We have long ago ceased to set any value upon confessions extorted by torture, and the system has happily been abolished by all civilized nations, but in those days this was not understood; torture was relied upon as a means of extracting truth from unwilling witnesses when all other means failed; indeed, it was simpler and more expeditious than the calling of many witnesses, the testing of evidence by cross-examination, and other surer but slower methods; and especially when conviction, not truth, was the end in view, torture was a welcome and efficacious ally.

All this was but too sadly exemplified in the proceedings against the Templars in France. No sooner were those who had made confessions of guilt while under torture released from their tormentors, than they disavowed their forced admissions and proclaimed their innocence and the purity of their Order, appealing to history and the testimony of their own day for evidence of their courage and devotion to the catholic faith.

Upon hearing of this Philip immediately ordered the re-arrest of the Templars, and proceeding against them as relapsed heretics, they were condemned to be burned alive. In Paris alone 113 suffered this terrible punishment, and many more were burned in other towns.

In Spain, Portugal, and Germany, proceedings were taken against the Order; their property was confiscated, and in some cases torture was used; but it is remarkable that it was only in France, and in

those places where Philip's influence was powerful, that any Templar was actually put to death.

Everywhere else the monstrous charges were declared to be unproved, and the Order was declared innocent of heresy and sacrilegious rites.

CHAPTER VI.

The Council of Vienne refuses to suppress the Order of the Templars-The Pope suppresses it by his own authority-The Grand Master at Notre Dame in Paris-Edward III. of England slow to attack the Templars-He is persuaded by the Pope to suppress the Order in England-Trial of the Templars in London -Monstrous charges.

"Bell, book, and candle shall not drive me back,
When gold and silver becks me to come on."

SHAKESPEARE.

IN October, A.D. 1311, a council was held at Vienne to dissolve the Order of the Temple, but the majority of the bishops were decidedly opposed to such a proceeding against so ancient and illustrious an Order, till its members had been heard in their own defence in a fair and open trial.

The Pope was furious at this and dismissed the council, and in the following year, A.D. 1312, by a Papal Brief he abolished the Order and forbad its reconstitution.

The property of the Order in France was nominally made over to the Hospitallers, but Philip laid claim to an immense sum for the expenses of

the prosecution, and by this and other means he obtained what he had all along desired, the greatest part of the possessions of the Order.

Similar proceedings took place in other countries. In some, new Orders were founded in the place of the Templars, with the sovereign at their head, by which means the estates came into the possession of the crown as completely as if they had been actually confiscated.

In France the Templars who survived their torture, and the horrors of their prisons, were either executed or left to linger out a miserable existence in their dungeons till death released them. The Grand Master and a few other brethren of the highest rank were thus kept in prison for five years. They were then taken to Notre Dame in Paris, and required to give verbal assent to the confessions which had been extorted from them under torture. But the Grand Master, James de Molay, the Grand Preceptor, and some others seized the opportunity of declaring their innocence, and disowning the alleged confessions as forgeries. The old veterans stood up in the church before the assembled multitude, and raising their chained hands to heaven, declared that whatever had been confessed to the detriment of the illustrious Order was only forced from them by extreme agony and fear of death, and that they solemnly and finally repudiated and revoked all such admissions.

On hearing of this Philip ordered their immediate execution, and the same evening the last Grand

Master of the Temple and his faithful comrades were burnt to death at a slow fire.

Impartial men had formed their own judgment, and a very strong feeling prevailed that justice had not been done. It was remarked that those who had been foremost in the proceedings against the Templars, came to a speedy and miserable end. The Pope, the kings of France and of England, and others, all soon followed their victims and died violent or shameful deaths.

We have somewhat anticipated the order of events, and must return to the earlier stage of the proceedings against the Templars. As soon as Philip had determined upon his own course of action, he desired to find countenance for it by stirring up other sovereigns to imitate it. He therefore wrote letters to the kings of other European states, informing them of his discovery of the guilt of the Templars, and urging them to adopt a similar course in their own dominions. The Pope, too, summoned the Grand Master to France, but with every mark of respect, and so got him into his power before the terrible proceedings against the members of his Order were made public.

The King of England, Edward II., acted with prudence. He expressed his unbounded astonishment at the contents of the French king's letter, and at the particulars detailed to him by an agent specially sent to him by Philip, but he would do no more at the time than promise that the matter should receive his serious attention in due course.

He wrote at the same time to the Kings of Portugal, Aragon, Castile, and Sicily, telling them of the extraordinary information he had received respecting the Templars, and declaring his unwillingness to believe the dreadful charges brought against them. He referred to the services rendered to Christendom by the Order, and to its unblemished reputation ever since it was founded. He urged upon his fellow sovereigns that nothing should be done in haste, but that inquiry should be made in due and solemn legal form, expressing his belief that the Order was guiltless of the crimes alleged against it, and that the charges were merely the result of slander and envy, and of a desire to appropriate the property of the Order.

At the same time Edward wrote to the Pope in similar terms. He declared that the Templars were universally respected by all classes throughout his dominions as pious and upright men, and begged the Pope to promote a just inquiry which should free the Order from the unjust slander and injuries to which it was being subjected.

But hardly was this letter despatched than Edward received another from the Pope, which had crossed his own on its way, calling upon him to imitate Philip, King of France, in proceeding against the Templars. The Pope professed great distress and astonishment that an Order that had so long enjoyed the respect and gratitude of the Church for its worthy deeds in defence of the faith should have fallen into grievous and perfidious apostacy.