The Order lives on...

The fate of the Order of the Temple will always be a matter of dispute. What was survived was the Templar legend. In literature and, more recently, in films they are portrayed as heroic Christians warriors fighting against evil and alien forces.
More serious works of history have also perpetuated this Templar legend. As we saw in the last chapter, Jacques de Molay cursed the French king and the Pope shortly before being burnt at the stake. Since his curse was against dictatorial authority figures, it was resurrected at the time of the French Revolution. When the common people rebelled against their aristocratic overlords, they put King Louis XVI to death. This was seen by many as the final fulfilment of Molay’s curse. Louis was to be the Last king ever to rule over France.
Elsewhere in Europe, where many Templars escaped persecution, the Order adjusted its positions. The Portuguese Templars simply changed their name — like a modern business might change its name in order to avoid previous debts. They became the Knight of Christ, who later became famous for their explorations in Africa and the West Indies. The famous King Henry the Navigator was a known Grand Master of the Order, and explorers like Vasco da Gama were members. Christopher Columbus’ father-in-law was a Grand Master, and Columbus sailed across the Atlantic with the familiar Templar cross emblazoned on his sails. The Order of Christ survived until 1830’s.
Similarly in Germany, Spain and other parts of Europe where the Templar purge was less successful, there is plenty of evidence that they just joined other Orders — the Hospitallers or Teutonic Knights in Germany, or one of the local military Orders in Spain.
More mysterious is the fate of the English, Scottish and Irish Templars. A good case can be made — and indeed has been made, by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, in The Temple and the Lodge —that a great many of them fled north to Scotland. The Scottish king, Robert the Bruce, was especially lenient towards the Templars and never formally dissolved the Scottish Temple at all. He was also in desperate need of skilled knights for his campaigns against the England.
But if Scotland was the final destination of these knights, along with their fleet and possibly their treasure, what became of them? No doubt over the years some of them simply forgot their chivalric past. Others, however, may have helped to found Freemasonry. The semi-secret organisation, which permeates society at all levels today, explicitly acknowledges a lineage stretching back to the Knights Templar. Scotland was one of the main places where a particular kind of Masonry — Templar in its rites and rituals; mystical in its orientation — first arouse and flourished.
The Freemasons were not formally founded until the middle of the 17th century. But at the end of the 17th century Viscount Dundee was still the Grand Master of the Templars in Scotland. Moreover, at the end of the sixteenth century, there were still over 500 locations in Scotland registered as Templar property. It looks as though the Templars and the Hospitallers merged in Scotland. And we know for certain that the Hospitallers survived, because they are still with us today as the Knights of Malta and St. John’s Ambulance Brigade.
Apart from the Freemasons, there is one other mysterious organisation that should be mentioned: the Prieuré de Sion. This French-based cabal is investigated in the explosive best-seller The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.
The authors claim that this organisation, which undoubtedly exists, has a long history stretching back before the establishment of the Templars. They maintain it was this Prieuré de Sion which originally founded the Templars, as part of its ongoing aim to restore an ancient line of French kings known as the Merovingian dynasty. And this dynasty is claimed to have an astonishing lineage. its members are said to be descended directly from Jesus Christ himself!
The book, published in 1982, offered new evidence to make this scenario plausible. This evidence was discovered in ancient documents they discovered in French Library vault which they claimed the authorities tried hard to prevent them finding. It called into question our entire understanding of the life of Christ as portrayed in the New Testament.
Jesus, they claimed, may not have died on the cross at all. Instead he survived, married Mary Magdalene and the couple had children. And from Jesus’ children the Merovingian Kings — and through them a number of other European royal families — were descended.
No less astonishing was a claim that former heads of the Order of Sion included the famous British scientists Robert Boyle and Sir Isaac Newton, French writers Victor Hugo and Jean Cocteau, Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci, and a host of other distinguished Europeans.
Any Templar survival down to our own day would not be as direct as the survival of the Hospitallers. But it is still possible that there are people alive today who are in possession of the Templar heritage and secret traditions. They do not go around in knightly armour. They look no difference from anyone else. They may be Masons. Or they may belong to some more esoteric lodge, meeting perhaps once a month to practise magical rituals. Perhaps they are awaiting a time when Christendom again needs defending from an alien threat.
And what of their treasure? Does it still exist somewhere or has it been used up? Was it in fact a real treasure — money a valuables — or was it merely a metaphorical treasure? A ‘great secret’ of some kind?
Perhaps, if it was real treasure, it has been buried and lost, awaiting accidental discovery by metal detector. Or perhaps it lies deep in the vaults of a secretive Swiss bank, waiting to be put to use when the times comes.
These are questions which have intrigued historians and laymen alike for almost 900 years. They are unlikely to be answered. The real truth about the now-legendary Knights Templar will probably remain forever one of life’s great mysteries.
 
António Mendonça
© 1996 Steve Jackson