towers of the Temple. A guard of three hundred Moslem soldiers, charged to see the articles of capitulation properly carried into effect, was afterwards admitted within the walls of the convent. Some Christian ladies and women of Acre were amongst the fugitives, and the Moslem soldiers, attracted by their beauty, broke through all restraint, and violated the terms of the surrender. The enraged Templars closed and barricaded the gates of the Temple; they set upon the treacherous infidels, and put every one of them, “from the greatest to the smallest,” to death. Immediately after this massacre, the Moslem trumpets sounded to the assault, but the Templars successfully defended themselves until the next day (the 20th). The Marshal of the order and several of the brethren were then deputed by Gaudini with a flag of truce to the sultan, to explain the cause of the massacre of his guard. The enraged monarch, however, had no sooner got them into his power, than he ordered every one of them to be decapitated, and pressed the siege with renewed vigour.
In the night, Gaudini, with a chosen band of his companions, collected together the treasure of the order, and the ornaments of the church, and sallying out of a secret postern of the Temple which communicated with the harbour, they got on board a small vessel, and escaped in safety to the island of Cyprus. The residue of the Templars retired into the large tower of the Temple, called “The Tower of the Master,” which they defended with desperate energy. The bravest of the Mamlooks were driven back in repeated assaults, and the little fortress was everywhere surrounded with heaps of the slain. The sultan, at last, despairing of taking the place by assault, ordered it to be undermined. As the workmen advanced, they propped the foundations with beams of wood, and when the excavation was completed, these wooden supports were consumed by fire; the huge tower then fell with a tremendous crash, and buried the brave Templars in its ruins. The sultan set fire to the town in four places; the walls, the towers, and the ramparts were demolished, and the last stronghold of the christian power in Palestine was speedily reduced to a smoking solitude.141
A few years back, the ruins of the christian city of Acre were well worthy of the attention of the curious. You might still trace the remains of thirty churches; and the quarter occupied by the Knights Templars continued to present many interesting memorials of that proud and powerful order. “The carcass,” says Sandys, “shows that the body hath been strong, doubly immured; fortified with bulwarks and towers, to each wall a ditch lined with stone, and under those, divers secret posterns. You would think, by the ruins, that the city consisted of divers conjoining castles, which witness a notable defence, and an unequal assault; and that the rage of the conquerors extended beyond conquest; the huge walls and arches turned topsy-turvy, and lying like rocks upon the foundation.” At the period of Dr. Clarke’s visit to Acre, the ruins, with the exception of the cathedral, the arsenal, the convent of the knights, and the palace of the Grand Master, were so intermingled with modern buildings, and in such a state of utter subversion, that it was difficult to afford any satisfactory description of them. “Many superb remains were observed by us,” says he, “in the pasha’s palace, in the khan, the mosque, the public bath, the fountains, and other parts of the town, consisting of fragments of antique marble, the shafts and capitals of granite and marble pillars, masses of the verd antique breccia, of the ancient serpentine, and of the syenite and trap of Egypt. In the garden of Djezzar’s palace, leading to his summer apartment, we saw some pillars of variegated marble of extraordinary beauty.”
After the fall of Acre, the head-quarters of the Templars were established at Limisso in the island of Cyprus, and urgent letters were sent to Europe for succour. The armies of sultan Kelaoun in the mean time assaulted and carried Tyre, Sidon, Tortosa, Caiphas, and the Pilgrim’s Castle. The last three places belonged to the Templars, and were stoutly defended, but they were attacked by the Egyptian fleet by sea, and by countless armies of infidels by land, and were at last involved in the common destruction. The Grand Master, Gaudini, overwhelmed with sorrow and vexation at the loss of the Holy Land, and the miserable situation of his order, stripped of all its possessions on the Asiatic continent, died at Limisso, after a short illness, and was succeeded (A. D. 1295) by Brother James de Molay, of the family of the lords of Longvic and Raon in Burgundy. This illustrious nobleman was at the head of the English province of the order at the period of his election to the dignity of Grand Master. He was first appointed Visitor-General, then Grand Preceptor of England, and was afterwards placed at the head of the entire fraternity. During his residence in Britain he held several chapters or assemblies of the brethren at the Temple at London, and at the different preceptories, where he framed and enforced various rules and regulations for the government of the fraternity in England.142 Shortly after his appointment to the office of Grand Master, he crossed the sea to France, and had the honour of holding the infant son of Philip le Bel at the baptismal font. He then proceeded to Cyprus, carrying out with him a numerous body of English and French Knights Templars, and a considerable amount of treasure. Soon after his arrival he entered into an alliance with the famous Casan Cham, emperor of the Mogul Tartars, king of Persia, and the descendant or successor of Genghis Khan, and landed in Syria with his knights and a body of forces, to join the standard of that powerful monarch. Casan had married the daughter of Leon, king of Armenia, a christian princess of extraordinary beauty, to whom he was greatly attached, and who was permitted the enjoyment and public exercise of the christian worship. The Tartar emperor naturally became favourably disposed towards the Christians, and he invited the Grand Master of the Temple to join him in an expedition against the sultan of Egypt.
In the spring of the year 1299, the Templars landed at Suadia, and made a junction with the Tartar forces which were encamped amid the ruins of Antioch. An army of thirty thousand men was placed by the Mogul emperor under the command of the Grand Master, and the combined forces moved up the valley of the Orontes towards Damascus. In a great battle fought at Hems, the troops of the sultans of Damascus and Egypt were entirely defeated, and pursued with great slaughter until nightfall. Aleppo, Hems, Damascus, and all the principal cities, surrendered to the victorious arms of the Moguls, and the Templars once again entered Jerusalem in triumph, visited the Holy Sepulchre, and celebrated Easter on Mount Zion. Casan sent ambassadors to the pope, and to the sovereigns of Europe, announcing the victorious progress of his arms, soliciting their alliance, and offering them in return the possession of Palestine. But the Christian nations heeded not the call, and none thought seriously of an expedition to the east excepting the ladies of Genoa, who, frightened by an interdict which had been laid upon their town, assumed the cross as the best means of averting the divine indignation. The Grand Master of the Temple advanced as far as Gaza, and drove the Saracens into the sandy deserts of Egypt; but a Saracen chief, who had been appointed by the Tartars governor of Damascus, instigated the Mussulman population of Syria to revolt, and the Grand Master was obliged to retreat to Jerusalem. He was there joined by the Tartar general, Cotulosse, who had been sent across the Euphrates by Casan to support him. The combined armies were once more preparing to march upon Damascus, when the sudden illness of Casan, who was given over by his physicians, disconcerted all their arrangements, and deprived the Grand Master of his Tartar forces. The Templars were then compelled to retreat to the sea-coast and embark their forces on board their galleys. The Grand Master sailed to Limisso, stationing a strong detachment of his soldiers on the island of Aradus, near Tortosa, which they fortified; but they were speedily attacked in that position by a fleet of twenty vessels, and an army of ten thousand men, and after a gallant defence they were compelled to abandon their fortifications, and were all killed or taken prisoners.143
Thus ended the dominion of the Templars in Palestine, and thus closed the long and furious struggle between the CRESCENT and the CROSS! The few remaining Christians in the Holy Land were chased from ruin to ruin, and exterminated. The churches, the houses, and the fortifications along the sea-coast, were demolished, and everything that could afford shelter and security, or invite the approach of the crusaders from the west, was carefully destroyed. The houses were all set on fire, the trees were cut down and burnt, the land was everywhere laid waste, and all the maritime country, from Laodicea to Ascalon, was made desert. “Every trace of the Franks,” says the Arabian chronicler, Ibn Ferat, “was removed, and thus it shall remain, please God, till the day of judgment!”144
Near six centuries have swept over Palestine since the termination of the wars of the cross, and the land still continues desolate. The proud memorials of past magnificence are painfully contrasted with present ruin and decay, and the remains of the rich and populous cities of antiquity are surrounded by uncultivated deserts. God hath said, “I will smite the land with a curse. I will bring the worst of the heathen and they shall possess it.” “Thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof, and the defenced city shall be left desolate, and the habitation forsaken, and left like a wilderness.”
“The fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be on the vine; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stall.” But brighter and happier times are yet to come, for the Lord God hath also said, “To the mountains of Israel, to the hills, and to the rivers, to the valleys, and the desolate wastes, and the cities that are forsaken, which became a prey and a derision to the heathen. Behold I am for you, I will turn unto you, and ye shall be tilled and sown, and I will multiply men upon you, and they shall build up the old waste cities, the desolation of many generations!”
“In the land of Benjamin, and in the places about Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, shall the flocks pass again under the hand of him that telleth them, saith the Lord!”
CHAPTER VII
The downfall of the Templars – The cause thereof – The Grand Master comes to Europe at the request of the pope – He is imprisoned, with all the Templars in France, by command of king Philip – They are put to the torture, and confessions of the guilt of heresy and idolatry are extracted from them – Edward II., king of England, stands up in defence of the Templars, but afterwards persecutes them at the instance of the pope – The imprisonment of the Master of the Temple and all his brethren in England – Their examination upon eighty-seven horrible and ridiculous articles of accusation before foreign inquisitors appointed by the pope – The curious evidence adduced as to the mode of admission into the order, and of the customs and observances of the fraternity – The Templars in France having revoked their rack-extorted confessions, are treated as relapsed heretics, and burnt at the stake – Solitary confinement of the Templars in England in separate dungeons – Torture – Confessions and recantations – The Master of the Temple at London dies in the Tower – The Grand Master is burnt at the stake – The abolition of the order and disposal of its property.
En cel an qu’ai dist or endroit,
Et ne sait a tort ou a droit,
Furent li Templiers, sans doutance,
Tous pris par le royaume de France.
Au mois d’Octobre, au point du jor,
Et un vendredi fu le jor.
Chron. MS.
It now only remains for us to relate the miserable and cruel fate of the surviving brethren of the order of the Temple, and to tell of the ingratitude they encountered at the hands of their fellow-Christians in the West. After the loss of all the christian territory in Palestine, and the destruction of every serious hope of recovering and retaining the Holy City, the services of the Templars ceased to be required, and men began to regard with an eye of covetousness their vast wealth and immense possessions. The clergy regarded with jealousy and indignation their removal from the ordinary ecclesiastical jurisdiction, their exemption from tithe, and the privilege they possessed of celebrating divine service during interdict; and their hostility to the order was manifested in repeated acts of injustice, which drew forth many severe bulls from the Roman pontiffs.145 The Templars, moreover, became unpopular with the European sovereigns and their nobles. The revenues of the former were somewhat diminished through the immunities conceded to the order by their predecessors, and the paternal estates of the latter had been diminished by the grant of many thousand manors, lordships, and fair estates to the fraternity by their pious and enthusiastic ancestors. Considerable dislike also began to be manifested to the annual transmission of large sums of money, the revenues of the Templars, from the European states, to be expended in a distant warfare in which Christendom now took comparatively no interest.
Shortly after the fall of Acre, and the total loss of Palestine, Edward I., king of England, seized and sequestered to his own use the monies which had been accumulated by the Templars, to forward to their brethren in Cyprus, alleging that the property of the order had been granted to it by the kings of England, his predecessors, and their subjects, for the defence of the Holy Land, and that since the loss thereof, no better use could, be made of the money than by appropriating it to the maintenance of the poor. At the earnest request of the pope, however, the king afterwards permitted their revenues to be transmitted to them in the island of Cyprus in the usual manner. King Edward had previously manifested a strong desire to lay hands on the property of the Templars. On his return from his victorious campaign in Wales, finding himself unable to disburse the arrears of pay due to his soldiers, he went with Sir Robert Waleran and some armed followers to the Temple, and calling for the treasurer, he pretended that he wanted to see his mother’s jewels, which were there kept. Having been admitted to the house, he deliberately broke open the coffers of the Templars, and carried away ten thousand pounds with him to Windsor Castle. His son, Edward II, on his accession to the throne, committed a similar act of injustice. He went with his favourite, Piers Gaveston, to the Temple, and took away with him fifty thousand pounds of silver, with a quantity of gold, jewels, and precious stones, belonging to the bishop of Chester. The impunity with which these acts of violence were committed, manifests that the Templars then no longer enjoyed the power and respect which they possessed in ancient times.
As the enthusiasm, too, in favour of the holy war diminished, large numbers of the fraternity remained at home in their western preceptories, and took an active part in the politics of Europe. They interfered in the quarrels of christian princes, and even drew their swords against their fellow-Christians. Thus we find the members of the order taking part in the war between the houses of Anjou and Aragon, and aiding the king of England in his warfare against the king of Scotland. In the battle of Falkirk, fought on the 22nd of July, A. D. 1298, seven years after the fall of Acre, perished both the Master of the Temple at London, and his vicegerent the Preceptor of Scotland. All these circumstances, together with the loss of the Holy Land, and the extinction of the enthusiasm of the crusades, diminished the popularity of the Templars. The rolls of the English parliament about this time begin to teem with complaints and petitions from the fraternity, of the infringement of their charters, franchises, liberties, and privileges, in all parts of the realm.146
At the period of the fall of Acre, Philip the Fair, son of St. Louis, occupied the throne of France. He was a needy and avaricious monarch, and had at different periods resorted to the most violent expedients to replenish his exhausted exchequer. On the death of pope Benedict XI., (A. D. 1304,) he succeeded, through the intrigues of the French Cardinal Dupré, in raising the archbishop of Bordeaux, a creature of his own, to the pontifical chair. The new pope removed the holy see from Rome to France; he summoned all the cardinals to Lyons, and was there consecrated, (A. D. 1305,) by the name of Clement V., in the presence of king Philip and his nobles. Of the ten new cardinals then created, nine were Frenchmen, and in all his acts the new pope manifested himself the obedient slave of the French monarch. The character of this pontiff has been painted by the Romish ecclesiastical historians in the darkest colours.
On the 6th of June, A. D. 1306, a few months after his coronation, he addressed letters from Bordeaux to the Grand Masters of the Temple and Hospital at Limisso, in the island of Cyprus, expressing his earnest desire to consult them with regard to the measures necessary to be taken for the recovery of the Holy Land. He tells them that they are the persons best qualified to give advice upon the subject, and to conduct and manage the enterprise, both from their great military experience and the interest they had in the success of the expedition. “We order you,” says he, “to come hither without delay, with as much secrecy as possible, and with a very little retinue, since you will find on this side the sea a sufficient number of your knights to attend upon you.” The Grand Master of the Hospital declined obeying this summons; but the Grand Master of the Temple forthwith accepted it, and unhesitatingly placed himself in the power of the pope and the king of France. He landed in France, attended by sixty of his knights, at the commencement of the year 1307, and deposited the treasure of the order, which he had brought with him from Cyprus, in the Temple at Paris. He was received with distinction by the king, and then took his departure for Poictiers to have an interview with the pope.
The secret agents of the French king immediately circulated various dark rumours and odious reports concerning the Templars. According to some writers, Squin de Florian, a citizen of Bezieres, who had been condemned to death or perpetual imprisonment in one of the royal castles for his iniquities, was brought before king Philip, and received a free pardon, and was well rewarded, in return for an accusation on oath, charging the Templars with heresy, and with the commission of the most horrible crimes. According to others, Nosso de Florentin, an apostate Templar, who had been condemned by the Grand Preceptor and chapter of France to perpetual imprisonment for impiety and crime, made in his dungeon a voluntary confession of the sins and abominations charged against the order. Be this as it may, upon the strength of an information sworn to by a condemned criminal, king Philip, on the 14th of September, despatched secret letters to all the baillis of the different provinces in France, accusing the Templars of infidelity; of mocking the sacred image of the Saviour; of sacrificing to idols; and of abandoning themselves to impure practices and unnatural crimes! “We being charged,” says he, “with the maintenance of the faith; after having conferred with the pope, the prelates, and the barons of the kingdom, at the instance of the inquisitor, from the informations already laid, from violent suspicions, from probable conjectures, from legitimate presumptions, conceived against the enemies of heaven and earth! and because the matter is important, and it is expedient to prove the just like gold in the furnace, by a rigorous examination, have decreed that the members of the order who are our subjects shall be arrested and detained to be judged by the church, and that all their real and personal property shall be seized into our hands!” &c. The baillis and seneschals were required accurately to inform themselves, with great secrecy, and without exciting suspicion, of the number of the houses of the Temple within their respective jurisdictions; to provide an armed force sufficient to overcome all resistance, and on the 13th of October to surprise the Templars in their preceptories, and make them prisoners. The inquisition is then directed to assemble to examine the guilty, and to employ TORTURE if it be necessary. “Before proceeding with the inquiry,” says Philip, “you are to inform them (the Templars) that the pope and ourselves have been convinced, by irreproachable testimony, of the errors and abominations which accompany their vows and profession; you are to promise them pardon and favour if they CONFESS the truth, but if not, you are to acquaint them that they will be condemned to death.”
As soon as Philip had issued these orders, he wrote to the principal sovereigns of Europe, urging them to follow his example, and sent a confidential agent, named Bernard Peletin, with a letter to the young king, Edward the Second, who had just then ascended the throne of England, representing in frightful colours the pretended sins of the Templars. On the 22nd of September, (A. D. 1306,) king Edward replied to this letter, observing that he had considered of the matters mentioned therein, and had listened to the statements of that discreet man, Master Bernard Peletin; that he had caused the latter to unfold the charges before himself, and many prelates, earls, and barons of his kingdom, and others of his council; but that they appeared so astonishing as to be beyond belief; that such abominable and execrable deeds had never before been heard of by the king, and the aforesaid prelates, earls, and barons, and it was therefore hardly to be expected that an easy credence could be given to them. The English monarch, however, informs king Philip, that by the advice of his council he had ordered the seneschal of Agen, from whose lips the rumours were said to have proceeded, to be summoned to his presence, that through him he might be further informed concerning the premises; and he states that, at the fitting time, after due inquiry, he will take such steps as will redound to the praise of God, and the honour and preservation of the catholic faith.147