arles Edward dened all knowledge of the affair, and von Hundt himself
admitted later that he did not know the name of the lodge or chapter in
which he was received, but that he was directed from "a hidden centre"
and by Unknown Superiors, whose identity he was bound not to
reveal.[401] In reality it appears that von Hundt's account was exactly
the opposite of the truth,[402] and that it was von Hundt who, seconding
von Marschall's effort, tried to enrol Prince Charles Edward in the new
German Order by assuring him that he could raise powerful support for
the Stuart cause under the cover of reorganizing the Templar Order, of
which he claimed to possess the true secrets handed down from the
Knights of the fourteenth century. By way of further rehabilitating the
Order, von Hundt declared that all the accusations brought against it
by Philippe le Bel and the Pope were based on false charges manufactured
by two recreant Knights named Noffodei and Florian as a revenge for
having been deprived of their commands by the Order in consequence of
certain crimes they had committed.[403] According to Lecouteulx de
Canteleu, von Hundt eventually succeeded--after the defeat of
Culloden--in persuading Prince Charles Edward to enter his Order. But
this is extremely doubtful. At any rate, when in 1751 von Hundt
officially founded his new Templar Order under the name of the _Stricte
Observance_, the unfortunate Charles Edward played no part at all in the
scheme. As Mr. Gould has truly observed, "no trace of Jacobite intrigues
ever blended with the teaching of the _Stricte Observance_."[404]

The _Order of the Stricte Observance_ was in reality a purely German
association composed of men drawn entirely from the intellectual and
aristocratic classes, and, in imitation of the chivalric Orders of the
past, known to each other under knightly titles. Thus Prince Charles of
Hesse became Eques a Leone Resurgente, Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick Eques
a Victoria, the Prussian minister von Bischoffswerder Eques a Grypho,
Baron de Wachter Eques a Ceraso, Christian Bode (Councillor of Legation
in Saxe-Gotha) Eques a Lilio Convallium, von Haugwitz (Cabinet Minister
of Frederick the Great) Eques a Monte Sancto, etc.

But according to the declarations of the Order the official leaders,
Knights of the Moon, the Star, the Golden Sun, or of the Sacred
Mountain, were simply figure-heads; the real leaders, known as the
"Unknown Superiors," remained in the backgro