Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/371

A.D. 1327.] wrung from the weak hands of this king, extended the privileges of Parliament, and circumscribed the power of the crown. They decreed that all grants made without consent of Parliament should henceforth be invalid; that the king could not make war or leave the kingdom without consent of the baronage in Parliament assembled, who should appoint a regent during the royal absence; that all the great officers of the crown, and all governors of foreign possessions, should at all times be chosen by the baronage, or with their advice and assent, in Parliament. These were all important conquests from the crown, and came by time to be the established privileges of Parliament at large, not exclusively of the peers.

The very usurpations and arbitrary deeds of the favourites produced permanent good out of temporary evil; for the barons compelled Edward to renew the Great Charter, and introduced a new and most valuable provision into it—namely: "Forasmuch as many people be aggrieved by the king's ministers against right, in respect to which grievances no one can recover without common consent of Parliament, we do ordain that the king shall hold a Parliament once a year, or twice, if need be." Thus, out of this king's fatal facility to favouritism came not only his own destruction, but also that grand security of public liberty, the annual assembling of Parliament.

Besides the troubles related, the kingdom during this reign was afflicted by a severe famine, which lasted for several years. The dearth was not produced by drought, but by continued rains and cold weather, which destroyed the harvests, and produced great mortality amongst the cattle, and, of course, raised the price of everything to an enormous pitch; which Parliament, not having at that day the benefit of Adam Smith and political economy, endeavoured to keep down by enacting, in 1315, a tariff of rates for all articles of life, which they very soon discovered was useless, and therefore repealed it.

In this reign also took place one of those great political changes which spring of necessity from the progress of society; this was the abolition of the celebrated order of the Knights Templars. This famous order was one of three religious military orders which arose out of the crusades. The other two were the Knights of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, commonly called Knights Hospitallers, and the Teutonic Knights of St. Mary of Jerusalem, or German Knights of the Cross, all of which arose in the twelfth century. The foundation of the order of Knights Templars, or Brethren of the Temple of Solomon, or Soldiers of the Temple, or Soldiers of Christ, is said to have taken place in 1118 or 1119. Nine knights, all French, took a vow to maintain free passage for pilgrims to the Holy Land. To this vow they added those of poverty, chastity, obedience, and battle against the infidels. For six or seven years they did not add to their numbers, but in 1128 Pope Honoring II. confirmed a rule of the Council of Troyes on their behalf, thus fully recognising them as an orthodox body, the Pauperes Commilitones, or Pauper Soldiers of the Holy City. Honorius appointed them to wear a white mantle, and in 1146 Eugonius III. added a red cross on the left breast, in imitation of the white cross of the Hospitallers, whose business it was to attend the sick and wounded, and entertain pilgrims. This red cross, borne also on their banners, became famous all over the world, from the valour of these knights, who hence acquired the common cognomen of Red Cross Knights.

The order speedily grew into fame and popularity. Young men of the noblest families of every nation in Christendom eagerly sought admittance into it. They became extremely numerous, in time admitting priests, and persons of lower order, or esquires. Their chief seat after the expulsion from Jerusalem by Saladin was in Cyprus, but they had also provinces in Tripolis, Antioch, Portugal, Spain, France, England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Italy, and Sicily. Their history is the history of all the wars of the Christians against the infidels in the East, and for 170 years they formed the most renowned portion of the Christian ti-oops. But with fame came also immense wealth, with its usual sequence, corruption. Their vows had become a mockery. Instead of poverty and chastity, they became notorious for the splendour of their abodes, and the pomp, luxury, and licentiousness of their lives.

In the time of Edward II. they had incurred the resentment of his brother-in-law, Philip le Bel, of France. They were suspected of exciting the Parisians to a resistance to the debasement of the coin, which Philip was noted for; but there needed no other temptation to their destruction with this needy prince than their immense wealth. In 1306 the grand master of the Temple, Jacques do Molay, was summoned to Europe by Pope Clement V., who had secretly agreed with Philip to suppress the order. De Molay was summoned on pretence of consulting with the Pope on uniting the two orders of the Templars and Hospitallers. Witnesses were soon found to charge the whole order of the Templars with the systematic practice of the most revolting crimes, and on the 12th of September, 1307, secret orders were sent to all the governors of towns in France, by which in one night the whole of the Templars in France, including De Molay, the grand master, were seized and thrown into prison. Their houses and property were everywhere seized, and their great stronghold, the Temple, in Paris, was taken possession of by Philip himself. For the space of six years there now followed the most extraordinary and terrible scenes. The members of the order were put to the most savage tortures to compel them to confess to the most incredible crimes, and on recanting their forced confessions, they were burnt at the stake. In Paris, Rheims, Sens, Vienne, and various other places these dreadful cruelties and butcheries were perpetrated, till on the 22nd of March, 1312, the Pope abolished the order for ever. On the 18th of March, 1314, De Molay, the grand master, and Guy, commander, or grand prior ft Normandy, were burnt on one of the small islands of the Seine.

In England and Ireland they were all in like manner arrested by sealed orders on a particular day, and their property of all kinds, as well ecclesiastical as temporal, was confiscated. In this country, however, they were treated with great lenity: the witnesses brought against them refused to declare that they knew anything to their discredit, or, indeed, anything of their secret principles or practices. The Pope, incensed at this lenity, wrote strongly to Edward, exhorting him to try torture. A threat of treating them as heretics induced all but the grand master, William de la More, to confess their heresy;