cacadores
24-07-2008, 03:09 AM
Knights Templar at Bannockburn - joining the dots 400 years to modern Freemasonry
After the military Knights Templars, mainstays of the crusades, were defeated and wiped out at the battles of Acre and Raud and their leaders in Europe evicted and burnt at the stake in France 1307; their money and possessions were confiscated and their buildings given over to the Knights Hospitallers in the anti-Templar purges in Europe and the sect destroyed.
http://www.crystalinks.com/templarsend.jpg
Templars burnt at the stake.
So it's more than interesting to speculate if excommunicated Scotland may have acted as a refuge for some Templar refugees and thus provided a link enabling them to pass on any 'knowledge' they may have had on to the British Freemasons. In fact, unless there is a link to the Freemasons, then the historically there is no way to suggest that ''secret Templar knowledge'', if there was such a thing, survived. An idea important to modern Freemasonry in Scotland......and to David Icke's thesis.
There's a problem though: history puts the Templars as officially extinct by 1312 and the Freemasons' first lodge in London doesn't convene until the 18th Century. That's a 400-year gap in the chronology of the thesis. What's more, to get the Pope's excommunication lifted and France's friendship, Bruce of Scotland needed to distance himself from any connection.
http://www.braveheart.co.uk/macbrave/history/bruce/bannock3.jpg
This is where the Battle of Bannockburn 1314, comes in. If the Knight's Templars can be shown to have existed as a disciplined body any time after 1312, then, in the mileu of a Britain where some establishments and institutions from that time continue to the present day, then there might be a case for suggesting the Templars still exist. And if they can be shown to have fought at Bannockburn and in effect, helped won the battle, then there would be a case for believing a grateful Bruce would have reasons for protecting them, and that they existed.
http://www.angelfire.com/ok5/estherstar/fr.gif
So in 'the Biggest Secret', Icke writes about a force of '‘unknown Scottish horsemen'' arriving at the Battle of Bannockburn - the battle Robert Bruce of Scotland fought against England.
''For some reason, never explained'' Icke writes, ''the English panicked and ran at the sight of these reinforcements. They had to be a special fighting force and they had to be immediately recognisable to stimulate such an instant reaction. The Templars were both, and this ‘unknown’ group had to be the Knights Templar, the warriors so feared in the crusades, who had now regrouped in Scotland''.
http://www.angelfire.com/ok5/estherstar/templars.jpg
When I read this I was a little dumbfounded: how would refugee Knights Templars be in a position to form a group and train in an armed body after their military wing had been literally wiped out? And why would they fight in 'recognisable' knights cross surpluses when their open presence on Bruce's side could only alienate French support? What's more, how is it they weren't seen by more people? After all there were over 35,000 people there including hundreds of literate knights who later spread far and wide leaving records.
So I tried to find a reference to these Knights Templars arriving on the battlefield.
What I did find was a lot of extraordinary detail from a number of contemporary sources: far more detail, in fact, than you find for other battles of the time. We know the details of individual knights even: Take de Bohun, the man who lunged at Bruce: we know all about his armour, his colours and his weapons. So what about Knights Templars winning the day?
Firstly, Icke writes that ''For some reason, never explained the English panicked and ran at the sight of these reinforcements''. Yet the map of the battle shows the problem for the English:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/ac/Mapbannockburn1.2.svg/300px-Mapbannockburn1.2.svg.png
they were squeezed into too small a space and so most of them couldn't fight back: panicking would be a natural reaction to being squeezed in a crowd and being attacked on three sides, unable to fight back. The English in fact fall back, but their morale is fatally weakened. So any panic is explaned.
Next Icke writes ''They had to be a special fighting force''. So, do we have anyone writing about a special force coming on at the end of the battle? Actually, yes, there is. There is one, possibly two references to a group of ''small folk'' who appear on the English flank. Templars would hardly be ''small'', indeed the sources explain that these were Scottish camp followers (ordinary people, not soldiers, though perhaps armed haphazardly) who rushed forwards when they heard the Scottish soldiers advance and it's possible the English thought they were 're-enforcements':
''Surging with renewed strength, the Scots pressed home the attack. They were aided by the arrival of the "small folk"......Their arrival, coupled with Edward fleeing the field, led to the English army's collapse and a rout ensued''.
Icke calls them '‘unknown Scottish horsemen''. So are ''unknown Scottish horsemen'' mentioned in any account?
Er....no. What about ''horsemen'' saving the day? Well, actually yes: a group of Scottish cavalry did apparently make a sudden contribution. Could they be the Knights Templars? Well, the records are quite consistant on this point; these Scottish cavalry were the only cavalry making a contribution at this time but not at the finale to the battle: before that, before the ''small folk'' arrived. And far from arriving ''suddenly'' on the battlefield, they were there all the time. In fact we know quite a lot about them. They were light cavalry commanded by Sir Robert Keith, they had been there since the start of the battle and they were sent forwards by Bruce himself to clear the English archers who were attacking the Scottish left.
http://www.braveheart.co.uk/macbrave/history/bruce/bannock4.jpg
Here are the sourses for contemporary accounts of the battle:
Historiana Anglicana, Walsingham.
Scotichronicon, Bower,
Scalicronica, Gray,
The Bruce, Barbour,
The Lanercost Chronicle.
Vita Edwardi Secundi.
You can even read most of them yourself on-line:
The ''Brus''
http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/SESLL/STELLA/STARN/poetry/BRUS/contents.htm
The ''Scotichron''
http://www.nls.uk/scotlandspages/timeline/1454.html
The ''Scalacronica''
http://www.deremilitari.org/RESOURCES/SOURCES/scalacronica.htm
The ''Chronical of Lanercost''
http://www.deremilitari.org/resources/sources/lanercost.htm
So where did the ''Knights Templars'' at Bannockburn idea come from, if none of the eye-witnesses mention them?
Icke's account appears to have been lifted straight from a fictional supposition describing the same battle, written by Michael Baigent. Even down to the careful references to ''unknown horsemen''. Baigent is the man who co-wrote this:
http://www.globalfailure.com/images/holyblood.jpg
and the ''Messianic Legacy''. And he is a Grand Officer of the United Grand Freemasonic Lodge of England editing ''Freemasonry Today'' since April 2001.
And where did Michael Baigent get the story from?
Father Richard Augustine Hay, Canon of St. Genevieve in Paris in the 18th centuary wrote a genealogy for the Scottish Sinclair family and collected all the documents and tales about the family he could......but could find no documents or tales in extant linking the Sinclairs of Scotland to the Knights Templars. Previous St Claires in Scotland had fought in the crusades before the sect was destroyed four centuaries before. Perhaps the lack of Templar documents is explained because the Knights Templars were a military order and many, including Grand Masters, prided themselves on their illitaracy?
Anyway, Father Hay, a writer of romances, included it in a fictional tale in the 18th centuary, around the same time as the Freemasons started. The tale of the Templars at the Battle of Bannockburn puts the Sinclares in a good light of course: not only linking them to the romantic Knights Templars, but suddenly they become cruicial in winning Scotland her independance!
Now this man, a Sinclare, becomes First Grand Master Mason of Scotland and helps form the Scottish Freemasons in order to counter expansion from the Freemasons in London.
http://www.robertlomas.com/Freemason/WILLIAM.jpg
In fact the Freemasons have been split into rival groups since shortly after thier inception, with doctrinal rivalries existing between the Scottish or Irish masons, the London and York masons, the Antient Grand Lodge of England, the Grand Lodge of England, European Continental Freemasonry and so on: differences which replicated themselves as lodges were set up in America.
http://excoboard.com/exco/thread.php?forumid=55008&threadid=217759
And we can see, that right from the beginning, Freemasons have felt the need to portray themselves as having some ancient liniage. The word 'Antient' is a bit of a give-away: if an institution is indeed ancient, it hardly needs the word in its name. But it is part of the faux-mystery and the sexiness of secrecy at the heart of, what are, boys clubs for grown men. In fact, their secret signs, exclusive appeal and their promises of fidelity mirror litttle boys gangs: their play-act rituals, another version of childrens' playground ''promise to cross my heart and hope to die''
http://www.robertlomas.com/Freemason/CANDIDATE.gif
You only have to look at Freemasons discussing their origens together:
http://www.robertlomas.com/Freemason/Origins.html
http://www.knight-lomas.com/rosslyn_debate.html
http://www.crystalinks.com/crosstemplars.gif
In this light, Scottish Freemasonry's link, through the Sinclaire family to the ''ancient'' chapel at Rossylin, with its mysterious carvings, evocative of secret messages and rituals, can be seen as part of their need to claim a sexy, though non-existant, Knight's Templar heritage.
In fact, though the chapel may look mysterious to city folk used to the clean lines of the great city cathedrals, in fact the carvings at Rosslyn are no different to carving to be seen in small churches in many celtic areas of western Britian, where the imagry has obviously been borrowed directly from typical celtic designs. In fact the chapel was build 150 years after the dissolution of the Templars. However, to the 18th centuary William Sinclair of Roslin, wishing to make a mysterious link between modern freemasonry and the Knights Templars, the chapel comes as a useful tool. And if he, by promoting the 'Templars at Bannockburn' myth, can make the link even stronger, then the more sexy his new club looks. In fact, the Sinclair family testified against the Knights Templars when that Order was put on trial in Edinburgh in 1309! No matter, the Sinclair romantic myth of a connection between the Knights Templars and Freemasonry, designed by them to add appeal to their Freemasonry club, covers an awkward 400-year gap in the chronology linking the ancient secrets of Soloman's Temple, to the modern world.
After the military Knights Templars, mainstays of the crusades, were defeated and wiped out at the battles of Acre and Raud and their leaders in Europe evicted and burnt at the stake in France 1307; their money and possessions were confiscated and their buildings given over to the Knights Hospitallers in the anti-Templar purges in Europe and the sect destroyed.
http://www.crystalinks.com/templarsend.jpg
Templars burnt at the stake.
So it's more than interesting to speculate if excommunicated Scotland may have acted as a refuge for some Templar refugees and thus provided a link enabling them to pass on any 'knowledge' they may have had on to the British Freemasons. In fact, unless there is a link to the Freemasons, then the historically there is no way to suggest that ''secret Templar knowledge'', if there was such a thing, survived. An idea important to modern Freemasonry in Scotland......and to David Icke's thesis.
There's a problem though: history puts the Templars as officially extinct by 1312 and the Freemasons' first lodge in London doesn't convene until the 18th Century. That's a 400-year gap in the chronology of the thesis. What's more, to get the Pope's excommunication lifted and France's friendship, Bruce of Scotland needed to distance himself from any connection.
http://www.braveheart.co.uk/macbrave/history/bruce/bannock3.jpg
This is where the Battle of Bannockburn 1314, comes in. If the Knight's Templars can be shown to have existed as a disciplined body any time after 1312, then, in the mileu of a Britain where some establishments and institutions from that time continue to the present day, then there might be a case for suggesting the Templars still exist. And if they can be shown to have fought at Bannockburn and in effect, helped won the battle, then there would be a case for believing a grateful Bruce would have reasons for protecting them, and that they existed.
http://www.angelfire.com/ok5/estherstar/fr.gif
So in 'the Biggest Secret', Icke writes about a force of '‘unknown Scottish horsemen'' arriving at the Battle of Bannockburn - the battle Robert Bruce of Scotland fought against England.
''For some reason, never explained'' Icke writes, ''the English panicked and ran at the sight of these reinforcements. They had to be a special fighting force and they had to be immediately recognisable to stimulate such an instant reaction. The Templars were both, and this ‘unknown’ group had to be the Knights Templar, the warriors so feared in the crusades, who had now regrouped in Scotland''.
http://www.angelfire.com/ok5/estherstar/templars.jpg
When I read this I was a little dumbfounded: how would refugee Knights Templars be in a position to form a group and train in an armed body after their military wing had been literally wiped out? And why would they fight in 'recognisable' knights cross surpluses when their open presence on Bruce's side could only alienate French support? What's more, how is it they weren't seen by more people? After all there were over 35,000 people there including hundreds of literate knights who later spread far and wide leaving records.
So I tried to find a reference to these Knights Templars arriving on the battlefield.
What I did find was a lot of extraordinary detail from a number of contemporary sources: far more detail, in fact, than you find for other battles of the time. We know the details of individual knights even: Take de Bohun, the man who lunged at Bruce: we know all about his armour, his colours and his weapons. So what about Knights Templars winning the day?
Firstly, Icke writes that ''For some reason, never explained the English panicked and ran at the sight of these reinforcements''. Yet the map of the battle shows the problem for the English:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/ac/Mapbannockburn1.2.svg/300px-Mapbannockburn1.2.svg.png
they were squeezed into too small a space and so most of them couldn't fight back: panicking would be a natural reaction to being squeezed in a crowd and being attacked on three sides, unable to fight back. The English in fact fall back, but their morale is fatally weakened. So any panic is explaned.
Next Icke writes ''They had to be a special fighting force''. So, do we have anyone writing about a special force coming on at the end of the battle? Actually, yes, there is. There is one, possibly two references to a group of ''small folk'' who appear on the English flank. Templars would hardly be ''small'', indeed the sources explain that these were Scottish camp followers (ordinary people, not soldiers, though perhaps armed haphazardly) who rushed forwards when they heard the Scottish soldiers advance and it's possible the English thought they were 're-enforcements':
''Surging with renewed strength, the Scots pressed home the attack. They were aided by the arrival of the "small folk"......Their arrival, coupled with Edward fleeing the field, led to the English army's collapse and a rout ensued''.
Icke calls them '‘unknown Scottish horsemen''. So are ''unknown Scottish horsemen'' mentioned in any account?
Er....no. What about ''horsemen'' saving the day? Well, actually yes: a group of Scottish cavalry did apparently make a sudden contribution. Could they be the Knights Templars? Well, the records are quite consistant on this point; these Scottish cavalry were the only cavalry making a contribution at this time but not at the finale to the battle: before that, before the ''small folk'' arrived. And far from arriving ''suddenly'' on the battlefield, they were there all the time. In fact we know quite a lot about them. They were light cavalry commanded by Sir Robert Keith, they had been there since the start of the battle and they were sent forwards by Bruce himself to clear the English archers who were attacking the Scottish left.
http://www.braveheart.co.uk/macbrave/history/bruce/bannock4.jpg
Here are the sourses for contemporary accounts of the battle:
Historiana Anglicana, Walsingham.
Scotichronicon, Bower,
Scalicronica, Gray,
The Bruce, Barbour,
The Lanercost Chronicle.
Vita Edwardi Secundi.
You can even read most of them yourself on-line:
The ''Brus''
http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/SESLL/STELLA/STARN/poetry/BRUS/contents.htm
The ''Scotichron''
http://www.nls.uk/scotlandspages/timeline/1454.html
The ''Scalacronica''
http://www.deremilitari.org/RESOURCES/SOURCES/scalacronica.htm
The ''Chronical of Lanercost''
http://www.deremilitari.org/resources/sources/lanercost.htm
So where did the ''Knights Templars'' at Bannockburn idea come from, if none of the eye-witnesses mention them?
Icke's account appears to have been lifted straight from a fictional supposition describing the same battle, written by Michael Baigent. Even down to the careful references to ''unknown horsemen''. Baigent is the man who co-wrote this:
http://www.globalfailure.com/images/holyblood.jpg
and the ''Messianic Legacy''. And he is a Grand Officer of the United Grand Freemasonic Lodge of England editing ''Freemasonry Today'' since April 2001.
And where did Michael Baigent get the story from?
Father Richard Augustine Hay, Canon of St. Genevieve in Paris in the 18th centuary wrote a genealogy for the Scottish Sinclair family and collected all the documents and tales about the family he could......but could find no documents or tales in extant linking the Sinclairs of Scotland to the Knights Templars. Previous St Claires in Scotland had fought in the crusades before the sect was destroyed four centuaries before. Perhaps the lack of Templar documents is explained because the Knights Templars were a military order and many, including Grand Masters, prided themselves on their illitaracy?
Anyway, Father Hay, a writer of romances, included it in a fictional tale in the 18th centuary, around the same time as the Freemasons started. The tale of the Templars at the Battle of Bannockburn puts the Sinclares in a good light of course: not only linking them to the romantic Knights Templars, but suddenly they become cruicial in winning Scotland her independance!
Now this man, a Sinclare, becomes First Grand Master Mason of Scotland and helps form the Scottish Freemasons in order to counter expansion from the Freemasons in London.
http://www.robertlomas.com/Freemason/WILLIAM.jpg
In fact the Freemasons have been split into rival groups since shortly after thier inception, with doctrinal rivalries existing between the Scottish or Irish masons, the London and York masons, the Antient Grand Lodge of England, the Grand Lodge of England, European Continental Freemasonry and so on: differences which replicated themselves as lodges were set up in America.
http://excoboard.com/exco/thread.php?forumid=55008&threadid=217759
And we can see, that right from the beginning, Freemasons have felt the need to portray themselves as having some ancient liniage. The word 'Antient' is a bit of a give-away: if an institution is indeed ancient, it hardly needs the word in its name. But it is part of the faux-mystery and the sexiness of secrecy at the heart of, what are, boys clubs for grown men. In fact, their secret signs, exclusive appeal and their promises of fidelity mirror litttle boys gangs: their play-act rituals, another version of childrens' playground ''promise to cross my heart and hope to die''
http://www.robertlomas.com/Freemason/CANDIDATE.gif
You only have to look at Freemasons discussing their origens together:
http://www.robertlomas.com/Freemason/Origins.html
http://www.knight-lomas.com/rosslyn_debate.html
http://www.crystalinks.com/crosstemplars.gif
In this light, Scottish Freemasonry's link, through the Sinclaire family to the ''ancient'' chapel at Rossylin, with its mysterious carvings, evocative of secret messages and rituals, can be seen as part of their need to claim a sexy, though non-existant, Knight's Templar heritage.
In fact, though the chapel may look mysterious to city folk used to the clean lines of the great city cathedrals, in fact the carvings at Rosslyn are no different to carving to be seen in small churches in many celtic areas of western Britian, where the imagry has obviously been borrowed directly from typical celtic designs. In fact the chapel was build 150 years after the dissolution of the Templars. However, to the 18th centuary William Sinclair of Roslin, wishing to make a mysterious link between modern freemasonry and the Knights Templars, the chapel comes as a useful tool. And if he, by promoting the 'Templars at Bannockburn' myth, can make the link even stronger, then the more sexy his new club looks. In fact, the Sinclair family testified against the Knights Templars when that Order was put on trial in Edinburgh in 1309! No matter, the Sinclair romantic myth of a connection between the Knights Templars and Freemasonry, designed by them to add appeal to their Freemasonry club, covers an awkward 400-year gap in the chronology linking the ancient secrets of Soloman's Temple, to the modern world.