Re: Knights-Templar lands in Ardersier, Scotland

["John S. Quarterman" <jsq@quarterman.org>]

>>From The Statistical Accounts of Scotland, 1845 - Page 468, Inverness-shire:
>
>"The Knights-Templar had some lands in Ardersier and a jurisdiction of
>regality." 
>"This order came to Scotland in the reign of David I.,

That would be between 24 April 1124 and 24 May 1153.

> who endowed it with many 
>lands, uncommon privileges, and valuable exemptions; and these were all 
>confirmed by successive kings, and allowed by several popes. Sir James
>Sandilands, who was the last preceptor of this order

Or was he?

``Sir James Sandilands of Calder, a friend of the protestant reformer,
 John Knox, was also preceptor of the powerful religious and military
 Order of the Knights of St John, whose headquarters were at the Priory
 of Torphicen in West Lothian.''
 http://www.impressions.uk.com/clans/clan_194.shtml

The Knights of St. John, or the Hospitallers, acquired many of the
possessions and personnel of the Templars, but the Hospitallers

 http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07477a.htm

existed before the suppression of the Templars

 http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14493a.htm

and were rivals to them.  While one may say that the Hospitallers after
the suppression of the Templars were a continuation of the Templars
in the same manner that one can say a company that succeeds in
a hostile takeover of another company is a continuation of the
latter (and if you think of Philip le Bel as the Gordon Gekko
of his time that's not an inapt analogy), nonetheless that
sort of continuation is not quite the same sort of independent
existence as people seem to have been talking about.

However, in this case, if the Statistical Account of Scotland
referred to them as Templars, it might be worth looking into
whether this particular group of Templars was perhaps mostly
or all composed of Templar personnel even after the merger,
i.e., maybe this part of the merger was more a name change....

> obtained, by a grant from Queen Mary in
>1563; the remaining estates or his order, as a temporal barony, on paying
>10,000 crowns. Sir James died as Lord Torphichen in 1618. This explains how
>Lord 
>Torpichen became possessed of lands in this parish. These lands were sold
>by Lord
>Torpichen to Mr. Thomas Rollock, advocate; and by the latter gentleman
>disponed 
>to John Campbell, younger of Calder, by deed dated 13th August 1626, as" the 
>temple lands of Ardersier the temple-lands of Overcruick and Overbank of
>Ardersier,
>lying in the diocese of Ross and sheriffdom of Inverness."

[ Excess quotations omitted. ]


Once again, Hospitallers, not Templars.

>Thought I'd pass it on.

Interesting stuff.

>Cheers,

>Ian Newman
>Perth, Western Australia 

John S. Quarterman <jsq@quarterman.org>