Celtic establishments of our Templar Order.
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Topics:
+ Scottish Templar
+ Scottish land charters and titles prove the continuance.
+ Henry Sinclair
+ The Charter of Transmission
+ Founded a generation before Roman endorsement
+ East and West Rites used equally
+ Scottish Catholic represented a purer Protestantism
Scottish Templar
King Robert the Bruce, continued the practice of his predecessors, to protect and expand the Templar in Scotland. When the charges and attacks on the order began, there are numerous records of his acts of giving them a safe refuge and employment as deserving of Knights. He recognized their charters and the Templar and they were proclaimed not guilty the charges.
When the order came under full attack by Rome and France, it’s said that the remaining Templar ships sailed for Great Britain in order to reach the safe ports of Ireland. From there, they made contact with the separatist Scottish leader, Robert the Bruce, who was at war with England and the Anglophile clans. Robert already ruled a considerable part of Scotland where neither the papal bulls nor the authority of the Vatican, which had recently excommunicated him for his rebellion, was valid. He generously received the Templars, who for their part offered him their collaboration in the campaign against England and its local allies.
The chronicles tell us that on June 24, 1314, Robert went into battle with six thousand men against an army of twenty thousand English soldiers in the decisive Battle of Bannockburn. The spirit and bravery of the rebels were not sufficient to overcome the difference in numbers between the two forces, and the luck of the battle was inclining toward the English. But then, a formation of cavalry bearing its own flags and standards appeared from behind the Scottish rear guard and entered into combat. When the English recognized the Templar emblems and saw the eight-pointed crimson cross on the knights’ chests, they were terrified.
They scattered, yielding the victory to Robert the Bruce. With the defeat of the English, Scotland became an independent kingdom without any obligation to the papacy. The Order of the Temple easily installed itself and acquired a number of properties and fiefdoms, especially in the region extending north from Glasgow. The Templars prospered under the protection of the clan of the Saint Clair, or Sinclair, lords of Roslin, a high lineage of Danish origin related by marriage to William the Conqueror and the Stewards (or Stuarts). This last family, to which Robert the Bruce’s wife belonged, became rulers of Scotland in 1371 and reigned over England from 1603 to 1714. This family being the line of Anjou, the founding house of the Knights Templar.
Scottish land charters and titles prove the continuance.
“The Knights Templar in Scotland” by Dr Coutts, covered the proof the Templar charters continued to be recognized by Robert the Bruce, and supported the Templar as an order under a slightly different spelled name.
On page 135 he covered the facts that joining the order had always been rather difficult. One could not join the order if they could not prove themselves to be of at least 4 generations of Noble birth (Knights) on both sides of the family.
He wrote:
“In 1153 the Military Order of the Knights Templars was introduced into Scotland by King David I, who gave them a grant of the manor and chapel of Balantrodoch. This is a Celtic name — Baile nan Trodach — ” Stead of the warriors.” But the name appears in many forms, and one of them is Balantroch. Is it possible that a gravel bed left by a glacier — part of which still remains near the village of Temple — may have given the original name, Baile nan Trachaid (Traghad), ” Stead of the sea- 1 The Chronicle of St. Denis gives the year as 1313. shore,” which, afterwards, when the Templars possessed the manor, became “ Stead of the warriors ” ? At the end of the I2th century and during the 13th century, as in other countries, large endowments were lavished on the Order in Scotland d By the gifts of the Scottish kings alone the Templars gained possessions in many parts of the kingdom from Galloway to Aberdeenshire. Malcolm IV, King of Scotland (1141-1165), donated to the brothers of the Hospital of Jerusalem, and to te soldiers of the Temple of Solomon, a complete homestead in every burgh through- out the Kingdom. 2 William the Lion, who reigned from 1165 to 1214, gifted to the Knights the Barony of Maryculter, which extended to 8000 acres. Here the Knights had a Preceptory, and in 1286 they were allowed to build a church for their tenants. After the Reformation this became the Parish Church, and was in use till nearly the end of the 18th century. Alexander I, II, III, Robert I, II, James II, HI, IV confirmed and increased the gifts to the Temple from the Royal Exchequer. Besides those benefactions, there were many others who bestowed gifts of lands upon the Order. These were known as Templar Lands, ‘ ‘ quasi terrae concessae Militibus Templi Solomonis.” The earliest Scottish Charter relating to the Temple bears the date 1160 (during the reign of Malcolm), seven years after the institution of the Order in Scotland. The names of Richard of the Hospital of Jerusalem, and Robert, brother of the Temple, are on the record. The loss of the Cartularies of the Preceptories has left us in great ignorance regarding the history of the Order in Scotland. And that is also true of the Hospital. Not till the middle of the 15th century, when Sir Henry Livingston was Preceptor of the Hospital, do we have records giving us any details. Because of this, there is lacking definite information about the Preceptories, the number of the Knights, and the part they played in the struggle for Scottish Independence.”
Henry Sinclair
The Templars had fought at Bannockburn under the command of Henry Sinclair, whom Bruce made Prince of Rosslyn and the Orkney Islands. The west entrance to Rosslyn Chapel, surmounted by a magnificent rose window with an “engrailed” cross.
Clearly this well known Templar family were protected in several ways to ensure the order continued under somewhat new styles. King Robert the Bruce created the Royal Sovereign Order of Scotland. It’s said that the King also appointed William Sinclair as the Grand Master of the Crafts and Guilds of Scotland. This became a hereditary position with the Sinclairs until another William Sinclair resigned the hereditary post of Grand Master for himself and his heirs. He was then immediately elected as the first Grand Master in the Scottish Grand Lodge of Speculative Masons in 1736. At this time the Freemasonry ranks and titles were under full protection of the Crown, along with the genealogical recognitions of the Noble Knight family’s inheritance.
By the 1800s tens of thousands of men of rank in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales had openly demonstrated themselves as Templar under Royal protections. These had boldly avowed themselves as the modern successors of Templar. As with most feudal knightly based land titles, this was coupled with demonstrating succession from the original Noble Templar families. Any one of the sister orders of the Templar, this requires legal proof of succession from the original Knights.
The Charter of Transmission
There is a greatly protected document demonstrating the continued transmission of the Templar order to today. It was republished under the title “Sketch of the History of the Knights Templars” with approval of the Crown in 1840, when Prince August Fredrick was the Templar’s Grand Prior of England. Within the book it included several other charters such as from King James the IV of Scotland re-confirming the inheritance of the Templars in the sixteenth century. This publication constituted force of law on behalf of the Templars. This is upheld in the British Crown Office Act of 1877, Section 3.3. Since prior approval was made, it thus created a binding legal fact of public law, by force of law.
Queen Victoria’s son, King Edward VII also reconfirmed these (and many other charters) when he was Grand Master of the English Templars.
In Scotland, as in Brunswick, there was no enforcement of the demands to transfer the Templar estates to the Hospitallers. Normally new properties are immediately incorporated into an existing inventory. This happened all over Germany and England but it did not happen with the Templar estates in Brunswick, nor in Scotland. In Scotland King James IV acknowledged this.
He confirmed all former grants of land made to “Sancto Hospitali de Jerusalem, et fratribus ejusdem militia Templi Salomis”.
This reference to the Templars is said to prove that the Templar Order maintaned an existence that was equal to, or united with the Hopsitallers. The name Templar was never removed from the land titles in Scotland, as it was in other countries around the world.
Founded a generation before Roman endorsement
The Templar were not formed by any of the Roman church. The Templar were formed into a distinct order a full generation before any Roman papal endorsements/benefits etc. It’s recorded history that about 30 years before that papal endorsement, that they were formed as a holy order of Knights (French/Anjou/Angevin Royal Knights) between the hands of the Patriarchs of Constantinople and Jerusalem, while in service of the East Orthodox Emperor which had most strongly divided itself from Rome.
Founded by Pre-Schism Princes, Knights and Clergy
The founders of the original Templar grew in a church before the great Schism even occurred. It was one church in their eyes. The primary Chaplains of the Templar (Benedictines) still identify themselves as Orthodox, and as a pre-schism order of monks.
East and West Rites used equally
As primarily serving in the East, the primary place the Templar worshipped was in the East Orthodox churches. Templar always had worshipped in any nearby Christian church where the same one united church held the services. Many of those churches in the West were founded Orthodox, and always were Orthodox. The priests and bishops of the West had often protested against Rome, and even many Western churches officiating 2 or 3 generations after the Templar were formed, only followed the Eastern Orthodox rites.
The Templar continued to recognize the Eastern popes well after the Great Schism. We know there were two popes recognized just of the Roman rite alone, and many more popes of the other Western rites. That is whether using the name pope, or equivalent terminology for centuries, calling the pope of Rome their fellow “brother” or equal “bishop”. In the East they use the word pope more often for their elders and patriarchs. So many people are stuck in the mentality that only the Roman pope (not the dozen other non-Roman popes of Christendom) represented the Christian orthodoxy of the Templar. However the facts show the opposite.
Scottish Catholic represented a purer Protestantism
Till the time of St Margaret (after the Templar order was formed, and long after the great schism) the Scottish church still primarily followed the Eastern Orthodox (Johanite Anatolian and French/Gaulish) and Celtic church Calendar and customs. Some of the biggest of these differences with the Roman church were the Saturday Sabbath, Biblical dietary laws, and the dating of Easter (or the Sacred Calendar beginning date for each year). The Patriarch of Constantinople had highlighted the primary cause for the great schism as being the observance of the Biblical Saturday Sabbath.
(You may wish to read more about the Celtic Culdee church, and our Benedictine Chaplains of the Templar at https://St-Andrewsocc.org and several books on Celtic heritage at www.Celtic.press. Several of the thousands of books on British Israelism, the throne of King David, etc you can read freely online.)
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