the king; wherefore the
king was moved by his avarice, and made secret arrangements with the
Pope and caused him to promise to destroy the Order of the Templars,
laying to their charge many articles of heresy; but it is said that it
was more in hope of extracting great sums of money from them, and by
reason of offence taken against the master of the Temple and the
Order. The Pope, to be rid of the king of France, by reason of the
request which he had made that he would condemn Pope Boniface, as we
have before said, whether rightly or wrongly, to please the king
promised that he would do this; and when the king had departed, on a
day named in his letters, he caused all the Templars to be seized
throughout the whole world, and all their churches and mansions and
possessions, which were almost innumerable in power and in riches, to
be sequestered; and all those in the realm of France the king caused
to be occupied by his court, and at Paris the master of the Temple was
taken, which was named Jacques of the lords of Molay in Burgundy, with
sixty knights, friars and gentlemen; and they were charged with
certain articles of heresy, and certain vile sins against nature which
they were said to practise among themselves; and that at their
profession they swore to support the Order right or wrong, and that
their worship was idolatrous, and that they spat upon the cross, and
that when their master was consecrated it was secretly and in private,
and none knew the manner; and alleging that their predecessors had
caused the Holy Land to be lost by treachery, and King Louis and his
followers to be taken at Monsura. And when sundry proofs had been
given by the king of the truth of these charges, he had them tortured
with divers tortures that they might confess, and it was found that
they would not confess nor acknowledge anything. And after keeping
them a long time in prison in great misery, and not knowing how to put
an end to their trial, at last outside Paris at S. Antoine (and the
like was also done at Senlis in France) in a great park enclosed by
wood, fifty-six of the said Templars were bound each one to a stake,
and they began to set fire to their feet and legs little by little,
admonishing them one after the other that whosoever of them would
acknowledge the error and sins wherewith they were charged might
escape; and during this martyrdom, exhorted by their kinsfolk and
friends to confess, and not to allow themselves to be thu