On Friday, October 13, 1307, the French King had ordered the Templars arrested and charged with heretical practices and a month later, on November 22, the Pope instructed all the monarchs of Europe to seize their extensive assets. Following a lengthy inquisition and trial including torture, the Templars and their Grand Master Jacques De Molay were found guilty and on March 18, 1314, burned at the stake. The immolation of Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay at the hands of the Pope's Inquisitors would serve as an inspiration for generations to seek revenge on the Roman Church and for some that revenge was never satisfied.
Much has been speculated about the survival of the Templars following their dissolution in 1312. Today's Romantic narrative about their role as guardians of the Holy Grail rests mainly on James Burnes' Sketch of the Knights Templar. Burnes had placed both the Fitzgerald and Kennedy coats of Arms in his List of Templar families at the beginning of the book. It was Burnes' detailed inclusion of Strongbow and the role of the Fitzgeralds as loyal Irish Templars that I found intriguing - one of them being Maurice Lord of Kerry who served in 1309 as the last Grand Prior of the Order in Ireland. Burnes had gone out of his way to establish a connection to Masonry between the ancient Hermetic symbols and traditions he'd uncovered in Afghanistan and in 1837 was sent by the Grand Master of England to inform the Fitzgerald Duke of Leinster, Grand Master of Ireland all about it.
A 2017 book by British Ambassador Craig Murray about the first Anglo/Afghan war Alexander Burnes: Master of the Great Game not only connects Afghanistan to the Grail legend but maintains that the legendary Burnes and his brother James are the source of the Templar connection to Scottish Freemasonry and that they invented it. But after dealing directly with Afghanistan's legacy of Alexander the Great and as a crossroads of ancient mystery religions, I'm not convinced a connection can be ruled out. There are many aspects of the Old Religion and the Knights Templar involving the so-called High Grade Rituals that remain unexplained and especially when it comes to the Masonic 30th degree of revenge and retribution.
A book published in 1926 under the title Glimpses of Masonic History by Charles Webster Leadbeater states that "The Pope abolished the Order in private Consistory on November 22, 1312 - a date still commemorated in striking fashion in our high-grade rituals, although he admitted that the charges were not proved. The riches of the Temple were to be transferred to the Order of St. John [the Hospitallers]."
And so there it was a straight line from the destruction of the Templars to the creation of Scottish rite Freemasonry and the date November 22nd. Leadbeater continues: (quote) Traditions of vengeance upon the execrable King and Pope and the Traitor passed down throughout the ages, and were interwoven with the Egyptian tradition corresponding to our Black Masonry, culminating in what we now call the 30th degree. It is these traditions of vengeance, however little understood, that form the basis of our 30th-degree ritual. (End quote)
The Fitzgeralds' presence in Ireland had gotten off to a bad start with Henry II. When his governor first arrived and was greeted by thirty knights all bearing the Fitzgerald Coat of Arms - he spoke to his own followers saying "I will soon put an end to this arrogance and disperse those shields." Over the next two hundred years relations wavered back and forth as the power and influence of Kildare and Desmond grew and the Fitzgeralds became more and more assimilated into Irish culture. In response to the Fitzgeralds becoming "more Irish than the Irish themselves" and abandoning English norms in 1366 the crown enacted a series of laws against marrying the Irish and accused the Fitzgeralds of creating a race of their own.
Gerald FitzGerald the Third Earl of Desmond born in 1338 and affectionately known in Irish as Gearóid Iarla (Earl Gerald) became the inspiration for a growing mythology surrounding the Fitzgerald family and especially the myth of the sleeping earl who rises again from Lough Gur his birth-lake at the end of time to save the Irish people. Gearóid was highly regarded as a poet and in response to the pressure coming from London composed a poem about his favorite subject
- Irish women - titled "Speak not ill of womankind":
Speak not ill of womankind,
'Tis no wisdom if you do.
You that fault in women find,
I would not be praised of you.
Sweetly speaking, witty, clear,
Tribe most lovely to my mind,
Blame of such I hate to hear.
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