Dear Ian, The situation is quite simple. As I mentioned in earlier postings,
pockets of Tempalrs survived for some time in places where the Papal writ
did not run. But as I mentioned in several of my works, when Bruce began to
consolidate his hold on Scotland, post Bannockburn, the continuing open
survival of Templars in an organised form began to be a matter of acute
embarrassment. The surviving members of this and other pockets of Templars
elsewhere, discreetly vanished and busied themselves with the feasible
objective of preserving Templar Tradition. As I have also mentioned in both
Rosslyn Guardian of the Secrets of the Holy Grail and Rex Deus (bothe
written several years after the Templar Legacy and Masonic Inheritance) this
tradition did survive in both the Templar degrees of Freemasonry and as an
oral tradition kept by various families. However, the preservation of this
tradion, just like the survival of odd pockets of Templars for a few years,
cannot be held as evidence for the survival of the order as a whole.
Many views I expressed in earlier works have been rightly altered or
modified in the light of further evidence as I find it.\ I hope that I wil
never cease in this process for while facts can often be readily establised,
the viability of speculative views based upon such facts has to be subject
to constant review and sometimes outright rejection as further evidence is
found. That is the whole basis of intellectual integrity. Furthermore, as I
have said so often before, verifiable facts based upon the historical
record; scholarly opinion of others wiser than myself and my own opinions
have to be clearly demarkated. Opions whether from myself or others are
just that - they are up for grabs.
I staretd searching for factual eveidence for the survival ofthe order. I
have found no credible, independant evidence for such survival whatsoever. I
have found a fair degree of evidence, nuch indirect, some circumstantial,
some direct for the survival of Templar tradition. But none to limk any
modern Templar order directly with its medieval 'alleged' parent.
Best wishes
Tim