The History of the Knights Templars, the Temple Church, and the Temple

The manors, castles, estates, and possessions of this powerful nobleman in England, Wales, Ireland, and Normandy, were immense. He gave extensive forest lands to the monks of Tinterne in Wales; he founded the monastery of Friars preachers in Dublin, and to the Templars he gave the church of Westone with all its appurtenances, and granted and confirmed to them the borough of Baudac, the estate of Langenache, with various lands, windmills, and villeins of the soil.531

Gilbert Marshall, earl of Pembroke, brother to the above, and third son of the Protector, succeeded to the earldom and the vast estates of his ancestors on the melancholy murder in Ireland of his gallant brother Richard, “the flower of the chivalry of that time,” (A. D. 1234.) The year after his accession to the title he married Margaret, the daughter of the king of Scotland, who is described by Matthew Paris as “a most elegant girl,”532 and received with her a splendid dowry. In the year 1236 he assumed the cross, and joined the king’s brother, the earl of Cornwall, in the promotion of a Crusade to the Holy Land.

Matthew Paris gives a long account of an absurd quarrel which broke out between this earl of Pembroke and king Henry the Third, when the latter was eating his Christmas dinner at Winchester, in the year 1239.533

At a great meeting of Crusaders at Northampton, he took a solemn oath upon the high altar of the church of All Saints to proceed without delay to Palestine to fight against the enemies of the cross;534 but his intentions were frustrated by the hand of death. At a tournament held at Ware, A. D. 1241, he was thrown from his horse, and died a few hours afterwards at the monastery at Hertford. His entrails were buried in the church of the Virgin at that place, but his body was brought up to London, accompanied by all his family, and was interred in the Temple Church by the side of his father and eldest brother.535

The above Gilbert Marshall granted to the Templars the church of Weston, the borough of Baldok, lands and houses at Roydon, and the wood of Langnoke.536

All the five sons of the elder Marshall, the Protector, died without issue in the reign of Henry the Third, and the family became extinct. They followed one another to the grave in regular succession, so that each attained for a brief period to the dignity of the earldom, and to the hereditary office of Earl Marshall.

Matthew Paris accounts for the melancholy extinction of this noble and illustrious family in the following manner.

He tells us that the elder Marshall, the Protector, during a campaign in Ireland, seized the lands of the reverend bishop of Fernes, and kept possession of them in spite of a sentence of excommunication which was pronounced against him. After the Protector had gone the way of all flesh, and had been buried in the Temple Church, the reverend bishop came to London, and mentioned the circumstance to the king, telling him that the earl of Pembroke had certainly died excommunicated. The king was much troubled and alarmed at this intelligence, and besought the bishop to go to the earl’s tomb and absolve him from the bond of excommunication, promising the bishop that he would endeavour to procure him ample satisfaction. So anxious, indeed, was king Henry for the safety of the soul of his quondam guardian, that he accompanied the bishop in person to the Temple Church; and Matthew Paris declares that the bishop, standing by the tomb in the presence of the king, and in the hearing of many bystanders, pronounced these words: “O William, who lyest here interred, and held fast by the chain of excommunication, if those lands which thou hast unjustly taken away from my church be rendered back to me by the king, or by your heir, or by any of your family, and if due satisfaction be made for the loss and injury I have sustained, I grant you absolution; but if not, I confirm my previous sentence, so that, enveloped in your sins, you stand for evermore condemned to hell!”

The restitution was never made, and the indignant bishop pronounced this further curse, in the words of the Psalmist: “His name shall be rooted out in one generation, and his sons shall be deprived of the blessing, Increase and multiply; some of them shall die a miserable death; their inheritance shall be scattered; and this thou, O king, shall behold in thy lifetime, yea, in the days of thy flourishing youth.” Matthew Paris dwells with great solemnity on the remarkable fulfilment of this dreadful prophecy, and declares that when the oblong portion of the Temple Church was consecrated, the body of the Protector was found entire, sewed up in a bull’s hide, but in a state of putridity, and disgusting in appearance.537

It will be observed that the dates of the burial of the above nobleman, as mentioned by Matthew Paris and other authorities, are as follow: – William Marshall the elder, A. D. 1219; Lord de Ros, A. D. 1227; William Marshall the younger, A. D. 1231; all before the consecration of the oblong portion of the church. Gilbert Marshall, on the other hand, was buried A. D. 1241, the year after that ceremony had taken place. Those, therefore, who suppose that the monumental effigies of the Marshall originally stood in the eastern part of the building, are mistaken.

Amongst the many distinguished persons interred in the Temple Church is William Plantagenet, the fifth son of Henry the Third, who died A. D. 1256, under age.538 The greatest desire was manifested by all classes of persons to be buried in the cemetery of the Templars.

King Henry the Third provided for his own interment in the Temple by a formal instrument couched in the following pious and reverential terms: —

“To all faithful Christians to whom these presents shall come, Henry by the grace of God king of England, lord of Ireland, duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and count of Anjou, salvation. Be it known to all of you, that we, being of sound mind and free judgment, and desiring with pious forethought to extend our regards beyond the passing events of this life, and to determine the place of our sepulture, have, on account of the love we bear to the order and to the brethren of the chivalry of the Temple, given and granted, after this life’s journey has drawn to a close, and we have gone the way of all flesh, our body to God and the blessed Virgin Mary, and to the house of the chivalry of the Temple at London, to be there buried, expecting and hoping that through our Lord and Saviour it will greatly contribute to the salvation of our soul… We desire that our body, when we have departed this life, may be carried to the aforesaid house of the chivalry of the Temple, and be there decently buried as above mentioned… As witness the venerable father R., bishop of Hereford, &c. Given by the hand of the venerable father Edmund, bishop of Chichester, our chancellor, at Gloucester, the 27th of July, in the nineteenth year of our reign.”539

Queen Eleanor also provided in a similar manner for her interment in the Temple Church, the formal instrument being expressed to be made with the consent and approbation of her lord, Henry the illustrious king of England, who had lent a willing ear to her prayers upon the subject.540 These sepulchral arrangements, however, were afterwards altered, and the king by his will directed his body to be buried as follows: – “I will that my body be buried in the church of the blessed Edward at Westminster, there being no impediment, having formerly appointed my body to be buried in the New Temple.”541

CHAPTER XIII.

THE TEMPLE

Antiquities in the Temple – The history of the place subsequent to the dissolution of the order of the Knights Templars – The establishment of a society of lawyers in the Temple – The antiquity of this society – Its connexion with the antient society of the Knights Templars – An order of knights and serving brethren established in the law – The degree of frere serjen, or frater serviens, borrowed from the antient Templars – The modern Templars divide themselves into the two societies of the Inner and Middle Temple.

“Those bricky towers,The which on Themme’s brode aged back do ride,Where now the studious lawyers have their bowers;There whilom wont the Templer Knights to bide,Till they decayed thro’ pride.”

There are but few remains of the antient Knights Templars now existing in the Temple beyond the church. The present Inner Temple Hall was their antient hall, but it has at different periods been so altered and repaired as to have lost every trace and vestige of antiquity. In the year 1816 it was almost entirely rebuilt, and the following extract from “The Report and Observations of the Treasurer on the late Repairs of the Inner Temple Hall” may prove interesting, as showing the state of the edifice previous to that period.

“From the proportions, the state of decay, the materials of the eastern and southern walls, the buttresses of the southern front, the pointed form of the roof and arches, and the rude sculpture on the two doors of public entrance, the hall is evidently of very great antiquity… The northern wall appears to have been rebuilt, except at its two extremities, in modern times, but on the old foundations… The roof was found to be in a very decayed and precarious state; many timbers were totally rotten. It appeared to have undergone reparation at three separate periods of time, at each of which timber had been unnecessarily added, so as finally to accumulate a weight which had protruded the northern and southern walls. It became, therefore, indispensable to remove all the timber of the roof, and to replace it in a lighter form. On removing the old wainscoting of the western wall, a perpendicular crack of considerable height and width was discovered, which threatened at any moment the fall of that extremity of the building with its superincumbent roof… The turret of the clock and the southern front of the hall are only cased with stone; this was done in the year 1741, and very ill executed. The structure of the turret, composed of chalk, rag-stone, and rubble, (the same material as the walls of the church,) seems to be very antient… The wooden cupola of the bell was so decayed as to let in the rain, and was obliged to be renewed in a form to agree with the other parts of the southern front.”

“Notwithstanding the Gothic character of the building, in the year 1680, during the treasurership of Sir Thomas Robinson, prothonotary of C. B., a Grecian screen of the Doric order was erected, surmounted by lions’ heads, cones, and other incongruous devices.”

“In the year 1741, during the treasurership of John Blencowe, esq., low windows of Roman architecture were formed in the southern front.”

“The dates of such innovations appear from inscriptions with the respective treasurers’ names.”

This antient hall formed the far-famed refectory of the Knights Templars, and was the scene of their proud and sumptuous hospitality. Within its venerable walls they at different periods entertained king John, king Henry the Third, the haughty legates of Roman pontiffs, and the ambassadors of foreign powers. The old custom, alluded to by Matthew Paris,542 of hanging around the wall the shields and armorial devices of the antient knights, is still preserved, and each succeeding treasurer of the Temple still continues to hoist his coat of arms on the wall, as in the high and palmy days of the warlike monks of old.

At the west end of the hall are considerable remains of the antient convent of the Knights Templars. A groined Gothic arch of the same style of architecture as the oldest part of the Temple Church forms the ceiling of the present buttery, and in the apartment beyond is a groined vaulted ceiling of great beauty. The ribs of the arches in both rooms are elegantly moulded, but are sadly disfigured with a thick coating of plaster and barbarous whitewash. In the cellars underneath these rooms are some old walls of immense thickness, the remains of an antient window, a curious fireplace, and some elegant pointed Gothic arches corresponding with the ceilings above; but they are now, alas! shrouded in darkness, choked with modern brick partitions and staircases, and soiled with the damp and dust of many centuries. These interesting remains form an upper and an under story, the floor of the upper story being on a level with the floor of the hall, and the floor of the under story on a level with the terrace on the south side thereof. They were formerly connected with the church by means of a covered way or cloister, which ran at right angles with them over the site of the present cloister-chambers, and communicated with the upper and under story of the chapel of St. Anne, which formerly stood on the south side of the church. By means of this corridor and chapel the brethren of the Temple had private access to the church for the performance of their strict religious duties, and of their secret ceremonies of admitting novices to the vows of the order. In 9 Jac. I. A. D. 1612, some brick buildings three stories high were erected over this antient cloister by Francis Tate, esq., and being burnt down a few years afterwards, the interesting covered way which connected the church with the antient convent was involved in the general destruction, as appears from the following inscription upon the present buildings:

“Vetustissima Templariorum porticu igne consumta, anno 1678, Nova hæc, sumptibus Medii Templi extructa anno 1681 Gulielmo Whitelocke armigero, thesaurario.

“The very antient portico of the Templars being consumed by fire in the year 1678, these new buildings were erected at the expense of the Middle Temple in the year 1681, William Whitlock, esq., being treasurer.”

The cloisters of the Templars formed the medium of communication between the hall, the church, and the cells of the serving brethren of the order.543

During the formation of the present new entrance into the Temple by the church, at the bottom of the Inner Temple-lane, a considerable portion of the brickwork of the old houses was pulled down, and an antient wall of great thickness was disclosed. It was composed of chalk, rag-stone, and rubble, exactly resembling the walls of the church. It ran in a direction east and west, and appeared to have formed the extreme northern boundary of the old convent.

The site of the remaining buildings of the antient Temple cannot now be determined with certainty.

The mansion-house, (Mansum Novi Templi,) the residence of the Master and knights, who were lodged separately from the serving brethren and ate at a separate table, appears to have stood at the east end of the hall, on the site of the present library and apartments of the masters of the bench.

The proud and powerful Knights Templars were succeeded in the occupation of the Temple by a body of learned lawyers, who took possession of the old hall and the gloomy cells of the military monks, and converted the chief house of their order into the great and most antient Common Law University of England.

For more than five centuries the retreats of the religious warriors have been devoted to “the studious and eloquent pleaders of causes,” a new kind of Templars, who, as Fuller quaintly observes, now “defend one Christian from another as the old ones did Christians from Pagans.” The modern Templars have been termed milites justitiæ, or “soldiers of justice,” for, as John of Salisbury, a writer of the twelfth century, saith, “neque reipublicæ militant soli illi, qui galeis thoracisque muniti in hostes exercent tela quælibet, sed et patroni causarum, qui lapsa erigunt, fatigata reparant, nec minus provident humano generi, quam si laborantium vitam, spem, posterosque, armorum præsidio, ab hostibus tuerentur.” “They do not alone fight for the state who, panoplied in helmets and breastplates, wield the sword and the dart against the enemy, for the pleaders of causes, who redress wrongs, who raise up the oppressed, do protect and provide for the human race as much as if they were to defend the lives, fortunes, and families of industrious citizens with the sword.”544

“Besides encounters at the barAre braver now than those in war,In which the law does executionWith less disorder and confusion;Has more of honour in’t, some hold,Not like the new way, but the old,When those the pen had drawn togetherDecided quarrels with the feather,And winged arrows killed as dead,And more than bullets now of lead:So all their combats now, as then,Are managed chiefly by the pen;That does the feat, with braver vigours,In words at length, as well as figures.”

The settlement of the lawyers in the Temple was brought about in the following manner.

On the imprisonment of the Knights Templars, the chief house of the order in London, in common with the other property of the military monks, was seized into the king’s hands, and was committed to the care of James le Botiller and William de Basing, who, on the 9th of December, A. D. 1311, were commanded to hand it over to the sheriffs of London, to be taken charge of by them.545 Two years afterwards the Temple was granted to that powerful nobleman, Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke, who had been one of the leaders of the baronial conspiracy against Piers Gavaston.546 As Thomas earl of Lancaster, however, claimed the Temple by escheat as the immediate lord of the fee, the earl of Pembroke, on the 3rd of Oct., A. D. 1315, at the request of the king, and in consideration of other lands being granted to him by his sovereign, remised and released all his right and title therein to Lancaster.547 This earl of Lancaster was cousin-german to the English monarch, and first prince of the blood; he was the most powerful and opulent subject of the kingdom, being possessed of no less than six earldoms, with a proportionable estate in land, and at the time that the Temple was added to his numerous other possessions he was at the head of the government, and ruled both the king and country as president of the council. In an antient MS. account of the Temple, formerly belonging to lord Somers and afterwards to Nicholls, the celebrated antiquary, apparently written by a member of the Inner Temple, it is stated that the lawyers “made composition with the earl of Lancaster for a lodging in the Temple, and so came hither, and have continued here ever since.” That this was the case appears highly probable from various circumstances presently noticed.

The earl of Lancaster held the Temple rather more than six years and a half.

When the king’s attachment for Hugh le Despenser, another favourite, was declared, he raised the standard of rebellion. He marched with his forces against London, gave law to the king and parliament, and procured a sentence of attainder and perpetual exile against Hugh le Despenser. The fortune of war, however, soon turned against him. He was defeated, and conducted a prisoner to his own castle of Pontefract, where king Edward sat in judgment upon him, and sentenced him to be hung, drawn, and quartered, as a rebel and a traitor. The same day he was clothed in mean attire, was placed on a lean jade without a bridle, a hood was put on his head, and in this miserable condition he was led through the town of Pontefract to the place of execution, in front of his own castle.548

A few days afterwards, the king, whilst he yet tarried at Ponfract, granted the Temple to Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke, by a royal charter couched in the following terms: —

“Edward by the grace of God, king, &c., to the archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, earls, barons, justiciaries, &c. &c., health. Know that on account of the good and laudable service which our beloved kinsman and faithful servant Aymer de Valence hath rendered and will continue to render to us, we have given and granted, and by our royal charter have confirmed to the said earl, the mansion-house and messuage called the New Temple in the suburb of London, with the houses, rents, and all other things to the same mansion-house and messuage belonging, formerly the property of the Templars, and afterwards of Thomas earl of Lancaster, our enemy and rebel, and which, by the forfeiture of the same Thomas, have come into our hands by way of escheat, to be had and holden by the same Aymer and the heirs of his body lawfully begotten, of us and our heirs, and the other chief lords of the fee, by the same services as those formerly rendered; but if the said Aymer shall die without heirs of his body lawfully begotten, then the said mansion-house, messuage, &c. &c., shall revert to us and our heirs.”549

Rather more than a year after the date of this grant, Aymer de Valence was murdered. He had accompanied queen Isabella to the court of her father, the king of France, and was there slain (June 23rd, A. D. 1323) by one of the English fugitives of the Lancastrian faction, in revenge for the death of the earl of Lancaster, whose destruction he was believed to have compassed. His dead body was brought over to England, and buried in Westminster Abbey at the head of Edmund Crouchback, earl of Lancaster. He left no issue, and the Temple, consequently, once more reverted to the crown.550

It was now granted to Hugh le Despenser the younger, the king’s favourite, at the very time that the act of parliament (17 Edward II.) was passed, conferring all the lands of the Templars upon the Hospitallers of St. John.551 Hugh le Despenser, in common with the other barons, paid no attention to the parliament, and held the Temple till the day of his death, which happened soon after, for on the 24th of September, A. D. 1326, Queen Isabella landed in England with the remains of the Lancastrian faction; and after driving her own husband, Edward the Second, from the throne, she seized the favourite, and caused him instantly to be condemned to death. On St. Andrew’s Eve he was led out to execution; they put on him his surcoat of arms reversed, a crown of nettles was placed on his head, and on his vestment they wrote six verses of the psalm, beginning, Quid gloriaris in malitiâ.552 After which he was hanged on a gallows eighty feet high, and was then beheaded, drawn, and quartered. His head was sent to London, and stuck upon the bridge; and of the four quarters of his body, one was sent to York, another to Bristol, another to Carlisle, and the fourth to Dover.553

Thus perished the last private possessor of the Temple at London.

The young prince, Edward the Third, now ascended the throne, leaving his parent, the dethroned Edward the Second, to the tender mercies of the gaolers of Berkeley Castle. He seized the Temple, as forfeited to him by the attainder of Hugh le Despenser, and committed it to the keeping of the mayor of London, his escheator in the city. The mayor, as guardian of the Temple, took it into his head to close the gate leading to the waterside, which stood at the bottom of the present Middle Temple Lane, whereby the lawyers were much incommoded in their progress backwards and forwards from the Temple to Westminster. Complaints were made to the king on the subject, who, on the 2nd day of November, in the third year of his reign, wrote as follows to the mayor:

“The king to the mayor of London, his escheator554 in the same city.

“Since we have been given to understand that there ought to be a free passage through the court of the New Temple at London to the river Thames, for our justices, clerks, and others, who may wish to pass by water to Westminster to transact their business, and that you keep the gate of the Temple shut by day, and so prevent those same justices, clerks of ours, and other persons, from passing through the midst of the said court to the waterside, whereby as well our own affairs as those of our people in general are oftentimes greatly hindered, we command you, that you keep the gates of the said Temple open by day, so that our justices and clerks, and other persons who wish to go by water to Westminster, may be able so to do by the way to which they have hitherto been accustomed.

“Witness ourself at Kenilworth, the 2nd day of November, and third year of our reign.”555

The following year the king again wrote to the mayor, his escheator in the city of London, informing him that he had been given to understand that the bridge in the said court of the Temple, leading to the river, was so broken and decayed, that his clerks and law officers, and others, could no longer get across it, and were consequently prevented from passing by water to Westminster. “We therefore,” he proceeds, “being desirous of providing such a remedy as we ought for this evil, command you to do whatever repairs are necessary to the said bridge, and to defray the cost thereof out of the proceeds of the lands and rents appertaining to the said Temple now in your custody; and when we shall have been informed of the things done in the matter, the expense shall be allowed you in your account of the same proceeds.