ror a present of six
waggon-loads of Bacharacher wine.

CASTLE LAHNECK

The Templars of Lahneck

On the opposite side of the Rhine from Coblenz, and towering above
Lahnstein, rises Castle Lahneck, a keep shaped somewhat in the form of
a pentagon. Lahneck succumbed to the hordes of Louis XIII. in the same
year as the castle of Heidelberg was destroyed. The following stirring
tale is associated with Lahneck.

It was the Templars of Jerusalem who erected this fortress whose
imposing watch-tower rises nearly 100 feet above the main building.
The riches of the Templars led to their destruction. The contemptible
French king, Philip the Fair, by making grave complaints to the Pope
obtained an order for the abolition of this much-abused order, and
dragged the Grand Master with fifty of his faithful followers to the
stake. Everywhere a cruel policy of extermination was immediately
adopted against the outlawed knights, the chief motive of the
persecutors being rather a desire to confiscate the rich possessions
of the Templars than any religious zeal against heretics and sinners.

Peter von Aspelt, Archbishop of Mainz, had cast envious eyes on proud
Lahneck which sheltered twelve Knights-Templars and their retainers.
Alleging some faulty conduct on the part of the soldiers of the cross,
he gave orders that the castle should be razed, and that the knights
should exchange the white mantle with the red cross for the monk's
cowl, but to this the twelve as knights _sans peur et sans reproche_
issued a stout defiance. This excited the greed and rage of the
archbishop all the more. From the pontiff, whom with his own hands he
had successfully nursed on his sick-bed at Avignon, Peter von Aspelt
procured full power over the goods and lives of the excommunicated
knights of Lahneck. He then proceeded down the Rhine with many vassals
and mercenaries, and presented the Pope's letter to the Templars, at
the same time commanding them to yield. Otherwise their castle would
be taken by storm, and the inmates as impenitent sinners would die a
shameful death on the gallows. The oldest of the twelve, a man with
silvery hair, advanced and declared in the name of his brethren, that
they were resolved to fight to the last drop of their blood, and
further, that they were quite prepared to suffer like their brethren
in France. And so the fight between such fearful odds began. Many
soldiers of the Electorate fell under the swords of the knigh