I'm just reading a book that mentions that the Templars fought at the battle of Bannockburn on the Scottish side, and this decided the outcome of the battle and that Edward II turned and fled the field.

 

Has anyone read or know anymore detail about this subject ?

There are several topics with content about the battle and the Templars somewhere on site but can't remember where right now so suggest doing a site search until some one answers. :)

Yeh thanks I've just been reading one one of your own, maybe I should just search before I ask :D

until some one answers

Someone's here!

 

It's certainly a topic which crops up from time to time. The Chronicles say that at a specific moment as the Scots began to win the day, the camp followers and common people marched toward the field carrying pitch forks,improvised flags, axes and any other weapon they could find.

The English beleiving this to be a second wing of the Scots army, or it's reserve, fled the field perceiving the day to be lost. The modern Templars and some folklore, indicate the possibility that this was actually a Templar Army.

The support for this story is circumstantial.

The Templars had been outlawed in 1307, only a year after Bruce had himself crowned, but it was only in that year that he began to reclaim the kingdom. Some had certainly come to Scotland, were they a part of Bruce's campaign? Only he could have authorised their presence. The English occupying army certainly wouldn't, it was through their influence that the Pope had carried out the Scottish Excommunications, and they wouldn't have tolerated countering another of his acts since they required his continued favour. There is archaeological evidence that they were here later than their excommunication, Templar Graves at Inchinnan on the Clyde for instance.

Bruce and the entire Scottish nation which had supported him had also been outlawed following the murder of the Red Comyn in Dumfries kirk. It makes some sense that the Templars owed the Bruce some form of support in his finest hour in return for the shelter he provided them, but were they at Bannockburn? were they already on the field before the camp followers took up 'arms' or was it inded a Templar Army which took the field. The Documentary evidence says nothing of them.

 

 

Bear in mind that the separate modern Scottish Templars have no direct connection with those of medieval times, they are a splinter group of the Scottish Masonic Order, who have adopted their name.

 

Here's the Rosslyn (as opposed to the Scottish ) Templars version of events.

 

http://www.rosslyntemplars.org.uk/templars_&_rome.htm

 

The last Preceptor of the Templars in Scotland was Sir James Sandilands, and their Preceptory at Torphicen was made into a temporal lordship for him in 1564. He and his family then moved into Cadder House, and the Preceptory fell into ruin.(this coincides with the reformation in Scotland).

 

Whoever came onto the field, Prof GWS Barrow in Robert Bruce and the community of the Realm indicates that it had little or no effect on the outcome, and that the day was already won. The Templars get no mention in this most authoritive of books on Robert Bruce.

From Barrow

For the English the battle was now past saving. In front of them the Scottish Schiltroms still remained intact, a steadily advancing engine of destruction.

Behind them were the gorge of the Bannock Burn and the treacherous carse with it's innumerable pows, and on their flank the Forth itself, too wide and deep to be forded in safety.

At this moment, there appeared behind the Scots a great mob of unarmoured, untrained lesser folk-yeomen, servants and labourers-bearing hastily improvised banners and armed with homemade weapons.  King Robert had kept them strictly apart from his fighting men, setting them to guard the supplies in a hollow, probably to the north of Coxet Hill. Now, unbidden and having little or no effect on the outcome, they streamed across the open ground with shouts of 'Slay Slay, on them hastily'.

No blame if some of the hard pressed English had really believed they were a second Scottish Army, arriving vigorous and fresh when they themselves were near to exhaustion. King Robert himself could hardly have welcomed an undisciplined rabble who might kill English lords and knights indiscriminately so that their valuable ransoms would be lost. But in the event, the surviving English leaders knew that their end had come.

 

Prof Barrow's book is the most thoroughly researched work ever written on Bruce, and all others on the subject pay reference to it.

 

Also telling is that in The Brus, by John Barbour, written in 1375, no mention is made of the Templars, although by that stage their Torphichen Priory and other properties were well established, and so their presence accepted even though the Scots excommuniaction had been lifted sometime after the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320.

Yeh thanks I've just been reading one one of your own, maybe I should just search before I ask

 

no problem I do it too as every one else does. I sometimes ask first then go search my own site...lazy ain't I

On this subject it was probably better that you did ask considering Gordon's in depth replies

Well we are talking The Bruce here.............the topic that got me started on all of this.

Nothing wrong with indepth replys as they always help :)

Vatican to publish Templar trial papers

By ARIEL DAVID, Associated Press Writer

2 hours, 38 minutes ago

 

The Vatican's secrete archives and on line resources

 

ROME - The Vatican has published secret archive documents about the trial of the Knights Templar, including a long-lost parchment that shows that Pope Clement V initially absolved the medieval Christian order from accusations of heresy, officials said Friday.

 

The 300-page volume recently came out in a limited edition — 799 copies — each priced at $8,377, said Scrinium publishing house, which prints documents from the Vatican's secret archives.

 

The order of knights, which ultimately disappeared as a result of the heresy scandal, recently captivated the imagination of readers of the best-seller "The Da Vinci Code," in which the author Dan Brown linked the Templars to the story of the Holy Grail.

 

The work reproduces the entire documentation on the papal hearings convened after King Philip IV of France arrested and tortured Templar leaders in 1307 under charges of heresy and immorality.

 

The military order of the Poor Knights of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon was founded in 1118 in Jerusalem to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land following the First Crusade.

 

As their military might increased, the Templars also grew in wealth, acquiring property throughout Europe and running a primitive banking system. After the Templars left the Middle East with the collapse of the Crusader kingdoms, their power and secretive ways aroused the fear of European rulers and sparked accusations of corruption and blasphemy.

 

Historians believe that Philip owed debts to the Templars and seized on the accusations to arrest their leaders and extort confessions of heresy under torture as a way to seize the order's riches.

 

The publishing house said the new book includes the "Parchment of Chinon," a 1308 decision by Clement to save the Templars and their order. The document was misplaced for centuries in the archives and found again in 2001 by a researcher who works in the Vatican archives.

 

Scrinium said the researcher, Barbara Frale, was in Frankfurt for the international book fair and was not immediately reachable for comment.

 

According to the Vatican archives Web site, the parchment shows that Clement absolved the Templar leaders of the heresy charge, though he did recognize they were guilty of immorality, and he planned to reform the order.

 

However, pressured by Philip, Clement later reversed his decision and suppressed the order in 1312.

 

Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Templars, was burned at the stake in 1314 along with his aides.

 

Surviving monks fled, with some absorbed by other orders, and over the centuries, some groups have claimed to have descended from the Templars

I'm just reading a book that mentions that the Templars fought at the battle of Bannockburn on the Scottish side, and this decided the outcome of the battle and that Edward II turned and fled the field.

 

Has anyone read or know anymore detail about this subject ?

 

An article appeared "How crusading Templars gave Bruce the edge at Bannochburn" in ScotlandonSunday , Sun 6 ,09. A mention of a new book "The Knights Templar And Scotland" by Richard Ferguson to be published in the new year by The History Press. A second book by Helen Nicholson on this subject was also mentioned.