Ho1yrood.J THE SCOTTISH TEMPLARS. 51
ances of the order from the Master of England,
who received them from the Grand Master at
Jerusalem and the Master at Cyprus. He had
then to detail the mode of his reception into the
order, begging admission with clasped hands and
bended knees, aflirming that he had no debts and
was not affianced to any woman, and that he ?? vowed
to be a perpetual servant to the master and the
brotherhood, and to defend the Eastern land; to
be for ever chaste and obedient, and to live without
his own will and property.? A white mantle bad
then been put upon his shoulder (to be worn over
his chain armour, but looped up to leave the swordami
free); a linen coif and the kiss of fraternity
were then given him. On his knees he then vowed
?never to dwell in a house where a woman was in
labour, nor be present at the marriage or purification
of one; that from thence forward he would
sleep in his shirt and drawers, with a cord girt over
the former.?
The inquisitors, who were perhaps impatient to
hear of the four-legged idol, the cat, and the devil,
concerning all of which such curious confessions
had been made by the Florentine Templars, now
asked him if he had ever heard of scandals against
the order during his residence at Temple in
Lothian, or of knights that had fled from their pre
ceptories; and he answered :-
?Yes ; Brother Thomas Tocci and Brother John
de Husflete, who for two years had been preceptor
before him at Balantradoch (Temple), and also
two other knights who were natives of England.?
Being closely interrogated upon all the foolish
accusations in the papal bull of Clement, he boldly
replied to each item in the negative. Two of the
charges were that their chaplains celebrated mass
without the words of consecration, and that the
knights believkd their preceptors could absolve sins.
He explained that such powers could be delegated,
and that he himself ?? had received it a considerable
time ago.?
Sir William de Middleton, clad in the military
order of the Temple, was next sworn and interrogated
in the same manner. He was admitted into
the order, he said, by Sir Brian le Jay, then Master
of England, who was slain by Wallace at the battle
of Falkirk, and had resided at Temple in Lothian
and other preceptories of the order, and gave the
same denials to the clauses in the bull that had
been given by Clifton, with the addition that he
?was prohibited from receiving any service from
women, not even water to wash his hands.?
After this he was led from the court, and fortyone
witnesses, summoned to Holyrood, were examined.
These were chiefly abbots, priests, and even
serving-men of the order, but nothing of a criminal
nature against it was elicited ; though during similar
examinations at Lincoln, Brother Thomas Tocci de
Thoroldby, a Templar, declared that he had heard
the late Brim le Jay (Master of Scotland and afterwards
of England) say a hundred times over, ? that
Christ was not the true God, but a mere man, and
that the smallest hair out of the beard of a Saracen
was worth any Christian?s whole body ;a and that
once, when he was standing in Sir Brian?s presence,
certain beggars sought alms ?for the love of God
and our ,Blessed Lady,? on which he threw a
halfpenny in the mud, and made them hunt for
it, though in midwinter, saying, ?? Go to your lady
and be hanged !? Another Templar, Stephen de
Stapelbrvgge, declared that Sir Brian ordered him
at his admission to spit upon the cross, but he spat
beside it.
The first witness examined at Holyrood was
Hugh Abbot of Dunfermline, who stated that he
had ever viewed with suspicion the midnight
chapters and ? clandestine admission of brethren.?
E l k Lord Abbot of Holyrood, and Gervase Lord
Abbot of Newbattle, were then examined, together
with Master Robert of Kydlawe, and Patrick
Prior of the Dominicans in tbe fields qear Edinburgh,
and they agreed in all things with the Abbot
of Dunfermline.
The eighth witness, Adam of Wedale (now
called Stow), a Cistercian, accused the Templars of
selfishness and oppression of their neighbours, and
John of Byres, a .monk of Newbattle, John of
Mumphat and Gilbert of Haddington, two monks
of Holyrood, entirely agreed with him ; while the
rector of Ratho maintained that the Scottish
Tqmplars were not free from the crimes imputed to
the order, adding ?? that he had never known when
any Templar was buried or heard of one dying a
natural death, and that the whole order was generally
against the Holy Church.? The former points
had evident reference to the rumour that the order
burned their dead and drank the ashes in wine !
Henry de Leith Rector of Restalrig, Nicholas
Vicar of Lasswade, John Chaplain of St. Leonard?s,
and others, agreed in all things with the Abbot of
Dunfermline, as did nine Scottish barons of rank
who added that the knights were ungracious to the
poor, practising hospitality alone to the great and
wealthy, and then only under the impulse of fear ;
and moreover, that had the Templars been good
Christians they would never have lost the Holy
Land.?
The forty-first and last witness, John Thyng,
who for seventeen years had been a serving brother
of the order in Scotland, coincided with the others,
