The Knights Templars.

THE KNIGHTS TEMPLARS .

By ANTHONY ONEAL HAYE . ( Continued from page 182 ) . BOOK FOURTH—OEAPTER FIRST .

Introductory remarks . —Philip le Bel . — Quarrels witli Pope Boniface , in which he is supported by the people and clergy of France . —Is excommunicated . —Sends the Oolonnas and Nogaret to Italy , ivho capture the Pope at Agnani . —Death of the Pope . —The Templars espouse the cause of the Pope . —Hatred of the King to the Order .

—Benedict XL , grants ths King a tenth of the French ecclesiastical benefices . —The King includes those of the Teynplars . —Their rage . —The King orders the " sounding " of the coin . —The people rebel . —Two disgraced Templars head the riot . —The King besieged in the Temple . —The riot quelled , and the ringleaders

imprisoned . —Serious charges made against ihe Templars by a condemned prisoner . —The King , delighted ivith the tidings , sends messengers through France to collect information . —Tampers with the apostate Templars who , agree to accuse the Order . —Their accusation . —A . D . 1303 .

It is our intention in this book to consider the causes which led to the suppression of the Order , the persecution ot its members , and the destruction of the noblest company of Knights emblazoned upon the rolls of fame . We have not , thus , to

chronicle the valiancy of battle-fields , the fierce encounters of armed men , the victories of the valiant soldiers of the Gross . We have undertaken a task at which the hand trembles and the heart grows faint ; for it is to tell how this devoted

Order—the bulwark of Christianity in the east , whose members were praised by Pope and prince , as the chosen champions of Christ , thousands of whom fell victims to infidel hate , rather than accept life and wealth and honours on renouncing

the Cross , and worshipping Mahomet—was strangled by the sacriligious and impious hands of an unscrupulous king and a cowardly pontiff . Not more rapid was the Order ' s rise than was its fall . As some magnificent vessel of- war breasts the

main , and towers above the little crafts like a giant among pigmies , while the eyes of the world look on in wonder , so did the brethren of the Temple eclipse all other warriors , even the gallant Knights of the Hospital , and cast into the shade the most chivairic of monarchs and the most renowned of

leaders . But m a moment , in the silence of ni ght , without warning , the work of destruction began , and on the morrow the shattered fragments of the wreck strewed the main , and terrified the universe with the magnitude of the disaster .

The Knights Templars.

It is a law in nature that all things must perish : God alone is eternal and unchangeable . Monarchies , republics , peoples , great fortunes , have their ebb as well as their flow . But these changes do not generally happen at once ; they are preceded

by shadows of the events which are about to follow . Disaster follows disaster ; war succeeds war ; loss comes after loss , till the ruin is complete . Such was not the fall of the Order of the Temple . Never were its affairs in a more flourishing

condition ; and although the Knights had abandoned the Holy Land , they were still looked upon by Christian Europe as the mirrors of chivalry and piety . Its fall was prompt and sudden ; on the same day , at the same hour , the whole Order

ceased to exist—a fatal proof of the terrible consequences which dog those who incur the wrath of crafty , revengeful , and absolute kings . We have then to treat of the destruction of the Order , to tell how the virtues of the Knights were , under the cunning councils of their persecutors ,

transformed into vices , and the destroyers and destroyed of the infidel , accused of being in league with and believers in the vile doctrines , and participators in the viler practices of the followers of the false prophet . With regard to the crimes advanced ?

against the Order , we may premise , that we canfind no trace of them in the chronicles of the monkish writers of the Crusades , even in the pages of William of Tyre and Matthew Paris , their bitterest enemies ; nor can we believe that ?

an Order which , a few years before the date of its suppression , had seen three hundred of its bravest Knights perish on the bloody ruins of Safet , and another enormous band buried beneath the walls of Acre , rather than embrace

Mahometanism , could have been guilty of a secret alliancewith the infidel , could have outraged humanity and Christianity by the perpetration of such horrible crimes , or could have been a party to th © surrender of the Holy Land , every mile of which was stained by the best blood of its children .

Philip IV ., surnamed Le Bel , on account of his exceeding personal beauty , ascended the throne of France in 1285 , at the early age of seventeen . He had been educated by Giles de Colonna , afterwards Archbishop of Bourg - es , a man distinguished for

his learning , and for the boldness and liberality of his opinions . He early instilled into the mind of the King his favourite maxim , that Jesus Christ had not given any temporal dominion to His Church , and that , consequently , the King of