Jacques de Molay

In the two centuries of their known existence the Knights Templar served under twenty-three Grand Masters. It is Jacques DeMolay the twenty-third and last Grand Master however, whom is best know.

Little is known of Jacques DeMolay's childhood, except that he was born in the year 1244 in an area called Vitrey, Department of Haute Saone, France. but what is known is that in 1265 at the age of twenty-one, he joined the Knights Templar. The Knights Templar were an organization sanctioned by the Roman Catholic Church in 1128 to guard the road between Jerusalem and Acre, an important port city on the Mediterranean Sea. The Order of Knights Templar participated in the Crusades and earned a name for valor and heroism.

Like many that sought out the Order of the Temple, Jacques DeMolay joined seeking the thrill of battle with the infidel. In his later years he reflected on how he and his fellow knights silently grumbled about then Grand Master William of Beaujeu and his pacific attitude towards the Mamlukes who at that time occupied the Holy Land. It seemed that the young Templars were not found of King Edward's truce with the enemy, for it did little to add their blood to the Templar's swords.

Jacques DeMolay rose through the ranks quickly and spent a great deal of time in Britain. He was first appointed the position of Visitor General and latterly to the post of Grand Preceptor of all England.

On the death of the 22nd Grand Master, Theobald Gaudin, Jacques DeMolay was named Grand Master of the Knights Templar, a position of power and prestige. As Grand Master however, Jacques DeMolay was also in a difficult position. The Crusades were not achieving their goals. The non-Christian Saracens defeated the Crusaders in battle and captured many vital cities and posts. The Knights Templar and the Hospitalers (another Order of Knights) were the only groups remaining to confront the Saracens. Almost immediately Jacques DeMolay moved from England to the island of Cyprus, so that the Knights Templar could reorganize and regain their strength while waiting for the general public to rise up in support of another Crusade. It would be on the island of Cyprus that Jacques DeMolay would remain until Philip IV and Clement V summoned him to France in the autumn of 1307.

Instead of public support, however, the Knights attracted the attention of powerful lords, who were interested in obtaining their wealth and power.

In 1305, Philip the Fair, King of France, set about to obtain control of the Knights Templars. They had been accountable only to the Church. To prevent a rise in the power of the Church, and to increase his own wealth, Philip set out to take over the Knights. The year 1307 saw the beginning of the persecution of the Knights. Jacques DeMolay, along with hundreds of others, were seized and thrown into dungeons. For seven years, Jacques DeMolay and the Knights suffered torture and inhuman conditions. The inquisitors would go to any means to extract the confessions that would damn the order in the eyes of the people and the Catholic Church While the Knights did not end, Philip managed to force Pope Clement to condemn the Templars. Their wealth and property were confiscated and given to Philip's supporters.

During years of torture, Jacques DeMolay continued to be loyal to his friends and Knights. He refused to disclose the location of the funds of the Order and he refused to betray his comrades. On March 18, 1314, DeMolay was tried by a special court. As evidence, the court depended on a forged confession, allegedly signed by Jacques DeMolay. He disavowed the forged confession. Under the laws of the time, the disavowal of a confession was punishable by death. Another Knight, Guy of Auvergne, likewise disavowed his confession and stood with Jacques DeMolay.

King Philip ordered them both to be burned at the stake that day, Jacques DeMolay was then taken to an island on the Siene and burned along with Guy of Auvergne the Preceptor of Normandy. There are many accounts of Jacques DeMolay's dying words, but the one of the foremost Templar scholars records them as follows:

"It is just that, in so terrible a day, and in the last moments of my life, I should discover all the iniquity of falsehood, and make the truth triumph. I declare, then, in the face of heaven and earth, and acknowledge, though to my eternal shame, that I have committed the greatest crimes but it has been the acknowledging of those which have been so foully charged on the order. I attest - and truth obliges me to attest - that it is innocent! I made the contrary declaration only to suspend the excessive pains of torture, and to mollify those who made me endure them. I know the punishments which have been inflicted on all the knights who had the courage to revoke a similar confession; but the dreadful spectacle which is presented to me is not able to make me confirm one lie by another. The life offered me on such infamous terms I abandon without regret."

Reports say they were slowly roasted over a hot, smokeless fire prolonging their agony as their flesh slowly cooked and blackened. Jacques DeMolay insisted that his hands were not to be bound so that he could pray in his final moments and before he died he cursed both Philip and Pope Clement, summoning both of them to appear before God, the supreme judge, before the year was out. His last words were, "Let evil swiftly befall those who have wrongly condemned us - God will avenge us." Guy of Advernge is reported to have added, "I shall follow the way of my master as a martyr you have killed him. You have done and know not. God willing, on this day, I shall die in the Order like him."

The chilling irony of the conclusion of this story is that Jacques DeMolay's final words did, in fact, come true. Pope Clement V died only a month later on April 20th (he is suspected of having cancer of the bowel) and Philip IV was killed while on a hunting trip on November 29th 1314. True to the claim both men did indeed die within the year of Jacques DeMolay's