Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Memoirs of the City of London and Its Celebrities, Vol. 3 of 3
The first formidable blow struck at the Knights Templars was by Philip the Fair, King of France, in 1307, only sixteen years after their heroic de fence of St. Jean d'acre. To the cruelties to which these chivalrous warriors were subjected in this reign, it would be difficult to find a parallel even in the blood-stained chronicles of France. Philip, having determined to possess himself of their wealth, issued a manifesto, in which, after accusing them of the most atrocious offences, he directed the simultaneous seizure of their persons at the same time consigning them to the tender mercies of an infamous inquisition which was empowered to employ torture in order to extort confession. Accordingly, of the first 140 knights who were thus put to the torture, no fewer than thirty-six, asserting their innocence to the last, perished under the agonies of the rack. Some, indeed, while undergoing tortures too terri ble for human nature to endure, faintly admitted the guilt of their Order; but of these not a few subsequently retracted the confession which pain had wrung from them, and passed even cheerfully from the dungeon to the ?ames.
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