erty of the Templars in England was placed under the charge of a
commission at the time that proceedings were commenced against them, and
the King very soon treated it as if it were his own, giving away manors
and convents at his pleasure. A great part of the possessions of the
order was subsequently made over to the Hospitallers. The convent and
church of the Temple in London were granted, in 1313, to Aymer de
Valence, Earl of Pembroke, whose monument is in Westminster Abbey. Other
property was pawned by the King to his creditors as security for payment
of his debts; but constant litigation and disputes seem to have pursued
the holders of the ill-gotten goods.

Some of the surviving Templars retired to monasteries, others returned
to the world and assumed secular habits, for which they incurred the
censures of the Pope.

HENRY HART MILMAN

The tragedy of the Templars had not yet drawn to its close. The four
great dignitaries of the order, the grand master Du Molay, Guy, the
commander of Normandy, son of the Dauphin of Auvergne, the commander of
Aquitaine, Godfrey de Gonaville, the great visitor of France, Hugues de
Peraud, were still pining in the royal dungeons. It was necessary to
determine on their fate. The King and the Pope were now equally
interested in burying the affair forever in silence and oblivion. So
long as these men lived, uncondemned, undoomed, the order was not
extinct. A commission was named: the Cardinal-Archbishop of Albi, with
two other cardinals, two monks, the Cistercian Arnold Novelli, and
Arnold de Fargis, nephew of Pope Clement, the Dominican Nicolas de
Freveauville, akin to the house of Marigny, formerly the King's
confessor. With these the Archbishop of Sens sat in judgment on the
Knights' own former confessions. The grand master and the rest were
found guilty, and were to be sentenced to perpetual imprisonment.

A scaffold was erected before the porch of Notre Dame. On one side
appeared the two cardinals; on the other the four noble prisoners, in
chains, under the custody of the Provost of Paris. Six years of dreary
imprisonment had passed over their heads; of their valiant brethren the
most valiant had been burned alive; the recreants had purchased their
lives by confession; the Pope, in a full council, had condemned and
dissolved the order. If a human mind--a mind like that of Du
Molay--could be broken by suffering and humiliation, it must have
yielded to this long and crushing impr