Sojourn in Scotland (2006) part 1

Sojourn in Scotland:
A visit to some Templar and Medieval Locations in the Border Regions
By Gordon Napier, 2006

In June (2006) I returned to Temple Church, London, the circular-naved church at the centre of the headquarters of the Knights Templar in England, this time busier than usual on account of its having become, thanks to Dan Brown (and this year to Ron Howard), part of The Da Vinci Code trail. Living fairly near London, I have been privileged to have this site within easy reach. The Templars’ history in Britain began when the founder of the Order, Hugues de Payens, crossed the channel from Normandy where he had met Henry I, to raise support for the new brotherhood in England. Hugues had established the fraternity in Crusader Jerusalem, around a decade before, with the support of the Crusader King Baldwin II, and of the Latin Patriarch Warmund. Soon after coming to England, Hugues was invited north by David I of Scotland, and it was in Scotland, at a place called Balantradoch (Stead of the Warriors) that the Templars received one of their first properties in Europe. The year was 1127. I visited the site 879 years later.
Hugues had laid the foundations for the Order of the Temple in the British Isles where it would endure for two centuries, sending men, money and produce to support the defence of the Holy Land. The Templars become part of the landscape, as well as part of the political establishment. In England at least, the Templars were suppressed in 1307, Edward II having been compelled to move against the brethren by Pope Clement V (puppet of Philip the Fair, King of France). Scotland at the time was ruled by King Robert the Bruce. Robert was an excommunicant on account of having murdered a rival in a church. It is possible, many believe, that a quantity of refugee Templars- from Britain and perhaps from France- found sanctuary under Robert and supported his struggle for an independent Scotland. It is said that the Order may have survived in secret; that the Templars merged with or evolved into Freemasons and eventually deposited their treasure in Rosslyn Chapel in Midlothian; or at least encoded their secret knowledge in the mysterious carvings covering the building. This is an idea I first came across over a decade ago, and though I since came to have doubts, I had also long desired to visit this chapel, to see if I could detect any Templar presence there, or glean some insight. If Rosslyn is a Templar building it is the last. As it happens, Rosslyn Chapel is a mere five miles from the ruined Templar church of what was the Order’s earliest Preceptory- that of Temple, formerly Balantradoch. If the stories are true then this stretch of countryside is where the Templars’ history in Europe came full circle.
In August 2006 the opportunity arose to visit this part of Scotland, and to spend some time exploring these sites, and a few other places that would also prove of interest and relevance to the story of the Templars, and perhaps of the Grail. I was accompanied by my father, who also takes an interest in matters historical. It happened that we crossed the border on August 19 as dawn was breaking, and the hills and evergreens were enveloped in a hazy golden light which added enchantment to that picturesque landscape.
At about six in the morning we passed the sign to Abbotsford, and decided to park up and have a look. Abbotsford appeared, a romantic sight, its towers and turrets set against the distant hills, pale purple in the morning light. Walter Scott, who built this place, seemed to have conjured something out of one of his romantic novels (he was indeed known as the Wizard of the North). We would return here later. The next destination, meanwhile, was the village of Temple (Balantradoch). The ruin of the Templar church is in a secluded spot. The best way to find it is to ask a bearded old local.
Balantradoch was the Templars’ first and most significant Preceptory in Scotland. It is situated near the River Esk, in a particularly lush spot. The river’s rushing waters can be heard through the trees from the ruined church that remains. Today, aside from the church, little remains of the once extensive Preceptory besides an archway in an adjacent field, near the village. The ruined church is atmospheric in its un-restored state. The church is oblong in plan with steep gabled ends with mullioned windows, now lacking glazing or a roof overhead. The stones seem to give off a plaintive air. Features within the ruin include a niche for a tomb effigy and a piscina. The graves surrounding indicate that the church continued to serve the village for many centuries after the suppression of the Order of the Temple, and it only fell into ruins in the nineteenth century when a new parish church was built nearby. Some of the graves around the ruin seem to contain Masonic symbols. The square and compass are visible on one close to the church. Others show the skull and crossbones, a memento mori (reminder of mortality).

The next stop was Roslin, and Rosslyn Chapel, where we arrived at about 7.30. Down what passed for the main street in the tiny village of Roslin, I noticed the gate of what was presumably the local Masonic Lodge, with the square and compass containing a letter ‘G’ silhouetted above it. The surrounding location was very pleasant and the Rosslyn Chapel itself seemed bigger than one might expect, although its modern, barn-like protective casing, the metal roof and the scaffolding surrounding the structure, rather diminishes it aesthetically. We arrived at the chapel just as some gentlemen, smartly suited in black, with red and white cloaks folded over their arms, some carrying swords, were sneaking out surreptitiously past some of the international tourists who had already arrived. A clergyman also passed by and down the hill, his black cope billowing out behind him like batman’s cape, as my father observed. Entering the chapel the air was still thick with the candle smoke from the ceremony recently performed by these neo-Templars.
Roslin has an air of enchantment about it, there is no denying. It feels something like a mini-Cathedral, its rich surfaces belying its relatively modest scale. The building style is highly ornate, almost grotto like. It is far removed from the Perpendicular style which was prevailing elsewhere in Britain and if anything resembles the Portuguese ‘Manueline’ style, which it slightly predates. (This rich style was preferred by the Order of Christ- the Templars successors in Portugal).

William St Clair, Lord of Roslin and Prince of Orkney, began building Rosslyn Chapel in 1446, as a collegiate chapel where retained priests would perform masses for the benefit of his soul. The chapel, dedicated to Saint Matthew, seems to be only one wing of an envisaged cruciform building, for unfinished transepts extend from the east wall. (It was hurriedly finished on a less ambitious scale by Oliver St Clair, William’s son, who evidently didn’t want to spend all his inheritance on it). It is believed that William St Clair employed foreign as well as local craftsmen on his chapel. The chapel has an unusual barrel vaulted roof and flying buttresses surround its exterior.
Knowing of its fame, one cannot help but gravitate towards one of the pillars, more ornate than the rest, that which has come to be called the Apprentice Pillar, and to be placed at the centre of so many conspiracy theories. In the same corner of the Chapel is the stairway leading down to the crypt or sacristy, where there are carvings of angels and of St Peter in the corbels and a skeleton with a scythe on a plinth (called the King of Terrors).

In the Chapel proper, the carvings include musician angels, an upside down angel bound in rope (Lucifer falling from heaven, perhaps), numerous ‘Green Man’ heads, a horned Moses, a knight with an apparent passenger on his horse (which some see as a version of the Templars’ two riders motif) dragons and a devil. I also noticed a unique carving of a skull with foliage growing from its mouth, a green-man skull. My father also spotted what looked like an eye staring down from the foliage carved above the Lady Chapel. Rosslyn may contain secrets and mysteries but it is unclear whether it ever had anything to do with the historical Knights Templar, who were suppressed 136 years before the chapel was founded.
There is a small grave slab in Rosslyn carved with the name ‘William de St Cler’. Adjacent to the name is a floriated cross with a long stem and a stepped base, and on the other side is a sword. Below is a more modern inscription ‘William de St. Clair Knight Templar’. The grave is of a type used by the Templars but there is nothing to say that the William St Clair in question (he of 1297-1330) was affiliated with the Order. The slab evidently predates the building that houses it.
On the exterior of the building, near the lower frame of the window on the south west corner, is a carving claimed by some to resemble the First Degree ritual of Freemasonry. There are two figures, the one behind appearing to hold the end of a noose around the other’s neck. Some have discerned a blindfold, too, but the carving is really too eroded to tell. The chapel suffered somewhat during the Reformation and the Civil War, and for a time lay derelict. It was later restored as a place of worship. It then suffered from weathering, tampering, and shoddy restoration, for example in the 1950s when the interior was painted with a grey concrete paste, which was supposed to help protect the carvings. All it did, in fact, was to obscure their fine details, and to trap moisture in the stones- which subsequently became saturated and rotten. The ‘barn’ is a modern attempt to allow the chapel to dry out. The consolation is that it allows visitors to walk around a platform and to get a closer look at the upper parts of the chapel, as well as a better view of the verdant and lovely surrounding area. One can also see where certain parts of the chapel were bodged, when it was rushed to be completed. This is also apparent on the inside, in the Lady Chapel behind the altar, where the arches do not meet the wall properly but hang in space. From a structural standpoint this makes no sense, and can only be a mistake- the end wall seems to be a foot too far out! Elaborate stone projections have been put in place to mask the misaligned springing points.

The final unexpected sight at Rosslyn was a Italian bishop in his black and purple finery. He seemed to be in the company of some of the neo-Templars spotted previously. The specialist guide with the group including the (now dressed-down) Templars was heard to say something about the ‘genaeology of Christ’, while the official guide avoided committing himself to any theory of the speculative bloodline of Chist/Holy Grail/Templar kind, thankfully. The shop, meanwhile, was fully stocked with books exploiting the Da Vinci Code bandwagon.